1. Counseling Skills

2. Attending Letting the client know you are with them and listening
“In some sense [attending and listening] means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange and bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish.”
Carl Rogers

3. Attending Skills: SOLER
Squarely face the client
Open posture
Lean in on occasion
Eye contact
Relaxed and natural behavior

4. Non-Verbal Cues Validates or invalidates verbal communication
Bodily behavior
Facial expressions
Voice related behavior
Observable physiological responses
Physical appearance

5. Active Listening Listen where your clients are in their lives
Use to detect gaps, distortions, dissonance and themes
Listen to allow empathy
Listen with appropriate interruption
Listening with your questions
Listen to oneself
Listen without diagnosing

6. Empathy
“It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in the other’s life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments.” (Rogers)
“It’s not what I would feel as me in your shoes, but what I would feel as you in your shoes”

7. Empathy Convey genuine warmth and caring
Affirm client strengths in the midst of struggles
Come alongside

8. Empathic Response Give yourself time to think before responding
Use short responses, don’t over elaborate
Don’t mimic, remain yourself but allow yourself to feel what they might be feeling

9. Empathy Don’ts No response A question A cliché’ (pat answer)
An interpretation (diagnosis)
Advice
Parroting
Sympathy (agreement)

10. Probing and Encouraging
Don’t ask too many questions
Ask questions that serve a purpose
Ask open ended questions that help clients talk about specific experiences, behaviors, feelings
Keep the focus on the client
Ask questions that help clients move forward in the process
Don’t hesitate to check in with patient about how they are handling the process.

11. Self Disclosure When do I use self disclosure? How much is too much?
Why does the client want to know?
How might it benefit the client?
How do you feel about giving the information?
Why do you feel you should or should not give the information?

12. Dealing with Resistance
Address when recognized
Put responsibility on client

13. The Stages of Change Taken from Changing for Good by James Prochaska, John Norcross, & Carlo Diclemente
Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
Preparation
Action
Maintenance
Termination