COUNSELLING SKILLS l BPS109

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COUNSELLING SKILLS COURSE DISTANCE STUDYING

"Learn the practical counselling skills required in the counselling process." The role of the counsellor is to facilitate the person’s resolution of these issues, whilst respect their values, personal resources, culture and capacity for choice. Counselling can provide people with a regular time and space to talk about their problems and explore difficult feelings in a confidential and dependable environment.

Many people use counselling skills in their daily lives. However, sometimes it may be inappropriate for people to use their usual methods of support. They may not want to discuss their problems with a friend or family member. They may feel that the person is too close, that they don’t want them to know their confidential problems or the person they would usually confide in might be part of the problem. Counsellors are trained to be effective helpers in difficult or sensitive situations. They should be independent, neutral and professional, as well as respecting our privacy. Counselling can help people to clarify their problems, identify changes they would like to make, get a fresh perspective, consider other options and look at the impact that life events have made on their emotional wellbeing. 

Counsellors do not usually offer advice, but instead give insight into the client’s feelings and behaviour and help the client change their behaviour if necessary. They do this by listening to what the client has to say and commenting on it from a professional perspective. Counselling covers a wide spectrum from the highly trained counsellor to someone who uses counselling skills as part of their role, for example, a nurse or teacher.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The course is divided into eight lessons as follows:

1. Learning specific skills:

  • What is Counselling
  • Perceptions of Counselling
  • Differences between Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists
    Counselling Theories
  • Empathy
  • Transference
  • Directiveness, non directiveness
  • Behavioural Therapies
  • Systematic Desensitisation
  • Positive Reinforcement and Extinction
  • Goals of Psychoanalytical Approach
  • Defence Mechanisms (Repression, Displacement, Rationalisation, Projection, Reaction Formulation, Intellectualisation, Denial, Sublimation)
  • Use of Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy
  • Psychoanalytic Techniques
  • Analytic Framework
  • Free Associations
  • Interpretation
  • Dream Analysis
  • Resistance & Transference
  • Humanistic Therapy
  • Evaluating the Effectiveness of Therapies and Counsellors
  • Case Studies
  • Methods of Learning
  • Micro Skills
  • Triads
  • Modelling
  • Online and Telephone Counselling
  • Telemental Health
  • Clinical Considerations

2. Listening & bonding:

  • Scope of Listening and Bonding
  • Meeting and greeting
  • Creating a Safe Environment
  • Location
  • Time and Duration of Sessions
  • Privacy in Telephone and online counselling
  • Showing warmth on the phone
  • The contract
  • Helping the client relax
  • Listening with intent
  • Minimal Responses
  • Non Verbal Behaviour
  • Use of Voice
  • Use of Silence
  • Case Studies
  • Active Listening
  • Dealing with Silent Phone Calls

3. Reflection:

  • Non Directive Counselling
  • Paraphrasing
  • Feelings
  • Reflection of Feeling
  • Client Responses to Reflection of Feelings
  • Reflection of Content and Feeling
  • Case Studies

4. Questioning:

  • Open & Closed Questions
  • Other types of Questions (Linear, Information seeking, Strategic, Reflective, Clarification, etc)
  • Questions to Avoid
  • Goals of Questioning
  • Identification
  • Assessment
  • Intervention
  • Case Studies

5. Interview techniques:

  • Summarising
  • Application
  • Confrontation
  • Reframing
  • Case Studies
  • Perspective
  • Summary

6. Changing beliefs and normalising:

  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
  • Changing Self-Destructive Beliefs
  • Irrational Beliefs
  • Normalising
  • Case Studies
  • Designing a Questionnaire

7. Finding solutions:

  • Moving Forward
  • Choices (Reviewing, Creating, Making choices)
  • Facilitating Actions
  • Gestalt Awareness Circle
  • Psychological Blocks
  • Case Study

8. Ending the counselling:

  • Terminating the session
  • Closure
  • Further Meetings
  • Dependency
  • Confronting Dependency
  • Chronic Callers
  • Terminating Silent Phone Calls
  • Silent Endings
  • Case Study
  • Other Services

Aims

  • The ability to explain the processes involved in the training of counsellors in micro skills.
  • Demonstrate the skills involved in commencing the counselling process and evaluation of non-verbal responses and minimal responses.
  • Demonstrate reflection of content, feeling, both content and feeling, and its appropriateness to the counselling process.
  • Develop different questioning techniques and to understand risks involved with some types of questioning.
  • Show how to use various micro-skills including summarising, confrontation, and reframing.
  • To demonstrate self-destructive beliefs and show methods of challenging them, including normalising.
  • Explain how counselling a client can improve their psychological well-being through making choices, overcoming psychological blocks and facilitating actions.
  • Demonstrate effective ways of terminating a counselling session and to explain ways of addressing dependency.

    WHAT YOU MAY DO IN THIS COURSE

  • Report on an observed counselling session, simulated or real.
  • Identify the learning methods available to the trainee counsellor.
  • Demonstrate difficulties that might arise when first learning and applying micro skills.
  • Identify why trainee counsellors might be unwilling to disclose personal problems during training.
  • Identify risks that can arise for trainee counsellors not willing to disclose personal problems.                                 
  • Discuss different approaches to modelling, as a form of counselling
  • Evaluate verbal and non-verbal communication in an observed interview.
  • Identify the counsellor’s primary role (in a generic sense).
  • Show how to use minimal responses as an important means of listening with intent.
  • Explain the importance of different types of non-verbal response in the counselling procedure.
  • Report on the discussion of a minor problem with an anonymous person which that problem relates to.
  • Identify an example of paraphrasing as a minimal response to reflect feelings.
  • Discuss the use of paraphrasing in counselling.
  • Differentiate catharsis from confused thoughts and feelings.
  • Identify an example of reflecting back both content (thought) and feeling in the same phrase
  • Report on the discussion of a minor problem with an anonymous person which that problem relates to.
  • Identify an example of paraphrasing as a minimal response to reflect feelings.
  • Discuss the use of paraphrasing in counselling.
  • Differentiate catharsis from confused thoughts and feelings.
  • Identify an example of reflecting back both content (thought) and feeling in the same phrase
  • Demonstrate/observe varying responses to a variety of closed questions in a simulated counselling situation.
  • Demonstrate/observe varying responses to a variety of open questions in a simulated counselling situation.
  • Compare your use of open and closed questions in a counselling situation.
  • Identify the main risks involved in asking too many questions
  • Explain the importance of avoiding questions beginning with ‘why’ in counselling.
  • Identify in observed communication (written or oral), the application of different micro-skills which would be useful in counselling.
  • Demonstrate examples of when it would be appropriate for the counsellor to use confrontation
  • List the chief elements of good confrontation.
  • Discuss appropriate use of confrontation, in case studies.
  • Show how reframing can be used to change a client’s perspective on things.
  • Develop a method for identifying the existence of self-destructive beliefs (SDB’s).
  • Identify self-destructive beliefs (SDB’s) amongst individuals within a group.
  • Explain the existence of self destructive beliefs in an individual.
  • List methods that can be used to challenge SDB’s?
  • Explain what is meant by normalising, in a case study.
  • Demonstrate precautions that should be observed when using normalizing.
  • Determine optional responses to different dilemmas.
  • Evaluate optional responses to different dilemmas.
  • Explain how the ‘circle of awareness’ can be applied to assist a client, in a case study.
  • Explain why psychological blockages may arise
  • Demonstrate how a counsellor might help a client to overcome psychological blockages.
  • Describe the steps a counsellor would take a client through to reach a desired goal, in a case study.
  • Identify inter-dependency in observed relationships.
  • Explain why good time management is an important part of the counselling process.
  • Compare terminating a session with terminating the counselling process.
  • Demonstrate dangers posed by client - counsellor inter-dependency
  • Explain how dependency can be addressed and potentially overcome.
  • Explain any negative aspects of dependency in a case study.

     

    ACS Graduate comment: "This course has been extremely valuable to me as throughout those 5 months my friends all seemed to go through some crisis or other. I have learned so much that I could put into practice and from the responses I have had, it's been very positive. Tutor feedback was fantastic. All individual answers were given a comment which helped me understand if I missed something." Brenda Harvey, Counselling Skills I course.

     

    SAMPLE COURSE NOTES

    Click here to see examples of our Psychology Courses.

     

    OTHER COURSES THAT MAY INTEREST YOU -
    If you are not sure if this is the right course for you, then why not have a look at -

    SUGGESTED READING


    If you are unsure about studying this course, another option is to buy and read a book first, to see if Counselling or Psychology is really your thing.   Buy as a download now and read on an ipad, computer, laptop or book reader.

    We offer a range of psychology and counselling eBooks that may interest you -

     
     

    Counselling Handbook

    How Children Think eBook

    Psychology Dictionary

     

    Why Study the Course?

    This is a great course to choose, if you want to not only learn about the subject now;
    but keep learning after you finish studying. We believe a good course should not only
    develop intelligence and knowledge; but also:

    • Improve your ability to communicate with others within the discipline
    • Develop problem solving skills relevant to this discipline 
    • Expand awareness and develop creativity
    • Facilitate networking (develop contacts within an industry)
    • Develop attributes that set you apart from others in your industry
    • Motivate you, build confidence, and more

    According to some authorities, success is actually only affected about 20% by your knowledge and intelligence.

    Our school works at helping you in a holistic way, to develop all of the things
    mentioned above, in a way that relates to the discipline you are studying; and
    in this way, giving you the capacity to apply yourself to unanticipated problems,
    to understand new information as it emerges, to see and seize on new opportunities
    as they reveal themselves, and to continue to grow your abilities within your discipline
    as you progress through life after study.

    In a world that is changing faster all the time; it is difficult to even be certain how this industry
    might change between the start of your course, and the time you finish studying.
    With this in mind; any course that is to have long term value in today's world, must develop
    broad generic skills (as above). This approach to education is not unique to ACS, but it is
    an approach tested, proven and adopted in our courses; and an approach that is also used
    by some of the most successful, cutting edge universities and colleges around the world.

     

    Learning Facilities

    ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:

    • Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
    • An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
    • Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
    • A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
    • Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
    • The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
    • No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
    • No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
    • Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
    • The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.

     

     How our Courses Differ

    • Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
    • Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
    • Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
    • Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
    • We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.

    These things cannot be always said of other colleges.

     

    Career Opportunities

    Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.

    Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.

    When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.

    This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.

    If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.

     
     
     
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    COUNSELLING COURSE DISTANCE LEARNING

    "Learn the practical counselling skills required in the counselling process."

    Learn the underlying theories of counselling.

    Understand a wide range of counselling techniques useful for anyone working with people as well as those working in counselling.

    Use counselling techniques in your day to day life.

    Learn counselling skills in your own home.Develop an understanding of the basic practical skills used in counselling and how to apply these skills to the counselling process. Completion of this course will equip to conduct a counselling session. 

     

    ACS Graduate comment: "This course has been extremely valuable to me as throughout those 5 months my friends all seemed to go through some crisis or other. I have learned so much that I could put into practice and from the responses I have had, it's been very positive. Tutor feedback was fantastic. All individual answers were given a comment which helped me understand if I missed something." Brenda Harvey - Counselling Skills I course.