MODULE

Discipline and Ideas in the

4 Applied Social Sciences
Clientele and Audiences in Counseling

Introduction

The counseling relationship is a unique one, accompanied by certain rights, responsibilities, and
protections. The counseling process is a continuous, cyclical model in which the counselor and
client collaboratively set goals, formulate action plans, and assess the progress towards the goals.
Throughout the process new information is integrated, the counselor-client relationship is
developed, and progress toward counseling goals is reassessed. The counselor must develop an
overall awareness of the entire counseling process across several interviews.

Learning Objectives

After reading and analyzing the module, you should be able to:

1. Understand the counseling setting

2. Discuss on counseling process
3. Evaluate the counseling techniques

Counseling Setting

Let us discuss some of the different settings in which people in these professions may work. One
of the most setting is a private practice. This is a popular choice among counseling professionals.
In a` private practice, the professional would hold appointment-based counseling sessions. They
could specialize in many different fields, such as family therapy, substance abuse counseling, or
individual psychotherapy.

Educational Counseling

The term educational counseling has been rooted deeply with the problems and conditions of
school and college going students. A major area of educational counseling basically comprises
of school counseling. The school counselor or educator is one who works in school and historically
been referred to as ‘guidance counsellor’ or educational counselor because he/she is helping the
students through guiding them in their profession.

Community Counseling

Counseling services generally come in two distinct types: community counseling and medical
counseling. The most common venue for counseling is in an established hospital, where
professionals have added the benefit of providing their services with ready availability of medical
services, prescription drug treatments, and diagnoses of disorder that might require more
intensive therapy and other psychological services. Though common, this is not the only way to
receive counseling services for a wide range of disease, disorders, and other issues. Community
counseling takes the service outside of the hospital and puts it directly into the community, and
that’s where this particularly type of counseling gets its name. instead of visiting hospital, patients
can generally visit their counselor at a smaller, private practice.

Though the medical foundation is lost, there are several key advantages to pursuing counseling
in this way:

• Private practice allows for a smaller setting, which might be more comfortable for those
 patients who do not like large waiting rooms, crowds, or other distractions.
• Community counseling is often located much closer to where patients live. This makes it
easy for those with reduced mobility to attend their appointments without incident or delay.
• Community counselling services are often more specialized, allowing professionals to help
their patients with a more particular set of skills.

Community counseling takes place in most common venues:

• Correctional facilities
• Mental health centers
• Retirement Communities
• School and other educational settings
• Business and corporate offices
• Human services agencies
Each of these instances, counselors may simply work from the location several days a week.

Counseling Services

Counseling is the service offered to the individual who is undergoing a problem and needs
professional help to overcome it. Counseling therefore is a more specialized service requiring
training in personality development and handling exceptional group or individuals. According to
Andrew and Willey, counseling involves two individuals, one is seeking help, and the other is a
professionally trained person helped solved problems to orient and direct him towards goals.
Counseling services are therefore required for individuals having developmental problems
because of the handicap they suffer in any area of emotional either because of hereditary factors
or environment conditions. Generally, such cases are only about five to percent in a population
and therefore counseling is required only for such a small number. Counseling involves a lot of
time for the client to unfold the problems, gain an insight into the complex situation. Counseling
techniques involve active listening, emphatic understanding releasing the pent-up feelings
confronting the client and so on counseling therefore is offered to only those individuals who are
under serious problem and need professional help to overcome it.

Counseling Process

Process in counseling is defined as series of stages gone through by the counsellor to help the
client understand and or solved a problem. The process of arriving at a solution may take some
time (sessions) before the desired goal is achieved.

Counseling process according to Okobiah has four phases or stages.

• Interview Phase
• Working Phase
• Termination Phase
• Follow-up Phase

Interview Phase

This stage could also be referred to as the familiarization, orientation or introductory stage. This
stage is very important because for you as a counsellor to start well determines the success of
the other stages and the entire counseling relationship. The counsellor makes a deliberate effort
to get acquainted with the client by establishing rapport. This is done by asking the client to sit
down, so that the client would be emotionally relaxed in the counsellor’s office.

The counsellor enquires about the client's name, class, parents, friends, progress in school and
his mission to the counsellor’s office. This should be done with caution so that the client does not
feel as being interrogated. The counsellor will ensure that whatever is discussed will be kept
confidential. This is to win the client’s confidence and make them open-up to say his purpose for
coming to the counsellor. The client may or may not present problems during this stage. The
counsellor needs to display all the qualities of an effective counsellor by being patient to listen
carefully, show empathy, show unconditional positive regards that is treating his clients with
respect, warmth, irrespective of his age, sex, race, color, religion and socio-economic status. This
is very important as counsellors are not expected to be segregation or discriminative.

Working Stage/Phase

This stage is where the counsellor fully engages the client in discussion about what to do and
how it will be done concerning the problem of the client. If the client has not disclosed their mission
in the first phase, the counsellor now asks the client. He uses questioning techniques to make the
client open-up. Questions such as: Are you okay? Can I help you? What is the matter? What has
brought you to my office? The counsellor having listened to the client will suggest different
techniques depending on the nature of the problem can be handled.

The counsellor uses techniques such as responding, exploring, restatement, interpretation,

confrontation, unconditional positive regards, empathy, silence and catharsis to diagnose the
problem.

The counsellor here tells the client that counselling aids such as cassettes, radio, video, and tape
recorder may be used and the purpose for using them will be explained to the client. The
counsellor should also tell the client the number of sessions that the counselling relationship may
cover. This will depend on the nature of the problem. If the problem is a simple one, it may take
fewer sessions but if it is a complicated one, it may take a longer period to solve especially
problems bordering on change of behavior or contact an "outsider" who breaking of habit. If the
counsellor needs to may be responsible for the problems faced by the client, the permission and
consent of the client must be sought. The counsellor also takes the client through the methods to
be used in solving the problem. All these are done in the working stage of the counselling process.

Termination Stage/Phase

This stage is the third stage in the counselling process. Termination means bringing an end to the
counselling relationship between the counsellor and client. Different reasons have been given by
many authors on why a counselling relationship may end or terminate. Some of these reasons
are given below for you to understand.

It is important to stress here that termination of counselling relationship may be a temporary or

permanent one. The following reasons are given by different authors.

Counselling Goals are achieved

You were told that the client and the counsellor would set the goals for counselling. When these
goals have been realized to the satisfaction of the client and counsellor, the relationship can be
called off temporarily or permanently. Temporarily because the counsellor may want to follow up
the client to see if he is doing well or putting into practice what has been discussed and suggested.
Permanently if client's problem is solved and may not need to see the counsellor again. The client
should be told that if he has the counsellor. problem in future, he should be free to see the
counsellor.

Uncooperative Attitude from the Client

The counsellor may discover that the client he or she is dealing with is not cooperating with him,
especially when the client is a referred person, the counsellor should still try his best to make the
client understand why he or she needs counselling. If after several attempt nothing good is coming
out of the relationship, the counsellor can terminate the relationship temporarily and ask the client
to think over his behavior and decide to come back if convinced to continue.

Client may Decide Not to Continue

The counsellor and client may enter into a counselling relationship without any problem. After
some time, the client may decide to continue for reasons best known to him. Sometimes it may
be due to the fact that the client is not honest in the relationship and when his attention is drawn
to this fact he may decide to stay away and remain with his problem. The reasons for the behavior
may not be given to the counsellor. The best thing to do is to allow the client go as counselling is
not by force.

Referral to an Expert/Specialist

The counsellor may discover that the client has problem that is beyond his competence, area and
experience, when this happens the client should be referred to the appropriate quarters for
specialized treatment. For instance, the client may approach the counsellor with a problem that
is both medical and educational. The counsellor should handle the educational aspect if he is
competent in English or make referral to English teacher and a medical doctor. He should not
start to prescribe glasses or drugs for the client because that is not his area of specialization. The
counsellor should get the client prepared before referring him or her. The client should know why
he is being sent to another person.

Practicum/Internship may end before the counseling Goals are Achieved

There are instances when the counselee in question is a student, either undergraduate or post-
graduate, posted to a school for practicum exercise. There may be instance when the practicum
period will end without the counsellor achieving his purpose or the school may close for holiday,
when this happens the relationship can be terminated temporarily or permanently. As far as the
school calendar is concerned, that may be permanent termination, but if the counsellor picks
interest in a student's case and wants to help in solving the problem, he may decide to visit the
student at home and continue on personal basis.

Death of Counsellor or Client

Counselling relationship may be terminated permanently when the counsellor or client dies. If it
is the counsellor that dies, the client may seek for counsel from another counsellor.

Follow-Up Stage/Phase

This is the stage in a counselling process that you the counsellor will want to know what is
happening to your client after termination. The follow-up aims at finding out whether the client is
carrying out the decisions arrived at before you ended the session and what problems are being
experienced. However, this stage may not be necessary for every client so you the counsellor
determine with the client whether the stage of follow-up will be necessary.

Counselling Strategy

Strategy in counselling is basically the technique or method used during counselling to understand
and find solution to a problem presented by the client. Strategies are tools used by the counsellor
to handle problems. For instance, a medical doctor may use stethoscope to diagnose a disease,
the fisherman uses fishing nets while the mechanic uses spanners, hammer, so also the
counsellor uses tools such as listening, responding, interpretation, probing, exploring,
restatements, confrontation, disclosure, unconditional positive regards, empathy and
summarization as techniques or strategies during counselling; all these strategies are emphasis
skills that the counsellor uses while counselling. The ability of a counsellor to solve a client's
problem depends on how he uses the strategies.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

Read Information Sheet very well then find out how much you can remember and how much you
learned by doing self-check.

Information Sheet

Counselling is an approach for assisting people during and in the immediate aftermath of a
pandemic, to reduce initial distress, and short and long-term adaptive functioning. Counselling to
encourage does not assume that all clients will develop severe problems or long- term difficulties
in recovery. Instead, it is based on an understanding that pandemic clients and others affected
by such events will experience a broad range of early reactions (for example, physical,
psychological, behavioral, spiritual). Some of these reactions will cause enough distress to
interfere with adjustment to the situation, and recovery may be helped by support from
compassionate and caring humanitarian responders.

COUNSELING TECHNIQUES

There are many different techniques that counselors can use with their clients. Let us take a look
at some of the techniques that we feel to be most effective during a counseling session:

• Spheres of Influence: This assessment tool will get the individual to look at areas of their
life and see which areas may be impacting and influencing them. The person's job is to
figure out which systems in their life give them strength, and which ones give them stress.
Some spheres of influence to consider are themselves, immediate family, friends,
husband or wife, extended family, job or school, community, culture or religion, and any
external influences.
• Clarification: A counselor should often ask their client to clarify what they are telling them
to make sure they understand the situation correctly. This will help the Client counselor
avoid any misconceptions or avoid them having to make any assumptions that could
hinder their feedback.
• Client Expectations: When a person enters therapy, they should voice their opinions
about counseling and their beliefs about treatment. In the beginning, they should be able
to communicate with their counselor as to what they expect to get out of counseling. This
can help the counselor guide and direct their counseling accordingly.
• Confrontation: We do not mean the client confronting the therapist, or vice versa. The
confrontation that should happen here is within the client. The client should be able speed
at which they do this should be discussed between to self-examine themselves during
counseling. However, the speed at which they do this should be discussed between the
counselor and the client.
• Congruence: This has to do with the counselor being genuine with their feedback and
beliefs about their client's situation and progress. The more authentic and truer they are
with their counseling, the more that their client and work to grow and benefit from their
help.
• Core Conditions: This technique in counseling goes over some essential traits that the
counselor needs to integrate for effective counseling, which are: positive regard, empathy,
congruence or genuineness, and warmth.
• Encouraging: Being encouraging as a counselor for your client is an essential technique
that will help facilitate confidence and respect between both parties. This technique asks
that the counselor focus on the client's strengths and assets to help them see themselves
in a positive light. This will help with the client's progression.
• Engagement: As a therapist, having a good, yet professional relationship with your client
is essential. However, there are bound to be difficult moments in counseling sessions,
which will require influential engagement on the counselor's behalf.
• Focusing: This technique involves the counselor demonstrating that they understand
what their client is experiencing by using non-judgmental attention without any words.
Focusing can help the counselor determine what the client needs to obtain next from their
services.
• Immediacy: The technique of the counselor speaking openly about something that is
occurring in the present moment. This helps the client learn from their real-life experiences
and apply this to their reactions for other past situations.
• Listening Skills: With any relationship, listening skills are needed to show that the
counselor understands and interprets the information that their client gives them correctly.
The counselor should do this by showing attentiveness in non- verbal ways, such as:
summarizing, capping, or matching the body language of their clients.
• Open-Ended Questions: Open ended questions encourage people in a counseling
 session to give more details on their discussion. Therefore, these types of questions are
used as a technique by counselors to help their clients answer how, why, and what.
• Paraphrasing: This technique will show clients that the counselor is listening to their
information and processing what they have been telling them. Paraphrasing is also good
to reiterate or clarify any misinformation that might have occurred.
• Positive Asset Search: A positive technique used by counselors helps clients think up
their positive strengths and attributes to get them into a strong mindset about themselves.
• Reflection of Feeling: Counselors use this technique to show their clients that they are
fully aware of the feelings that their client is experiencing. They can do this by using exact
words and phrases that their client is expressing to them.
• Miracle Question: The technique of asking a question of this sort will help the client see
the world in a different way or perspective. A miracle question could be something along
the lines of: "What would your world look like if a miracle occurred? What would that
miracle be and how would it change things?"
• Stages of Change: By assessing a client's needs, a counselor can determine the changes
that need to occur for their client, and when they should take place. This can be
determined by what they believe to be most important.
• Trustworthiness: The counselor must create an environment for their client as such that
their client feels that they have the capacity to trust their counselor. A therapist must be:
congruent, warm, empathetic, and speak with positive regard to their client.
• Capping: A lot of counselors use the technique of capping during their sessions. Capping
involves changing a conversation's direction from emotional to cognitive if the counselor
feels their client's emotions need to be calmed or regulated.
• Working Alliance: Creating a working alliance between a counselor and their client is
essential for a successful counseling environment that will work to achieve the client's
needs. This technique involves the client and therapist being active collaborators during
counseling and agreeing upon goals of treatment that are necessary, as well as how to
achieve those goals.
• Proxemics: This technique has the counsellor study the spatial movements and
conditions of communication that their clients exhibit. By studying their client’s body
orientations, the counselor can determine mood, feelings, and reactions.
• Self-Disclosure: The counselor will make note when personal information is disclosed at
certain points of therapy. This technique will help the counselor learn more about the client
and use this information only to benefit them.
• Structuring: When the individual enters counseling, the counselor should discuss the
agenda for the day with their client, the activities, and the processes that they will go
through. This technique in counseling will help the client understand their counselor’s train
of thought into determining how this routine will work for them. Soon enough, the client
will get used to the routine, and this establishes comfort and trust in counseling.
• Hierarchy of Needs: This technique involves the counselor assessing their client’s level
of needs as based on the progress that they are making. The needs that they will factor in
are psychological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, self-esteem needs and
self-actualization needs. All these will determine if change needs to take place in
counseling.