EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Personal Characteristics Model

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Lesson 08

EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR

Early Experiences of Effective Counselors:

Gerald Corey has spent 30 years in the field as a professor of human services and counseling at California

State University. He is a licensed psychologist and a fellow of APA Counseling division. He has received the

outstanding professor award in 1991.

He has described his early experiences and how he felt at various stages of his life when he aimed and

desired to be a helper, and then when he finally became a psychologist.

· "When I was in college, I wanted to help others, and it was important for me to change the world.

As a child and adolescent I did not feel that my presence made that much difference. In college

years I experienced some success and found some positive routes to being recognized. Later, when

I began my teaching career, I began to see that I could make a difference. I also got personal

satisfaction from knowing that I was a useful person. In fact, I think that I depended (and still do)

to a large extent on my professional accomplishments for my sense of identity".

When he entered into counseling practice, how did he feel and behave. Some description about how he felt

is given below:

· "In the beginning of my career, I did not feel confident, and I often wondered whether I was

suitable for the field. I felt incompetent and inexperienced next to my co-leader".

· "When I began as practicing counselor....I remember progress being very slow, and it seemed that

I needed an inordinate amount of immediate and positive feedback. When after several weeks a

client was still talking about feeling anxious or depressed, I immediately felt my own incompetence

as a helper. I did not know what to say or do in front of my so effective supervisor".

· "I had no idea of what ...my clients were getting from our sessions...What I did not know at the

time was that clients need to struggle as a part of finding their own answers. My expectation was

that they should feel better quickly. I also did not appreciate that clients often began to feel worse

as they give up their defenses and open themselves to pain"

· "I was more inclined to accept clients who were bright, verbal, attractive, and willing to talk about

their problems than clients who seemed depressed or unmotivated to change...I learned in my

supervision that working with depressed patients was difficult for me because of my own reluctance

to deal with my own fears of depression. This experience taught me the important lesson that I

could not take clients in any direction that I had not been willing to explore in my own life"

This description shows how personal experiences help a person's capabilities and his relatedness to other

people. Also this shows that the beginning counselors may have many apprehensions because of their own

perceptions.

In this lecture, we will discuss that what makes an effective counselor. Researchers have highlighted the

importance of personal, psychological and multidimensional aspects of an effective counselor. First of all,

there shall be a discussion about the personal characteristics of an effective counselor.

Personal Characteristics Model

Counseling differs from most other occupations in that the tools are people who use various people skills to

help people to help themselves. The person-centered school (Rogers, 1957) identifies the following as

necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic change:

Empathy

ii)

Positive regard

iii)

Genuineness

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

i) Empathy

· Empathy is one of the most extensively studied personal characteristics in process-outcome

research. According to Rogers, empathy and unconditioned positive regard are the most important

personal characteristics for the effectiveness of therapy. If these conditions are fulfilled in the

counseling practice, perhaps no other conditions are necessary.

· Empathy has been described as seeing the world through another's eyes, hearing as clients might

hear, and feeling and experiencing their internal world. It is often described as the capacity to view

and understand the world through another person's frame of reference. Native American Indians

call this "walking in another's moccasins".

· Despite having an empathic attitude, the counselor remains separate (remain true to your beliefs)

from the client. Do not involve mixing your thoughts and feelings with those of others.

· Empathy is different from sympathy, as in sympathy we feel sorry for the sufferer, whereas in

empathy, the counselor perceives the individual as having full strengths for the personality

development.

· Rogers' landmark paper (1957) "The necessary and scientific conditions of therapeutic personality change"

explains that empathy and related constructs are all that is needed to produce change in a client.

Rogers considers empathy beyond an attitude. He considers it as specific actions and skills required

for an empathic attitude.

· In the landmark series of studies by Fiedler on empathy (1950, 1951), Fiedler suggests that the

expert therapists from various theoretical orientation share the element of empathy.

· Successful patients in behavioral and other therapies rated their personal interaction with the

therapist as the single most important part of treatment (Sloane & Staples, 1984). They accepted

empathy as a generic approach to the helping process.

· Review by Lambert & Bergin (1994): Trust, warmth, acceptance and human wisdom can help in

distress and viable relationships.

Exercise: Acceptance as the Foundation of Empathy

· Recall a time when you felt accepted by someone else just as you are or were. Remember the

situation in your mind. Can you locate a specific place in your body for your feelings? Use all

senses/ words.

· How do you imagine yourself if you were to work with a bully or an abuser? How do you feel? Can

you locate a specific place in your body for your feelings?

Hint: We need not accept the behavior, but at some level we must accept the person.

By doing this exercise you can explore your ability to accept. This example also shows the challenge of

empathy.

ii) Positive Regard

Positive regard can be defined as "being able to recognize values and strengths in clients even when client

holds widely different attitudes".

"The initial stages of therapy include a process that might be called exploration of resources....already existing

that may be enlarged once their existence is recognized" (Lena Tyler, 1961). Lena, in her classic counseling

text, minimum change therapy, suggests that people needs to stay most persistent in trying to locate ways of

coping with stress. She suggests that the counselor should pay attention to already existing resources, and

little attention be paid to weaknesses.

Fostering Positive Regard

· Resource development

· Encouragement and strength assessment

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Resources, strengths & the positive asset search by specific actions

Activity: Building Empathy on Strengths

· Discuss with the client possible areas of strengths in present-day life or the past, e.g., present &

past successes, supportive relations, spirituality, and love of nature.

· Draw out from the client a personal narrative or story that concentrates the positive strengths.

Note how the client's body may shift to a less tense situation. These positives may provide ideas for

full or partial solutions to many current client issues.

Positive Regard Facilitated through Respect

· Respect can be communicated either nonverbally or verbally through the language of respect. It's

very close to positive regard.

Examples: "you express your opinion well"; "good insight"

· The counselor does not have to support or respect the behavior to respect the client.

· Respect and warmth present a powerful combination.

Example: Nonverbal communication: smile as well as open gestures communicates warmth. Smile adds

power to counselor's comments.

Challenges to respect?

Antisocial or borderline personalities have history of abuse, hence with their attitude, such people can offer

a challenge to respect.

iii) Congruence or Genuineness

Genuineness--defined as consistency in values, attitudes, and behaviors on the part of the counselor or

therapist--is also the focus of therapeutic process research and is generally related positively to therapeutic

outcomes. Effective counselors are able to allow themselves to be seen by others as they actually are. Person

who conducts a counseling interview should be authentic and real (Rogers, 1957). Being yourself, freely and

deeply, is opposite to presenting a façade.

At times complete openness and spontaneity of expression may be damaging to the client.

There is some evidence that sometime conservative, who developed relationships more slowly, may bring

less harm to the therapy. Yalom & Miller's Study (1972) showed that "open and authentic" leaders produced

more casualties than did more conservative counselors.

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