Peer Reflection

In this essay I will outline how I make use of counselling skills and knowledge gained by looking at them individually and providing examples of how they have been used working with families and in my personal life. This will be formally and informally and will include skills practice from this course. I will look at the effects the helping have on me and how I deal with them.

Before I began my study in the unit of Counselling Communications, I expected it to be more theoretical than as practical as it really was. Although some of the things we learnt seemed to be of common sense, it was surprising to see how much of that common sense I actually use when counselling. Moreover, there were many things that were of much knowledgeable content and was new to me. I have realised that there were many skills I needed to improve on myself. The tutorials were helpful for me in identifying these skills and enhancing them by regular practice; so they may become almost instinctive to me.

By discussing this particular experience in detail, I can begin to understand the specific skills a counsellor may use in many different situations in order to help others (Egan, 2007, p. 13). In this reflective

One of my skills I used as a mental health technician is having the ability to listen on multiple levels , this allows me as a technician not only to hear what is said, but how it’s said, why it’s being said, and what it means in the context of that client. I also have a sense of humor, but counselors, I should know how to form a relational connection with someone to the point of developing a shared sense of humor in a therapeutic environment that the client can feel comfortable. Another strength is having patience with my clients as they process our discussion. Using patience can help build a good rapport with clients, and realize it may take them time to accept certain things and to move towards positive changes. Working in the field of behavioral health for 20 years, I work with clients that you need to discuss something many times before they were prepared to make a move in any particular direction. I also understand you are not likely going to see large changes in an individual client; therefore be okay with incremental progress in their lives and rejoice over small

The counselling process is based on the exchange of emotions between the client and the counsellor which aims to form an alliance (Hough, 1998). It involves the counsellor using skills in which they possess in order to communicate effectively with clients (Hough, 1998). This reflective essay clearly articulates my application of counselling skills used in this practice session and suggestions for improvement. It will provide a summary of the session, identification of a range of skills used and a brief explanation of the reasons for using the skill. It will also provide an evaluation of my application of the skills chosen, including verbatim examples, suggestions for improvement, also including verbatim examples to demonstrate what could

My experience in the counseling role has increased my confidence over the current semester. I feel that the extensive practice has paid off tremendously. For example, this course has taught me how to formulate a game plan when starting off my sessions. I now have goals which come with a much improved structure format than I had previously. In addition, I am able to have a much clearer perceptive of my feelings where I previously accepted thoughts as feelings. In this self reflection, I will continue to express how my growth experiences that have

As a Therapeutic Staff Support, I communicate with my clients and their families daily. I had the opportunity to sit down on an evaluation with one of my clients. I am comfortable talking with my clients, but I did convey some nervousness in the video. This role play has taught me more about myself. There have been some challenges in planning and executing this role play. My role play displayed the initial interaction between a concerned mother and the social worker. In an initial meeting with behavioral health services, it is important for the client to be there. However, I did not have another person to play the part of Sophia, so I made due with just the mother and social worker. Overall, I feel that this

While watching L’s session, I was reminded of how hard difficult can situations can be for the parents. The mom appears overwhelmed and frustrated. During the session, I noticed that reflections were used to validate the mom’s emotions.

After reading the assigned text and reflecting on my experience in practicum, I often wonder if I tend to swap roles as a counselor and a coach during sessions. I say this because in counseling, the counselor tends to focus on the past and things that have happened to influence their client’s present behavior. However, sometimes I find myself helping the client to create goals for their future based on where they are in the present. Although, Collins (2009) explains how counselor are typically the “experts who treat patients, provides healing, and directs” (Collins, 2009, p. 16).

I have been at my site for about 14 to 15 weeks and have been feeling more comfortable in my experience. Although at the same time as I need to do some more studying of interventions and learning more about skills for my client’s well-being. After presenting my second case presentation I decided to reread some of the chapters from our process and procedures course again, since it has been a while since I looked at these intervention skills (as I took this course about 1.5 years ago). It was a while ago and I think now I need to brush up on using these approaches now. I think this presentation was useful because it showed me that I need to continue working on my skills as a practicum student. I received a lot of good feedback and I am taking a step in the right direction to think about the skills I need to be a good counselor.

Colleen was proficient at taking concepts and interventions learned in her coursework and applying them to her clients and field experience. She gathered clinical information during initial appointments to complete an intake assessement, give a provisional diagnosis, and create an initial treatment plan. This was espically true for the Cognitve Behavioral skills that she aquired throughout the semester from that corse. Colleen also attended team meetings with the treatment team to collborate and learn from the other therapists, the nurse, and the psychaitrist. Colleen completed trainings and read materials at the agency to give her more information about certain populations of clients and therotical frameworks. Colleen also sat in on a psychatirc

Counseling skills differ from counseling theory as skills refer to interpersonal tools used within the helping relationship to assist the client, where as theory refers to the theory of human development. In our first year of counseling skills we have focused on developing our counseling skills within role-playing such as triads

Another important skill I have learnt is reflective responding. It is a back and forth process between a client and counsellor; which simply aids to clarify meanings, summarise and to help the client to delve deeper into the issue (Egan, 2010). I illustrated this virtuosity during a conversation with Nathan were I respond with “Correct me if I am wrong but are you saying that there is no point to life if you do not have someone”? Responding reflectively allowed him to clarify my understanding of his original statement; and also confide in more depth about his worries. Equally important, Egan has confirmed (2010) that “effective helping is a mixture of support and challenge”, and one with out the other can seem harsh and counterproductive (p. 211). In saying this I felt there was a need to challenge; to test the reality of one

This semester has been filled with informative information when speaking about our own social skill, but also other people’s social psychology as well, thus is why it will be very useful in future. Throughout the semester we studied everything from the introduction of social psychology, social influences, aggression in psychology, and interpersonal attraction and close relationships. A lot of the knowledge that I gained was not only from the “Social Psychology” textbook, but also in the videos and the reactions that we needed to come up with on a weekly basis. I like the idea of being able to watch the video to see if the experiment was successful or unsuccessful and commenting on it by giving my opinion if I agreed or not. For me,

In chapter 7, Hill mentions minimal verbal behaviors that can help to encourage the client to continue with their story and that we are attending and listening. I agree that this can be helpful in encouraging the client to continue with their story, though I am concerned that it would not be enough. The content of these chapters have helped with the realization that although we already know the words, being comfortable and fluent with the phrases and open-ended questions can be similar to learning an entirely new language. To illustrate, in doing the role-play with the intake, I found it most challenging to simultaneously keep to the script and actively listen to the story that was being narrated.