Study counselling skills for professional development.

• Improve communication skills both personally and professionally. 
• Use counselling skills in areas, such as parenting, teaching, retail work, youth work, management, personnel, training, volunteer work, support work and much more.
• Learn about counselling theories, counselling techniques, micro skills, active listening, reflection, finding solutions and much more.
• Study in your own home and at your own pace.

WHO IS THIS COURSE SUITABLE FOR?

This course is suitable for –

• Volunteer counsellors
• Trainee counsellors
• Police officers
• Law enforcement
• Teachers
• Social workers
• Parents
• Foster carers
• Carers
• Support workers
• Welfare workers
• Counsellors wishing to update their knowledge
• Retail staff
• Hairdressers
• Anyone wishing to start counselling

- In fact, anyone who works with people would benefit from using counselling skills.

COURSE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

The course is divided into 8 lessons as follows:

Lesson 1. Learning Specific Skills

• What is Counselling?
• Perceptions of Counselling.
• Differences between Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists.
• Counselling Theories.
• Empathy.
• Transference.
• Directiveness, Non Directiveness.
• Behavioural Therapies.
• Systematic Desensitisation.
• Positive Reinforcement and Extinction.
• Goals of Psychoanalytical Approach.
• Defence Mechanisms (Repression, Displacement, Rationalisation, Projection, Reaction Formulation, Intellectualisation, Denial, Sublimation).
• Use of Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy.
• Psychoanalytic Techniques.
• Analytic Framework.
• Free Associations.
• Interpretation.
• Dream Analysis.
• Resistance and Transference.
• Humanistic Therapy.
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of Therapies and Counsellors.
• Case Studies.
• Methods of Learning.
• Micro Skills.
• Triads.
• Modelling.
• Online and Telephone Counselling.
• Telemental Health.
• Clinical Considerations.

Lesson 2. Listening and Bonding

• Scope of Listening and Bonding.
• Meeting and Greeting.
• Creating a Safe Environment.
• Location.
• Time and Duration of Sessions.
• Privacy in Telephone and Online Counselling.
• Showing Warmth on the Phone.
• The Contract.
• Helping the Client Relax.
• Listening with Intent.
• Minimal Responses.
• Non Verbal Behaviour.
• Use of Voice.
• Use of Silence.
• Case Studies.
• Active Listening.
• Dealing with Silent Phone Calls.

Lesson 3. Reflection

• Non Directive Counselling.
• Paraphrasing.
• Feelings.
• Reflection of Feeling.
• Client Responses to Reflection of Feelings.
• Reflection of Content and Feeling.
• Case Studies.

Lesson 4. Questioning

• Open and Closed Questions.
• Other types of Questions (Linear, Information seeking, Strategic, Reflective, Clarification, etc).
• Questions to Avoid.
• Goals of Questioning.
• Identification.
• Assessment.
• Intervention.
• Case Studies.

Lesson 5. Interview Techniques

• Summarising.
• Application.
• Confrontation.
• Reframing.
• Case Studies.
• Perspective.
• Summary.

Lesson 6. Changing Beliefs and Normalising

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
• Changing Self-Destructive Beliefs.
• Irrational Beliefs.
• Normalising.
• Case Studies.
• Designing a Questionnaire.

Lesson 7. Finding Solutions

• Moving Forward.
• Choices (Reviewing, Creating, Making choices).
• Facilitating Actions.
• Gestalt Awareness Circle.
• Psychological Blocks.
• Case Study.

Lesson 8. Ending the Counselling

• Terminating the Session.
• Closure.
• Further Meetings.
• Dependency.
• Confronting Dependency.
• Chronic Callers.
• Terminating Silent Phone Calls.
• Silent Endings.
• Case Study.
• Other Services.

COURSE AIMS

• The ability to explain the processes involved in the training of counsellors in micro skills.
• Demonstrate the skills involved in commencing the counselling process and evaluation of non-verbal responses and minimal responses.
• Demonstrate reflection of content, feeling, both content and feeling, and its appropriateness to the counselling process.
• Develop different questioning techniques and to understand risks involved with some types of questioning.
• Show how to use various micro-skills including summarising, confrontation, and reframing.
• To demonstrate self-destructive beliefs and show methods of challenging them, including normalising.
• Explain how counselling a client can improve their psychological well-being through making choices, overcoming psychological blocks and facilitating actions.
• Demonstrate effective ways of terminating a counselling session and to explain ways of addressing dependency.

WHAT YOU WILL DO IN THIS COURSE

• Report on an observed counselling session, simulated or real.
• Identify the learning methods available to the trainee counsellor.
• Demonstrate difficulties that might arise when first learning and applying micro skills.
• Identify why trainee counsellors might be unwilling to disclose personal problems during training.
• Identify risks that can arise for trainee counsellors not willing to disclose personal problems.   
• Discuss different approaches to modelling, as a form of counselling
• Evaluate verbal and non-verbal communication in an observed interview.
• Identify the counsellor’s primary role (in a generic sense).
• Show how to use minimal responses as an important means of listening with intent.
• Explain the importance of different types of non-verbal response in the counselling procedure.
• Report on the discussion of a minor problem with an anonymous person which that problem relates to.
• Identify an example of paraphrasing as a minimal response to reflect feelings.
• Discuss the use of paraphrasing in counselling.
• Differentiate catharsis from confused thoughts and feelings.
• Identify an example of reflecting back both content (thought) and feeling in the same phrase
• Report on the discussion of a minor problem with an anonymous person which that problem relates to.
• Identify an example of paraphrasing as a minimal response to reflect feelings.
• Discuss the use of paraphrasing in counselling.
• Differentiate catharsis from confused thoughts and feelings.
• Identify an example of reflecting back both content (thought) and feeling in the same phrase
• Demonstrate and observe varying responses to a variety of closed questions in a simulated counselling situation.
• Demonstrate/observe varying responses to a variety of open questions in a simulated counselling situation.
• Compare your use of open and closed questions in a counselling situation.
• Identify the main risks involved in asking too many questions
• Explain the importance of avoiding questions beginning with ‘why’ in counselling.
• Identify in observed communication (written or oral), the application of different micro-skills which would be useful in counselling.
• Demonstrate examples of when it would be appropriate for the counsellor to use confrontation
• List the chief elements of good confrontation.
• Discuss appropriate use of confrontation, in case studies.
• Show how reframing can be used to change a client’s perspective on things.
• Develop a method for identifying the existence of self-destructive beliefs (SDB’s).
• Identify self-destructive beliefs (SDB’s) amongst individuals within a group.
• Explain the existence of self destructive beliefs in an individual.
• List methods that can be used to challenge SDB’s?
• Explain what is meant by normalising, in a case study.
• Demonstrate precautions that should be observed when using normalizing.
• Determine optional responses to different dilemmas.
• Evaluate optional responses to different dilemmas.
• Explain how the ‘circle of awareness’ can be applied to assist a client, in a case study.
• Explain why psychological blockages may arise
• Demonstrate how a counsellor might help a client to overcome psychological blockages.
• Describe the steps a counsellor would take a client through to reach a desired goal, in a case study.
• Identify inter-dependency in observed relationships.
• Explain why good time management is an important part of the counselling process.
• Compare terminating a session with terminating the counselling process.
• Demonstrate dangers posed by client - counsellor inter-dependency
• Explain how dependency can be addressed and potentially overcome.
• Explain any negative aspects of dependency in a case study.

WHAT DO OUR STUDENTS THINK?

"This course has been extremely valuable to me as throughout those 5 months my friends all seemed to go through some crisis or other. I have learned so much that I could put into practice and from the responses I have had, it's been very positive. Tutor feedback was fantastic. All individual answers were given a comment which helped me understand if I missed something."    
Brenda Harvey, Counselling Skills I course.

WHY DO THIS COURSE?

• Improve your communication and counselling skills with this course.
• Understand more about counselling skills.
• Study counselling skills I for professional development.
• Gain an insight into the use of counselling skills in many situations.

WHAT NEXT?

• You can start our Counselling Skills I course at any time - Register to Study - Go to “It’s Easy to Enrol” box at the top of the page and you can enrol now.
  or
• Phone us on (UK) 01384 442752, or (International) +44 (0) 1384 442752, OR
• Submit you questions to our specialist Psychology And Counselling tutors - they will help you in choosing a course which suits your goals.