Topic 5 :

Basic Counselling
Skills
Liyana Suraya Sofea Syafiqa Shikin

OVERVIEW
- Stages in Counselling
- Attending & Listening Skills
- Skills in Interpreting
Non-Verbal Behaviour
- Skills in Giving Responses
- Skills in Identifying Problems

STAGES IN
COUNSELLING

Relations
hip
Building

Assessm
ent &
Diagnos
tic

Interventi
on &
ProblemSolving

Formulati
on of
Counselli
ng Goals

Terminat
ion &
FollowUp

Researc
h&
Evaluati
on

STAGE 1 : RELATIONSHIP
BUILDING
Laying
foundations for
trust

Establishing the
desired structure
and form of the
relationship

Informed consent
process

Articulating roles
of counsellor &
client
developing a
collaborative
working alliance

STAGE 2 : ASSESSMENT & DIAGNOSTIC

1. Gather information about the client to understand their
situation and perspective.

Identify the
problem.

See the
problem
through the
clients eyes.

Help the client to

articulate rather than
pronouncing the problem
for them.

Build hypotheses
during this stage and
througout

STAGE 3 : FORMULATION OF CLIENT GOALS

Help the client to create goals
Enhances sense of ownership and motivation in
order to achieve the goal
Help to direct the client towards the desired
goals
Goals may change or evolve as the therapy
progresses.

To change unwanted or
unwelcome behaviour

To cope with problems

5 CATEGORIES
IN MAKING
GOALS

To make and
implement decisions
To enhance
relationships
To help clients growth
towards achieving
personal potential.

STAGE 4 : INTERVENTION &

PROBLEM-SOLVING
1. Offered the client information regarding options,
advantages or disadvantages of each solutions.
2. The characteristics of a good intervention:
Clearly defined and reachable
Able to be adapted with time
Positive and action-oriented focus
And most importantly is the clients own motivation
and willingness to follow it.

STAGE 5 : TERMINATION &

FOLLOW-UP
Collaborate with client in identifying the date for
the next follow-up

Role to review progress, create closure in client

counsellor
Mindful of avoiding fostering dependency and is
aware of own needs

STAGE 5 : TERMINATION & FOLLOW-UP

Termination can be considered not
just an end of a successful
counselling, but also as a
counselling that is not helpful or
unsuccessful.

STAGE 6 : RESEARCH &

EVALUATION
Generating
hypotheses

Trying all the

intervention
strategies

Determining if /
when a goal is
met

A plan for
evaluation
(checklist
whether the
counselling is
successful or
not)

ATTENDING AND
LISTENING
SKILLS

Welcome
the
children
warmly at
the door of
the
counseling
room

Make sure
the children
feel
comfortable
at their
provided
seat.

WAYS TO
TREAT
CHILDREN:
EARLY SIGN
OF
HOSPITALIT
Y

Th
ec
sh
ow har
s s act
kil eri
ch l to stic
ild
tre s th
re
n at t at
he

(Face the other Squarely)

S Pandang terus ke arah kanakkanak

(Head nods) Anggukan

H kepala

(Adopt an Open Posture)

O Kedudukan badan yg terbuka
(Verbal following) Pengesanan
V secara verbal

E (Speech) Percakapan
L (Lean toward the other)

condong badan ke depan

E (Make eye contact) Kontek
mata
R (Be relatively relaxed) Berada
dalam keadaan relaks

TIPS ON IMPROVING
ACTIVE LISTENING SKILL
Counselor needs to
listen and collect input
from the children
before giving any
information.
Understa
nd the
children

Counselor
needs to listen
attentively
and alert to
the childrens
problems.

Give
full
attenti
on

Listen to the children

with empathy and
accept them positively
Not without any
beingconditions.
judgeme
ntal

Use the
silence
Silence is golden.
Dont ever interrupt
the childrens
talking.

BASIC LISTENING SKILL

Open question
- Usually starts with
What, How, Why,
Where.
- To provide self-exposure
to the pupils.
Cloze question
- Starts with Is it,
Have you, etc.
- Intended to gain
information and provide
focus on the discussion.

Paraphrase
It used after counselling sessions last
for a period of time.
Guidance teacher provides a
restatement based on the statement
from the pupils
Client: I am going to aerobic class
after work. It helps me to manage the
stress during the working hours.
Guidance Teacher: So, it seems that
aerobic exercises could help you to
release your stress.

Emotional Reflection
Reflect the feeling or emotion behind the
story told by the children.
Guidance teacher shows empathy
towards the pupils problem
Client: Meera always talked bad about
me to my classmates. She said that, I
copy her homework, I cheated during the
test,
Guidance teacher: So, what she did
really make you mad right?
It is very important for the guidance
teacher to use appropriate and right
words to reflect the clients feelings.

Minimum Impulse
Making the pupils to keep talking without
distracting the flow of their thought.
Examples: Yes. , Hmmm.. , and many
more.
Asking for clarification
When the guidance teacher is not clear of
what been said by the pupils, she/he should
ask for clarification.
This might happen because of the clients
slow voice or unclear utterances.
By asking clarification, it gives out the
message that the guidance teacher is really
interested in the clients problems.
I am not really understand. Can you
explain? or Can you talk about it again? I

Making Conclusion
Concluding what has been discussed with
the pupils.
To identify the issues or factors that cause
the pupils problems.

Check Perception
Following the conclusion made before.
To decide the future issues to focused on.

ADVANCED LISTENING
SKILL
Structuring
Able to explain about counselling
including the guidance teachers
role and pupils role.
Thus, motivate pupils to be
actively involved in the session.

Enquiring
Gaining the specific information
from the pupils

SKILLS IN
INTERPRETING
NON-VERBAL
BEHAVIOUR

Mehrabian
Communication Model

From the pie chart:

Mehrabian found that only about 7 percent
of the emotional meaning of a message is
communicated through explicit verbal
channels.
About 38 percent is communicated by
paralanguage, which is basically the use of
the voice.
About 55 percent comes through nonverbal,
which includes such things as gesture,
posture, facial expression, etc. It is behavior
other than spoken or written communication
that creates or represents meaning.

Immedia
cy
Dominan
ce

Arousal
Mehrabian
identified
three
primary
dimensions
for
interpreting
nonverbal
cues

Immediacy
Immediacy cues communicate liking and
pleasure. We move toward persons and things
we like and avoid or move away from those we
dislike.
Generally, we instinctively decide whether we
like someone or not and then later find "reasons"
to back up our feelings. We can summarize the
nonverbal behaviors then by saying that cues
that move or lean or otherwise open up or go
toward the other person communicate liking.
Cues that fall in this dimension include eye
contact, mutual eye contact, touching, and
leaning forward.

Arousal
The label does not indicate anything sexual.
Arousal in this usage is similar to animation.
That is, when we are interested in
communicating with someone else, we tend
to be more animated. A flat tone of voice
and very little movement indicate a lack of
interest.
Cues that fall in this dimension include eye
contact, varied vocal cues, animated facial
expressions, leaning forward and
movement in general.

Dominance
These cues indicate something about the
balance of power in a relationship. They
communicate information about relative or
perceived status, position, and importance.
For instance, children of high status tend to
have a relaxed body posture when
interacting with a person of lower status.
Children with weak characteristic and came
from a poor family are lack of confident, and
low self esteem.

Additional Information
Non-Verbal Behaviour Messages Tips:
Covering your mouth = shy / inferior / nervous / lack
of confidence
Wiping or wiping your nose = restlessness / doubtful /
skeptical / worried
hair stroke = confusion / frustration / worry
breaking withstand finger = cannot wait / boring /
difficult to express feelings / doubts
Playing whatnot hand without conscious = an
impassioned storytelling client / appreciate /
nervous / anxious
Red faces = shy / very angry

 Six distinguishable eye assessing cues

(applied to a normally organised righthanded person):
Looking left and up = visual recall (recalling a
visual memory)
Looking left and centrally = auditory recall
(recalling a noise or sound)
Looking left and down = auditory internal
dialogue
Looking right and up = visual construction
(imagining an image, not factual)
Looking right and centrally = auditory
construction (imagining a sound, not factual)
Looking right and down = kinaesthetic (imaging a
kinaesthetic sensation, not factual)

SKILLS IN GIVING
RESPONSES
What do you mean by giving responses?
Factors to consider in deciding on how to
respond
Skills in giving responses
Steps in responding
Mistakes in formulating responses

What do you mean?

GIVING RESPONSES is the act of communicating
information to the client that includes providing
feedback, emotional support and addressing issues
of concern.
Requires counsellors attention on the clients
feeling and verbal and non verbal expression.
E.g: nod, asking to continue, asking questions,
making statement and suggestions, offering
solutions.
Without clear respond, the counselling session will
not be sufficient to motivate and encourage the
client to continue with open disclosure.

Factors to consider in
deciding on how to respond
Integrate seen and heard.
Ask yourself how would I feel if I
were in her/his shoes?
Find the reason for the feeling of the
client.

Skills in giving responses

Confronting

Interpretatio
n

To increase their
self-awareness.
4 discrepancies:
Thoughts &
feelings
Thoughts &
actions
Feelings &
actions
A combination of
all.
Confrontation
statement:
but on the other
hand.
Your words say
but your

Provide the client

with a new way to
view the situation.
The interpretation
provides the client
with a clear-cut
alternative
perception of
"reality".
This perception
may enable a
change of view
which in turn may
result in changes
in thoughts,
constructs, or
behaviours.

Supporting
the problem is
very serious and
beyond the
clients ability.
Extra help in form
of support should
be given to help
him overcome his
fear on counseling
service.
It is a sign that
shows maturity
when we ask
help from other
people

Steps in responding
Responding to
contents (issue)

Responding to
feelings (clients
attitude and view on
the issue)

Responding with
questions (to learn
further and to help
her/him rationalises)

Making summary
responses (repeat or
paraphrase to show
how far you
understand her/his
problem and providing
suggestions)

Mistakes in formulating responses

Too long
More concern for the facts
Vague and generalised
Leading and directive
Overly supportive

SKILLS TO IDENTIFY
PROBLEMS

SKILLS TO IDENTIFY PROBLEMS

There are many strategies that can
be used in identifying problems.
Counselor can collect important
information through observation.
Counselor can also use individual
and group counseling, and interview.

TRACKING STUDENT
BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS
1. Behavioral delinquent, drug abuse,
immoral behavior
2. Collection of information
3. Intelligence tests, interest tests, tests
tendency talent, personality test

TRACKING ACADEMIC
PROBLEMS OF CHILDREN

The problem with the 3M

Observation, student profile, test
Exercise daily, question and answer
quiz

IDENTIFYING CHILDS PROBLEM

Problem Factors Among Children
1. P & P - not in accordance with the
cognitive
development
of
curriculum provided
2. Poor teaching pedagogy.
3. Substance P & P about attracting
students.

PERSONAL FACTOR
Poverty, financial peer influence (very
dominant with the problem, a big
impact on the pupils)

MENTAL FACTOR
Weak brain, self-management, lazy
thinking, problem 3M

PHYSICAL FACTORS
Poor health, malnutrition, help
families find the maintenance,
defects.

PSYCHOLOGICAL
FACTORS
Phobia emotional problems, trauma,
hatred, grudge & confused.