EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Humanism, People Orientation, Intellectual Curiosity

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Lesson 09

EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR

Example of Congruence

Client: "My parents do not understand me. When I want to communicate my viewpoint to them, they think

I am being disrespectful. They don't understand that disagreeing does not mean being rude"

Counselor: "These kinds of communication gaps can sometime exist between parents and their children.

When I was a teenager I often thought that it was difficult to make my parents understand what I felt".

Meta Analysis of Combs et al. (1969)

Major differences between effective and ineffective counselors were their personal beliefs and traits. Roger

maintained that counselor's theory and methods were far less important than the client's perception of the

counselor's attitude. The personal characteristics model for addressing the health and wellness of the

counselor or therapist has been discussed from perspectives other than that of Carl Rogers:

Combs and his colleagues (1969) conducted a series of studies resulting in the conclusion that the personal

beliefs and traits of the counselor or therapist differentiated between effective and ineffective helping. Some

of these traits are as under:

· Effective helpers seem to perceive others as able, rather than unable, to solve their own problems

and manage their own lives. Effective helpers also perceive others as dependable, friendly, worthy,

able to cope, and able to be communicative and self-disclosing.

· In general, effective helpers maintain a positive view of human nature and approach. Family,

friends, colleagues, and clients in a trusting, affirming way.

· The major technique of counseling was the "self as instrument"

· Effective counselors perceived other people as able rather than unable to solve their own problems.

Moreover they perceive people as dependable, friendly and worthy.

· More likely to identify with people rather than things

Meier and Davis (2001):

Helpers who are the most effective strive to apply the four following principles to assess characteristics and

traits that impact their own ability to assist others and may reflect their own level of health and wellness:

· Become aware of your personal issues

· Be open to supervision

· Avoid hiding behind the use of too many tests

· Consult when presented with an ethical dilemma.

Other Personal Characteristics of an Effective Counselor

· Motives

· Emotional Responsiveness

· Sense of Worth & Anxieties

· Sex-Role Identity and Expectations

· Values

· Cultural Bias

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Counselor's Motives to Enter the Profession: Beneficial Motives

Humanism

Humanism (commitment to create a better world) involves empowering others by fostering their

personal development. Humanism allows counselors to commit themselves to the struggle to make

themselves and others better people for the sake of a better world.

People Orientation

Holland's theory of personality types asserts that the special heredity and experiences of people lead

to the characteristics of six main personality types realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising

and conventional. The social personality type in particular is found in the helping professions.

Illustrative characteristics of the social personality type are responsible, helpful, friendly, idealistic,

feminine, insightful and kind.

Intellectual Curiosity

Effective counselors tend to enjoy the challenge of making and testing hypotheses about human

behavior. They are in a constant process of revising their models of the person and of counseling

practice

Worked-through Emotional Pain

Counselors who have worked through their pain and attained some distance from it may have extra

sensitivity to the needs of others.

Commitment to Competence

Effective counselors like to do things well and are prepared to work at it. There are many

dimensions of competence: like honestly evaluating counseling process, keep well studied, prepared

to work on professional issues, learning from supervisor, and professional integrity.

Counselor's Motives to Enter the Profession: Harmful Motives

Unresolved Emotional Pain

Counselors who have unresolved emotional pain, their underlying agenda may be to seek help rather than to

provide it. Their attraction to nurturing others stems from their own need to be nurtured.

Do-Gooding

These counselors may wish to take charge and, by so doing, treat clients as objects and infantilize them. Do-

gooders may overly concern themselves with obtaining clients' approval and appreciation for their good

works.

Seeking Intimacy

Some people are attracted to counseling because it provides opportunities for psychological closeness they

find difficult to obtain otherwise. This way of gaining emotional closeness was one of Carl Rogers's

motivations for becoming a counselor (Rogers, 1980).

True Blieverism

True-believerism implies lack of openness to conflicting evidence and to the specific needs of individual

clients. For example, true believers in the rights of minority groups, believers in term of theoretical

positions: for example, hard line rational emotive behavior therapy or gestalt therapy advocates.

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Emotional Responsiveness

You bring to counseling your capacity to experience your feelings. Many reasons exist why it is important

for counselors to be responsive to their flow of feeling. These reasons include being genuine, spontaneous

and able to resonate and appropriately to respond to clients' feelings. Your feelings are good guide to issues

in your relationships with clients.

Inability and Repressing Feelings

As you grew up you learned, in varying degrees, that it is unsafe to acknowledge, experience and express all

feelings. For example, if in adolescent, someone is told that it is sin to think about opposite sex. The person

as adult may feel anxious when is having intimacy with his or her spouse in adult life. Consequently, some

people find it difficult to express any feelings. They are emotionally flat and lifeless. Different families may

inhibit or dilute the experiencing of specific emotions like sensuality, anger, sadness or death anxiety.

Moreover, families vary in the extent to which they encourage children to experience and show altruistic

feelings. Differences also exist across cultural, gender and social class groups. For example, the `strong,

silent' type is a male stereotype. It may be that because of this gender stereotype, as compared to women

men often find it difficult to be empathic and emotionally responsive.

Internalize others' feeling as if your own

The main thrust of Rogers's person-centered therapy is to assist clients to experience their own inner

valuing process rather than to deny and distort their feelings. Counselors learn to internalize the feelings of

significant others in their past as if they were their own.

Transferring unfinished business

Both counselors and clients can distort their perceptions and feelings towards one another by transferring

perceptions from past relationships. Transferred feelings can be either positive or negative.

Counselor's Sense of worth & Anxieties

Sense of worth

Insecurities and fears, if not confronted and managed, can be the breeding ground for distorted

communication. This is also determined by one's relationships with parents. For example, members of

facilitative families help each other to become a mentally healthy person. Parents of retarding families feel

insecure and they transmit their insecurity to their children. Counselor's resulting lack of sense of worth as a

consequence of their own insecurities can hinder the counseling relationship.

Meaninglessness and Alienation

Rollo May talked about modern individual's isolation from the environment. Similarly, Carl Jung and Victor

Frankl (Viennese psychiatrist) maintained that sense of meaning keeps us alive. Sullivan maintained that

90% of human communication is specially designed not to communicate. There is a close connection

between your (counselor's) sense of worth and feelings of anxiety:

· Insecurity manifests and engenders anxiety. People who feel worthwhile are relatively free from

debilitating anxieties.

· Counselor anxiety may be facilitating, debilitating or both. For example, a little anxiety will increase

the counselor's sensitivity to feel the client's problems. However, it may also make the counselor

more anxious or defensive. For example, the rule `I must always have my clients' approval' leads to

over-sensitivity to cues of rejection.

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Fears and Anxieties

Positive Consequences

· Sensitivity to clients' anxieties

· Necessary to tone counselors up

Negative Consequences

· May cease to listen accurately

· May perceive and relate to clients in terms of their own needs

· Assuming too much responsibility

Results of excessive anxiety

Specific behaviors that may result from excessive counselor anxiety include:

· Asking too many questions.

· Offering superficial reassurance and being too directive in telling clients how to behave.

Sex-Role Identity and Expectations

· Certain psychological characteristics have been traditionally viewed as either `feminine' or

`masculine'. Feminine characteristics have included being affectionate, gentle, sensitive to the need

of others, tender and warm. Masculine characteristics have included being aggressive, ambitious,

assertive, analytical and dominant.

· Sex-role identity develops due to the socialization process. The books we read show boys and girls

in different roles, as did the films and television programs we watch. Similarly, both male and

female children are exposed to different treatments in schools, for example, the subjects they were

encouraged to study and the occupations thought appropriate for them varied by sex.

· The androgynous male or female `is flexible masculine or feminine as circumstances warrant' (Bem,

1981, p.362).

· Our current sex-role identity is the internalized sum of individual differences, personal situational

factors and cultural, social and environmental influences. The traditional feminine sex role has

created problems for many women in such areas as expressing anger, being autonomous and

obtaining power and status. The traditional masculine role has created problems for many men

through excessive concern with success, power and competition, being emotionally inexpressive

and restricting affectionate behavior between men.

· Counselor may assess clients differently according to whether or not they fit into traditional sex

roles. Thus, females and males can be brought up with the capacity to express a range of

characteristics independently of whether they have traditionally been viewed as `masculine' or

`feminine'. For instance, men can be tender and women assertive.

· As long as males and females adopt the strengths rather than the deficits of the other sex's gender

characteristics, androgyny is helpful for enriching people's lives.

· The counselor may engage in simplistic over-generalizations about the characteristics of males and

females and insufficiently acknowledge within-group differences.

Activity 1: My Sex-Role Identity and Expectations

· Did you get different toys on account of your sex?

· Did you get different clothes including their colour, on account of your sex?

· What roles your mother and father play in caring for you as a child?

· Who does/did the following tasks in your family: dusting, shopping for food, ironing, washing clothes,

cooking, mending clothes, looking after the car, fixing machinery, changing a fuse, decorating house, etc.

Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Activity 2: Learning Psychological Characteristics

Which of the following psychological characteristics do you consider each of your parents either

encouraged you or discouraged you to show?

Gentleness, ambitiousness, feeling of vulnerability, sensitivity, competitiveness, career orientation,

dominance, concern with your clothes, being nurturing, home orientation.

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