Counseling Skills

¶ … Counseling We live in a very complex world today. People are often faced with difficulties that seem insurmountable. This complexity is both fortunate and unfortunate. Difficult as life can be, there is an increasing array of potential solutions. Some people find solace at their workplace, with life's difficulties driving them to greater productivity, for example. Others use their misfortune as a platform for helping others in creative ways. For some, however, life becomes so overwhelming that they simply cannot deal with the challenges they face on a daily basis.

For such people, it is often helpful to seek the assistance of a counselor. It is for such counselors that author Gary Collins wrote Christian Counseling. His ideas on the nature and core of counseling can stimulate ideas not only about how the counselor can use his or her existing skills to ensure that clients are helped effectively, but also about what skills and techniques are still lacking that the counselor may need.

In reading "The Core of Counseling," one of the techniques I can use to be an effective counselor is listening. In order to truly be able to help someone, the skill that will help me most is active listening. As a counselor, it is important not only to hear what a client is saying, but also to think carefully about this. According to Martin (2014), the two most basic skills a counselor needs is both active listening and responding appropriately to a client.

One can only respond appropriately if one has listened actively to what the client has to say. This makes the client feel that his or her problems are not being trivialized, and that there are some legitimate struggles to handle through the counseling process. It is important for the client to feel this way because it will assist him or her in energizing the healing process. It is only when the client believes that there is healing to be done that such a process can begin.

My work as counselor is to help the client see ways in which healing, improvement, and positive change can be achieved. One way to demonstrate active listening is to demonstrate interest in what the client has to say about his or her life (Martin, 2014). I can do this by asking questions that come to mind while the client is talking. Mostly, I believe the best time to ask these questions is when there is a pause in the client's narrative.

I will therefore make sure that the client has finished speaking and wait for a little while before asking questions. The questions I ask will be those I come up with during the client's narrative of his or her life and problems. These questions must help me to clarify the situation, and in this way I can also help the client clarify his or her own situation for him- or herself.

By asking questions and allowing the client sufficient time and a safe space to provide responses, I will be able to help make the problem clearer for the client while also assisting in finding solutions. By keeping the communication between myself and my client open, I will be able to establish a professional relationship that is based on respect and trust. This is especially important during the first session.

A positive experience during our first session together will help the client to trust me and the process in all future sessions. This will further stimulate the process of healing and change. This process is a need the client recognized, which is what brought him or her to my door in the first place. Applying active listening skills is one of the most important skills I can cultivate as counselor to help find the client's core ability to drive the change that he or she needs.

Currently, active listening is probably the counseling skill that I have and use most. My friends and family have told me many times that I am a "good listener." This is because I have cultivated the skills that I mentioned above. I have a strong desire, whenever someone is facing some difficulty in life, to find out what this difficulty is and to see if I can help with this. I have often sat down and simply listened to a friend or colleague talk about a problem.

Sometimes, this is all that is needed. At other times, people are looking for advice. To determine which is which, all I need to do is listen and ask questions about the person's needs and expectations while talking to me about their situation. Another talent I have that will help me in the counseling profession is compassion. I have great respect and compassion for those who face difficulties in life, especially when they look for help when they feel they can no longer face these difficulties alone.

This compassion stems from the recognition that it is not always easy to admit one's own need for help. When a person then actively seeks out counseling, it feels to me that this shows tremendous strength of personality; it shows the recognition that one needs assistance, but also the recognition that assistance is available and that the problem does have potential solutions. As counselor, it will be my job to identify the solutions that will best suit my client and his or her needs.

One thing I may need to work on is maintaining an.