Models of counselling

Counselling process and skills
Models of counselling

What is models of counselling ?
The term ‘model’ as used here means a structure of counselling
process that shows relationships between the components and tells
what is done in counselling and in what sequence.
In other words a model of counselling explains the interaction
between two persons and the content and sequence of this
interaction in order to make sense and help the counsellor to be
effective.

Various types of models are:-
SUSAN GILMORE MODEL OF ECLECTICISM
PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH BY SIGMUND FREUD
SOCIAL INFLUENCE MODEL
BORDINS MODEL OF WORKING ALLIANCE
PSYCHO-DRAMA MORENO
TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS BY ERIC BERNE
ECLECTIC MODEL
EXSISTENTIAL MODEL
GESTALT MODEL
IVEYS MODEL OF COUNSELLING

SUSAN GILMORE MODEL OF ECLECTICISM
 Susan Gilmore is an American University Professor of psychology at the University
of Oregon USA. She developed her eclecticism model in 1980.
 According to Susan Gilmore the main base of integration and eclecticism is on the
three questions of
 What (content of therapy)
 Why (purpose of therapy)
 How (process of therapy)

According to Gilmore the therapist should be able to explain the
‘what’ in terms of issues of the client.
In order to explain the ‘why’ the counsellor should be able to
outline the main goals of engaging in therapy with the client.
In order to answer the ‘how’ the counsellor should be able to
map out how to conduct therapy.
The ‘what’, ‘how ‘and ‘why’ basics of therapy are also
elaborated through the sub - triangles as follows:-

1.The ‘what’ (content) sub-triangle
This is illustrated through three major pillars which Susan Gilmore
believed are the major issues clients present for counselling.
 Relationship
 Work
 Identity
RELATIONSHIP
This refers to the relationship of the client with significant others.
With significant others in the society relationship either grows and
develops or becomes distant and withers away.

When the relationship is weak and poor clients feel unsupported.
This creates psychological disturbances.
Work
This refers to how the client spends his/her time and energy. At
every stage in life each person faces the task to invest energy to
make life safer, more enjoyable and more satisfying.
Therefore the way a person spends his/her time can create
psychological disturbances.
Identity (aloneness)
This refers to how the client perceives himself or herself. The way
a client perceives oneself influences relationship with other
people.

2.The why (purpose) sub – triangle
This forms another triangle of 3Cs as follows.
 Choice
In therapy the client does not know what choice to make in life which
leads to a state of being stuck causing psychological disturbance
 Change
The client aims at changing certain aspects in his/her life. The
desired change may be related to feelings, perceptions, behavior and
experience.
 Coherence
The client struggles to understand self-including what is helpful to
them and what is not. Lack of harmony in personal coherence causes
psychological disturbance

The how (process) sub triangle in therapy
When the client wants to achieve their purpose the counsellor-has to use
the process. Susan Gilmore came up with another triangle to explain how
we need to do the integration or process as follows
 Exploration
The counsellor needs to explore clients issue and help them move from
presenting problem to real problem.
 Understanding
The counsellor needs to help the client to understand themselves and their
problem situations.
 Action
The counsellor needs to help the client to take action on the choices they
have made in their lives.

PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
In psychology, a psychodynamic theory is a view that explains
personality in terms of conscious and unconscious forces.
In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud proposed the
psychodynamic theory, according to which personality consists
of the id (responsible for instincts and pleasure-seeking), the
superego (which attempts to obey the rules of parents and
society), and the ego (which mediates between them
according to the demands of reality).
Psychodynamic theories commonly hold that childhood
experiences shape personality.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY ARE:-
Our behavior and feelings are powerfully affected by unconscious
motives
Our feelings, motives, and decisions are actually powerfully influenced
by our past experiences, and stored in the unconscious.
Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological
problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences
Psychodynamic theory states that events in our childhood have a great
influence on our adult lives, shaping our personality.
All behavior has a cause (usually unconscious), even slip of the
tongue. Therefore all behavior is determined
Unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind.
Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the
unconscious mind and that there were no accidents

Personality is made up of three parts the tripartite: the id, ego,
and super-ego
The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all
the inherited, biological components of personality present at birth.
The ego develops in order to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external
real world. It is the decision making component of personality.
The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned
from one's parents and others.
The person may seek to control or hide difficult or unacceptable mental desires,
memories and feelings by use of 'defence mechanisms', such as "transference",
"projection", "denial", "repression", "sublimation", "splitting" and "projective
identification".

 Social influence occurs when a person's emotions,
opinions or behaviors are affected by others
intentionally or unintentionally.
 This approach is based on Bandura's Social Learning
Theory which focuses on the notion that behavior is the
result of positive or negative influences by learning.
 Given that counselling involves a social encounter
between two or more persons, the therapist and client
not influencing one another during the course of therapy
is unavoidable.
SOCIAL INFLUENCE MODEL

 counselling and psychotherapy involve a process of mutual social
influence in which a therapist and a client modify one another's beliefs,
emotions, and behavior.
 the effective counsellor influences clients to adopt certain therapeutic
goals, by establishing a powerful base by appearing expert, attractive and
trust worthy which exerts a positive influence on the client.
 Positive influences help the client to think about themselves and others in
more adaptive ways, to learn new social competencies, to apply cognitive
and behavioral principles learned in therapy to their everyday lives.

 According to Bordin (1979) the effectiveness of any given
therapy is partly, or even entirely, “a function of the strength
of the alliance" .
 The important characteristics of working alliance are :-
Baseline characteristics of patients.
Baseline characteristics of therapists.
Similarity between patient and therapist
 He divided the alliance into three components; task, goal and
bond.
 Agreement to the goals which has to be achieved during the
session.
 Agreement to the task and responsibility of each party.
 Bond which is made up of reciprocal feelings.

 A strong therapeutic alliance will encourage the reflections upon past experiences
and a clear communication of present desires.
 Working alliance requires a joint effort between the therapist and the client
in a mutual fight to triumph over the clients problems and if possible any self-
destructing behaviour.
 When client and counsellor share beliefs about goals and treatment,
finding methods which is both effective and relevant then the optimal
therapeutic alliance is achieved.

 Psychodrama is an action technique in group therapy which allows clients
to explore their problems through role playing and other dramatic devices to
gain behavioral skills and Insights.
 It is a Therapeutic Discipline, which uses Action methods, Role Training,
& Group Dynamics to Facilitate Constructive change in the Lives Of Participants.
 Created in the 1930’s by J.L. Moreno and Further Developed by his wife
Ezra Toméan Moreno and other followers.
 The key feature of psychodrama is that it provides an opportunity to try new solutions
and reactions to a given scenario. It is practice for real life situations and to try new roles.
This method helps promote creativity, problem solving, communication, and self-awareness.

 Important in Moreno’s theories were the concepts of role taking, spontaneity,
creativity, empathy, and catharsis and gaining insight.
 Catharsis and Insight: Catharsis is the release of emotions during psychodrama.
Insights are the cognitive shifts in awareness that are produced by the catharsis.
 Action Methods are used to enable past, present and future life events to be
explored. Issues or problems and their possible solutions are enacted rather than
just talked about.
 Psychodrama offers the opportunity to practice new roles safely, see oneself
from outside, gain insight and change.

 There is a director, an action area and group members. The director who is the
trained therapist supports groups to explore new solutions to old problems.
 Group members participate in the drama as significant others and share how
they personally relate to and can learn from the presenting issue at the end
of the session.
 Participants then have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior, reflect on
how the past incident is getting played out in the present and more deeply
understand particular situations in their lives.

 Transactional Analysis is a personality theory developed by Dr.Eric Berne
in the 1950s which gives us a picture that people are structured psychologically.
 Transactional Analysis is underpinned by the philosophy that people can
change and we all have a right to be in the world and be accepted.
 Berne mapped interpersonal relationships to three ego-states of the individuals
involved: the Parent, Adult, and Child state.
1) Parent
This is our ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes
from when we were young. Our Parent is made up of a huge number of hidden and overt
recorded playbacks. Typically embodied by phrases and attitudes starting with
'how to', 'under no circumstances', 'always' and 'never forget', 'don't lie, cheat, steal‘ etc.

2) Child
Our internal reaction and feelings to external events form the 'Child'.
This is the seeing, hearing, feeling, and emotional body of data within each of us.
When anger or despair dominates reason, the Child is in control within us.
3) ADULT
Our 'Adult' is our ability to think and determine action for ourselves, based on received data.
The adult in us begins to form at around ten months old, and is the means by which we keep
our Parent and Child under control.

COMMUNICATION USING TRANSACTIONAL ANALYTIC THEORY
 Any indication (speech, gestures or other nonverbal cues) that acknowledges the
presence of another person is called a transactional stimulus. Another person will
then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus is called the
transactional response.
 AGENT- the person who is sending the stimulus.
 RESPONDENT- The person who responds.

Analyzing Transactions
 Structural analysis - the process of analyzing personality in terms of ego states.
 Straight transactions (or complementary transactions)
the response must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state.
• simplest transactions are between Adult - Adult ego states.
• Parent – Child transactions are almost as simple as Adult- Adult transactions
 Crossed Transaction
Not all transactions between humans are healthy or normal. In those cases,
the transaction is classified as a crossed transaction.
In a crossed transaction, an ego state different than the ego state which received
the stimuli is the one that responds.
Example: • Agent’s Adult: “Do you know where my cuff links are?” (note that this stimuli
is directed at the Respondents Adult).
• Respondent’s Child: “You always blame me for everything!”

 Key Concepts in Transactional Analysis
•I'm OK, You're OK
•I'm OK, You're Not OK
•I'm Not OK, You're OK
•I'm Not OK, You're Not OK
 Strokes
Berne observed that people need strokes, the units of interpersonal recognition,
to survive and thrive. Understanding how people give and receive positive and
negative strokes and changing unhealthy patterns of stroking are powerful aspects
of work in transactional analysis.
 Games •
A game is an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing
to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set
of transactions… with a concealed motivation.

 Life Script
Eric Berne proposed that dysfunctional behavior is the result of self-limiting
decisions made in childhood in the interest of survival. Such decisions
culminate in what Berne called the "life script," the pre-conscious life plan
that governs the way life is lived out.
 Replacing violent organizational or societal scripting with cooperative
non-violent behavior is the aim of other applications of transactional analysis.
 Contracts
Transactional Analysis is a contractual approach. A contract is "an explicit bilateral
commitment to a well-defined course of action“.
 Contracts need to be: measurable, manageable and motivational.

 Measurable means that the goals need to be tangible. That each party involved in
the contract will be able to say in advance how they will know when the goal has
been achieved.
 The goal will be specific and behavioral and clearly defined. The contract will also
need to be manageable and feasible for all those concerned.
 Since TA is a contractual therapy, the therapist and the client collaboratively
establish the specific goals that guide the therapy sessions.
Various other views of TA goals have been expressed, a few of which are:
 • Being a catalyst to enable clients to mobilize their efforts.
 • Helping clients obtain a friendly “divorce” from their parents
 • Helping clients break through a series of impasses that stem from injunctions
and early decisions.

 Eclectic therapy is a style of therapy that uses techniques drawn from several
different schools of thought. Eclectic therapy involve combining two or more
theories or approaches and this is usually psychoanalysis and behavior therapy etc.
 Eclecticism tends to focus on differences, chooses from many approaches, and is a
collection of techniques. This path calls for using techniques from different schools
without necessarily subscribing to the theoretical positions that spawned them.
 Rather than stretching the client to fit the dimensions of a single theory, practitioners
are challenged to tailor their theory and practice to fit the unique needs of the client
 The pivotal assessment question is, “What does this particular person most need
in order to suffer less, to heal, to grow, or to cope more effectively?”
 Once a clinician knows what the client’s target problems and goals are,
it makes sense to design specific techniques tailor-made to the client.

Existential therapy
• Existential therapy focuses on free will, self-determination, and the search for
meaning often centering on you rather than on the symptom.
• The approach emphasizes your capacity to make rational choices and to develop to
your maximum potential.
The existential approach stresses that:
 All people have the capacity for self-awareness.
 Each person has a unique identity that can be known only through relationships with
others.
 People must continually re-create themselves because life’s meaning constantly
changes.
 Anxiety is part of the human condition.

Existential therapy distinguishes three modes of world that characterize people’s
existence as being-in-the-world.
 Umwelt, the ‘world around’-the biological world and environment.
• The Umwelt represents the natural world, the laws of nature and the environment.
• The natural world is accepted as real.
 Mitwelt- with world- the world of one’s fellow human beings.
• This is the social world of relating to fellow humans singly and in groups and how
people influence each other and the structure of meaning that develops.
 Eigenwelt – the own world – the relationship to oneself.
• Individuals need to own their relationships to things and people, for example
‘This flower is beautiful ‘means ‘for me, this flower is beautiful’.

Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940’s by Fritz and Laura Perls and further
influenced by the likes of Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein. The word “Gestalt” (of
German origin) refers to “whole”.
Gestalt therapy focuses on the integration between the “whole” person and his or
her environment.
This therapy sees a healthy individual as being someone who has awareness in his or
her life and lives in the here and now rather than focusing on the past or future.
Several key concepts underlie Gestalt therapy
 Wholeness and Integration-Gestalt therapy is about facilitating clients to
integrate themselves as whole persons and help restore balance in their
environment.

 Awareness-It is one of the most important elements in Gestalt therapy as it is seen as a
“hallmark of the healthy person and a goal of treatment” .
When individuals are “aware”, they are able to self-regulate in their environment.
 Energy and blocks to energy- Blocked energy is a form of resistance, for example,
tension in a part of the body, not breathing deeply. Gestalt therapy is about finding and
releasing the blockages that may be inhibiting awareness.
 Growth Disorders-It refers to emotional problems that are caused by people who lack
awareness and do not interact with their environment completely. In doing so, people
are unable to cope with the changes in their lives successfully and, instead deal with the
problems in a defensive manner .
 Unfinished business-It refers to people who do not finish things in their lives. People
with unfinished business often resent the past and because of this are unable to focus on
the here and now. One of the major goals of Gestalt therapy is to help people work
through their unfinished business and bring about closure.

• According to Ivey and Ivey (2007), the aim of counseling is personal and social
development.
• They have described a hierarchy of micro counseling skills that define what the
counselor does in an interview to achieve specific results.
• The hierarchy rests on a foundation of attending behaviors and basic listening skills.

Description
Attitudinal skills
Eye contact
Attentive body language
Distance awareness of personal space
Verbal tracking Attending to client’s story
Intermittent yet frequent looking into the eyes of the client
Having a comfortable, relaxed, open posture
distance appropriate from client
may involve selective attention
Active listening skills
Observing nonverbal
Verbal behaviour
Minimal encouragers
Noting physiological changes, facial expressions, body language
Noticing key words, topic changes, topic exclusions, Incongruities
Head nodding, “um-hmm,” interested facial expressions

Paraphrase Rephrasing the content of the client’s message
Summarization Restating overall meaning from a long period of conversation
Reflection of feelings Accurately recognizing and communicating the client’s emotions
Questions Using open-ended questions beginning with what and how
Concreteness Helping to make feelings, experiences, and behaviors more specific
Advanced Skills
Advanced Empathy Communicating a deeper underlying meaning of client’s experiences
Self-disclosure Sharing personal information for specific reasons, such as modeling
Confrontation Communicating to the client his or her discrepancies or mixed messages
Immediacy Discussing what is happening in the moment or the “here and now”

QUESTIONING.
Questions during the counselling session can help to open up new areas for discussion.
There are two main types of questions used in counselling: (1) Open and (2) Closed.
Ivey & Ivey (2003) describe the following five problem questioning techniques-
1. Bombardment/grilling
This occurs when counsellors get caught into a pattern of asking too many questions
one after the other.
2. Multiple questions
This occurs when counsellors ask several questions at once.
3. Questions as statements
This occurs when counsellors use questions as a way to sell their own points of view.
For example, “Don’t you think it would be helpful if you studied more?”

4. Questions and cultural differences
This is where a counsellor needs to be aware of any cultural influences that may make asking
questions inappropriate for clients from a specific culture.
5. Why questions
This is where the counsellor asks too many why questions. For example “Why did you do that?”
COUNSELLORS SKILL
 ENCOURAGERS-
Types of encouragers include:
1. Non-verbal minimal responses such as a nod of the head or positive facial expressions
2. Verbal minimal responses such as "Uh-huh" and "I hear what you're saying"
3. Brief invitations to continue such as "Tell me more"

 Paraphrases-
To paraphrase, the counsellor chooses the most important details of what the client has just said
and reflects them back to the client. It can be just a few words or one or two brief sentences.
 Summaries
Summaries are brief statements of longer excerpts from the counselling session. The counsellor
pulls together key parts of the extended communication, restating them for the client as
accurately as possible.
 Reflection of feelings
Reflection of feeling is similar to paraphrasing except this skill concentrates upon capturing the
emotional tones and phrases. This brings about clarification of feelings and emotions and allows
the counsellor to empathize with how the client may be feeling and/or how the client was affected
by the event.

Influencing skills and strategies according to IVEY’S model
Influencing skills take a more direct approach to client change, with specific alternatives for
actions that can promote change quicker and in some cases be more permanent.
The influencing skills are-
• Interpretation/reframing -The counsellor encourages the client by offering alternative ways of
viewing their experience.
• Information giving - Information giving involves providing the client with factual information that
may assist them in some way (such as details of a community support group or
accommodation option).

SELF-ATTENDING SKILLS
 Self-Awareness
The personal knowledge and understanding that the counsellor has of self and the
counselling setting are essential to the self-attending process.
 Centering and Relaxing
Centering, or getting in touch and then in tune with oneself is an important skill.
By becoming centered, the counsellor is able to show more social-emotional presence
in the counselling relationship and give the client his or her undivided attention. Similarly,
the counsellor’s relaxation (both physical and psychological) helps clients relax as they
face the stress and challenges of the counselling process.
 Non-judgmental Attitude Toward Self
Counsellors need a broad awareness of their own value positions. This awareness aids the
counsellors in being honest with themselves and their clients and in being free from judgments
towards themselves and the clients.

 Genuineness
When counsellors relate to clients naturally and openly, they are being genuine.
The effective use of genuineness reduces the emotional distance between counsellor and client.
Monitoring counselling quality
There are a number of strategies that can be implemented to assist you in monitoring or improving
the way you conduct your counselling sessions.
 Self- evaluation
This is the process of reflecting on your own skills, your professional strengths and limitations.
Awareness in these areas will enable to identify clients that are beyond your scope of expertise
and will ensure that you refer responsibly.

 Client feedback
Providing client with the opportunity to review the counselling process can be tremendously
beneficial for both counsellor and client alike. Not only does it acknowledge the client’s opinion
as valid and valued, it also provides an opportunity for the counsellor to evaluate his or her current
approach and adjust or continue accordingly.
 Peer review
Peer review enables counsellors to come together and discuss individual cases, ethical dilemmas
and brainstorm intervention options.
 Professional supervision
Supervision is an integral part of counselling practice. Within supervision, counsellors can
enhance their skill and knowledge base, ensure responsible and ethical practice and monitor
their self-care and professional competence.

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