In this reflective essay, I will discuss my second practice session in the counselling skills

module, using my own recollection of the session and how I felt during and after, and
supplement this with the recording I made and using the written feedback I received from
my peers. I will review my use of many outlined counselling skills, such as paraphrasing, non-
verbal communication and my use of and display of empathy. As well as discussing the
significance of the client’s class, gender, and ethnicity and how this may have impacted my
implementation of these skills as well as the development of the therapeutic relationship.
Furthermore, I will reflect on my performance within this session using and comparing
against the theory behind counselling practice, analysing why or if my strengths are
important and what the effects of my weak points and shortcomings, in regard to my use of
these skills, could be on not only the progression of the counselling session but also the
development of rapport and the therapeutic relationship.

The client in this session was a white working-class man, the main issues discussed within
the session were his uncomfortableness with a perceived idleness in his life and struggles
and anxieties about reaching out to contact his friends to make plans. I found that the
client’s identity might have made it easier for me to come to an understanding of his
situation due to the similarities we share. Also, Johnson and Caldwell (2011) suggest that our
difference in gender may have benefitted the therapeutic relationship due to female
therapists normally being viewed within the larger schema which makes them seem more
emotionally supportive and suited to caring roles. However, I felt that my being a
transgender woman might have been a hindrance to the forming of an effective therapeutic
relationship due to a perceived difference in experience and understanding by the client.

One skill I believe I demonstrated well was non-verbal communication, which involves
behaviours such as posture, eye contact, tone of voice and how silence is handled, these
skills are important as it is generally suggested that these are the easily overlooked
groundwork for the therapeutic relationship as these non-verbal cues are often how a client
will assess the mood and attitude of a counsellor, and so maintaining eye contact and having
an open and relaxed posture will show to the client that the helper is ready and eager to
help and listen to them talk. A particularly sensitive aspect of non-verbal communication is
the use of silence, which McLeod and McLeod (2011) describe as having wide-ranging
effects depending on its use, either making the client feel ignored and unwanted by a
therapist or being used to encourage the client to feel in charge if the direction of the
session and the conversation. I feel that I was able to effectively utilise these skills within the
session as did not become uncomfortable with any of the silences and instead used them as
opportunities for both me and the client to think and consider what to say next. My opinion
of my implementation of silence and eye contact is also supported by the written feedback I
received, which largely supported my use of silence as effective in allowing the client space
to speak and consider his emotions, instead of the session being solely dictated by my
questions and the client’s answers.

Summarising is also an important and necessary tool within counselling, they involve and
require an empathetic understanding of the client’s view of their life, which a counsellor
must use to help clients reflect on themes in what they are talking about and also to show
the client a new perspective as summarising their actions can invite them to take into
account what the bigger picture of their life or the topics at hand might look like. The core
elements of summarising are outlined by Hough (2021) who states that summarising
typically involves showing an understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference and
what they’ve said and should not interrupt or be critical of the client and should also
accurately reflect the order in which events occurred so that it aids the client to look back on
the story they have told. The usefulness of these techniques is described by Egan (2018)
who shows, with examples how summarising can help to refocus sessions and point clients
towards deeper meanings or ways they can look forward and learn from their experience to
look for ways to cope better in the future. I do not feel that I utilised summaries very
effectively within this session as I spent more time using other methods to help clients look
past their current experiences such as by using prodding questions, and so have not shown a
confident display of summarising in an effort to assist my client’s perspective. This view is
influenced by the majority of the feedback from my peers which emphasises the lack of
summaries within the session and how summaries may have been helpful to reinforce and
demonstrate my active listening to the client, by displaying that not only did I hear what he
had said but also that I understood it enough to be able to condense and then rephrase his
experience in a constructive way. So, going forth I think this could be an important focus for
my development as a way to compliment all the skills I have already implemented well
within these practice sessions especially since summarising can be so useful for encouraging
clients to explore themes within their behaviours and experiences.

A counsellor’s use of questions is also a significant focus within a lot of theory surrounding
the practice, this is because questions can be used to great effect but can also be easily
misused and can impose the helper’s ideas about the direction of the session upon the
client, instead of allowing the client to explore and talk about what they want to in the way
they need to. McLeod and McLeod (2011) explain how a counsellor can misuse questions,
describing that, when asking questions as they would in everyday conversation, they can risk
interrupting the client’s flow of thought and stopping them from properly exploring what
they were trying to say. They also explain how questions all come from the frame of
reference of the person asking them, and so can be potentially damaging in a counselling
session as they convey certain assumptions that the counsellor has that may be incorrect or
might come as confusing to the client due to their different frame of reference. A useful way
to implement questions into a helping environment is given by Tolan and Cameron (2017)
who show how questions can be used to invite clients to take the conversation further or in
another direction, rather than just the counsellor imposing what they think would be best to
discuss in the session. I believe that my implementation of questions into the session was
mostly successful, I used short questions in an attempt to prompt the client to further
explore the feelings he was trying to discuss or to encourage him to delve into how these
feelings might be affecting the rest of his life. Importantly, I kept the majority of my
questions to prolonged pauses in the client’s speech, where it seemed to me that he was
unsure of what to say next, however, this meant that the types of questions I used were
largely limited, the written feedback I had received surrounding my use of questions was
overall quite positive, though some suggested that I could have also used at some other
points to display empathy by affirming what the client was feeling or even to interject at
some points to challenge some of the clients negative views of himself.
Arguably one of the most important and basic skills for a counsellor is active listening as it is
absolutely necessary to be able to fully process what a client is saying and feeling to be able
to help them and so to listen actively is important as a counsellor needs to not only hear and
understand what is being conveyed but also understand how the client needs to be
supported. It is also crucial that a counsellor can display their active listening to the client as
they need to understand that they are being listened to and understood, without this the
fundamentals of a therapeutic relationship cannot be formed, this is explained by Moss
(2020) who uses a list of different jobs to illustrate how active listening is necessary for the
basic functions of that job to show that active listening is an essential skill for
communicating to other people. Furthermore, Trevithick (2012) provides a list of 20 skills
involved in active listening to display how much of an involved and complicated process it
can be, and that is not something people can generally be expected to have a full grasp of. I
feel that, within the recorded session I displayed a decent grasp of active listening and was
able to help the client feel more comfortable exploring his feelings however, I also think that
I struggle to manage all elements at once, while I would focus on understanding and feeling
what the client was conveying, as well as maintaining a calm tone of voice I may have missed
some times where I could have supported the client or been more aware of how the time
passed so as to not make the start and end of the session seem so abrupt. The feedback
from my peers was overall positive, but also very mixed in what each individual thought I did
well in regards to active listening, some noted that I appeared comfortable with moments of
silence where the client seemed to me, to be looking for the words to say, whereas others
commended my relaxed and open posture and calm tone, to me the shows that I am able to
implement the basics of active listening well, but also need to work on bringing the
individual elements together cohesively.

Overall, I feel that I was mostly successful within the recorded practice counselling session as
the majority of often discussed skills I was able to confidently display, at least in some parts.
I also think that going forth, I would need to focus on consolidating what I do well as well as
working towards making the overall session seem more cohesive and natural without
rushing into certain elements and overlooking others, as while none of the written feedback
I received had any lengthy sections regarding skills I could improve upon, there were
certainly some sections that my peers picked up on that were not as developed as others,
such as my summarising and paraphrasing as well as how I transition from the introduction
to the main part of the session, as well as how and when I guide the session to its
conclusion.

Reference List

Egan, G. (2018) The skilled helper: a client-centred approach. Second edition, EMEA edn. Andover,
United Kingdom: Cengage Learning EMEA.

Hough, M. (2021) Counselling skills and theory. Fifth edn. London: Hodder Education.

Johnson, L. and Caldwell, B. (2011) “Race, Gender, and Therapist Confidence: Effects on Satisfaction
with the Therapeutic Relationship in Mft,” The American Journal of Family Therapy, 39(4), pp. 307–
324.

McLeod, J. and McLeod, J. (2011) Counselling skills : a practical guide for counsellors and helping
professionals. 2Nd ed. / edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Moss, B. (2020) Communication skills in nursing, health and social care. Fifth edn. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Tolan, J. and Cameron, R. (2017) Skills in person-centred counselling & psychotherapy. Third edn. Los
Angeles: SAGE (Skills in counselling & psychotherapy).

Trevithick, P. (2012) Social work skills and knowledge : a practice handbook. 3rd edn. Maidenhead,
Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.