Benefits of Counseling

• Feel better about yourself.

• Feel more at peace, at ease in your daily activities, more

comfortable, and more secure in the world.

• Feel more successful and more joyful on a more regular
basis.
• Feel more connected to others, especially those who are
close to you, such as your family, spouse, or best friends.
• Reduce stress at home, in the workplace, or in
relationships.
• Help with your physical health by reducing
emotional worries or stressors.
• Work through your problems with a skilled and
compassionate professional counselor.
• Identify the goals that you have in life, as well
make new goals that you want to achieve.
• Learn new behaviors or responses to situations
that can help you better achieve your goals.
• Establish healthy and efficient ways and techniques for
reaching your goals.
• Understand your own thoughts, feelings, and
responses.
• Understand your loved ones and your relationships
with them.
• Develop a safe and friendly listening ear.
• Speak with a skilled professional about your fears and
perceptions of the world, and others.
• Feel safe about expressing any personal troubles or
private concerns.
• Work towards greater self-fulfillment.
Counseling Techniques
Used by Counselors
 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.
• 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 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 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 counselor study the

spatial movements and conditions of
communication that their client exhibits. By
studying their clients body orientation, 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. Soon
enough, the client will get used to the routine,
and this establishes comfort and trust in
counseling.
 Hierarchy of Needs
• The needs that they will factor in are:
physiological 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.