1. About psychological counseling, its purpose.
2. What is the basis of the dialogue between the consultant and the client.
3. Why is it important to ask the right questions.
4. What encouragement and comfort serve.
5. Why you need to paraphrase and generalize words.
6. What is the "mirror principle".
7. Is it useful to be silent.
8. What are the types of personalities and why it is important when consulting.
About the author: R. Kočiūnas is a doctor of psychology, a practicing psychologist-psychotherapist with a European certificate of psychotherapy. He opened the existential direction in psychology in the post-Soviet space. Director of the Institute of Humanistic and Existential Psychology (HEPI), professor at Vilnius University, general secretary of the East European Association for Existential Therapy (EEAET).
Insight 1. Psychological counseling and its purpose
Psychological counseling is a field of practical psychology, in which different methods are used to solve human problems from such spheres as: professional activity, family, marriage, interpersonal communication, personal development. The very concept of counseling arose in psychotherapy in the forties and fifties (introduced by K. Rogers), due to a social request for psychological assistance by psychologically healthy people who did not have clinical disorders. But they needed psychological support in everyday difficulties.
By itself, psychological counseling is an individual or group interaction of a consultant with a client on the principle of "personality-personality". The objectives are defined as follows:
- help the client in the choice and actions at his discretion;
- teach a new, adaptive and adequate type of behavior;
- develop responsibility and the ability to make decisions appropriate to situations;
- focus on the provisions of the client-centered therapy created by the already named Rogers. The therapy is based on the unconditional value of each person and their respect, the ability to take responsibility for themselves;
- everyone's right to their values and to make their own decisions.
Insight 2. Interaction of a counselor psychologist with a client
In psychological counseling, the role and place of the counselor psychologist are determined by his character and the theoretical knowledge gained. Three positions of the consultant in relation to the client are professional and important:
- — , — , . , ;
- «» — , ;
- «» — , , .
- , , , , . , . , , , , , , , , . :
- , ;
- ;
- .
3. ,
Interaction with the client and further introspection is impossible without thoughtful questions. They are classified as closed and open. The first is used to obtain specific information, counting on an answer in one or two words, confirmation or denial: "yes", "no"; or: "How old are you?", "Can we meet in a week at the same time?" "," How many times have you had fits of anger? "Open-ended questions are not needed to get information about life, as they encourage to discuss feelings. Examples of open-ended questions:" Where would you like to start today? "," How do you feel now? "," What saddened you? " The bottom line is that they draw the client's attention to himself, allowing him to speak out and so find the root of the problem. Such questions must be carefully formulated and asked at the right time: the question must be justified by the goal,with which he is asked. Questions "Who, what?" concern the facts, the questions "How?" focused on a person, his behavior, inner world, questions "Why?" are capable of provoking defensive reactions in clients, so they are best avoided when counseling. Also - do not ask indirectly or directly the same thing, do not ask a question in such a way that it is also the answer. Dialogue cannot consist only of questions. Any of them should naturally complement the overall tone of the conversation.Any of them should naturally complement the overall tone of the conversation.Any of them should naturally complement the overall tone of the conversation.
Insight 4. Techniques of reassurance and calming
Are technicians for creating and strengthening a consultative contact. A phrase expressing agreement, understanding is capable of encouraging the client: "Continue", "Yes, I understand", "Good" and the like. This technique allows you to express support, empathy. If the client is calmed down, he will believe in himself and open up more. For example: “Don't worry about it”, “You did the right thing”, “Everybody feels the same from time to time”, “I know it will be difficult, but you not only can, but must do it”. You should not only use this technique often, shifting onto yourself the strengthening of the interlocutor's independence. The phrase "everything will be fine" in the minds of many people does not mean anything and is perceived as a lack of sincere empathy, this phrase should be used sparingly.
Insight 5. Paraphrasing and summarizing the client's words
To reflect the content of the client's confessions, they usually paraphrase his statements or generalize somewhat: this way a person makes sure that he is carefully heard and understood. And the client himself understands himself better. Wherein:
- the main idea of the client is paraphrased;
- it is forbidden to distort or replace the meaning of the client's statement, add anything from yourself;
- it is necessary to avoid "parroting" - the verbatim repetition of the interlocutor's statement.
In other words, the technique of paraphrasing helps to streamline the client's thought, direct it in a constructive direction. Examples of communicative situations.
Client: I don't know how to live on. Sometimes I think that I should give up everything and go to work, or it seems to me that I need to continue studying, but I don't know what to choose.
Consultant: You have an internal struggle for further self-determination in life, and it is difficult for you to decide which of the two paths is more correct today.
Generalization - Ivey (1971) describes work situations for this:
- structuring at the beginning of the conversation to integrate it with previous conversations;
- if the client speaks in a long and confusing manner;
- in the case when one topic of the conversation has already been exhausted (it is planned to move to the next topic, the next stage of the dialogue;
- you need to give a certain direction to the conversation;
- generalization is used by the consultant at the end of the meeting to emphasize the significant points of the conversation, to give an assignment for the time marked before the next consultation.
Both of these techniques can be effective in the counseling process. One has only to apply them thoughtfully, at the right time.
Insight 6. The principle of the mirror: reflection of feelings
Emotions in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, according to Bougenthal, are like blood in surgery: they cannot be avoided, they perform a cleansing function, stimulating healing. Feelings are important in counseling, but for all their strength, they cannot be an end in themselves. Cognition, reflection of feelings is both a technique and a component of a dialogue between two people. To reflect the client's feelings, the counselor listens carefully to his confessions, paraphrasing some of the statements, focusing specifically on the feelings expressed by the client. It is very important that after the questions there is no emotional ignorance of the interlocutor, as in the following situation.
Client: My husband and I have been friends since childhood and after graduation we got married. I thought - what a wonderful married life would be! But everything turned out to be completely different ...
Consultant: How many years have you been married?
As you can see, here the consultant is interested in facts, but not experiences. Continuing the dialogue can be more productive when the consultant allows the interlocutor to continue the confession or asks the question: "What does" not at all like that "mean to you?" Reflection of feelings is a prerequisite for maintaining counseling contact in client-oriented therapy. The ability to reflect feelings implies the ability to recognize them. Therefore, you should pay attention to both the content of the conversation, and its tone, the client's posture, facial expressions. There are also feelings in what is not voiced , but it is assumed.Therefore, the consultant has to be attentive to various hints, silences and pauses.This can be a state when silence is more eloquent than words.
Emotions in counseling are accompanied by a number of principles related to the reflection of the client's feelings and the expression of feelings by the counselor:
- the consultant is obliged to correlate feelings as fully and accurately as possible: his own and the client's;
- you should pay attention to feelings if they cause a problem in counseling or can support the client, help him.
The problem is usually caused by fear, anxiety, anger, hostility. Therefore, you should draw the client's attention to the following feeling: “Today you seem rather angry” - then, in order to understand and reduce the negative. You need to help the client to reveal negative feelings so that he learns to control them. It is important to give the client emotional support and praise their success. For example, if, being depressed, a person found the strength to do something around the house, or - overcame any destructive state. The counselor should express feelings related to the topic of the conversation.
Insight 7. Pauses of silence, psychotherapeutic ethics
Most people feel embarrassed if the conversation is interrupted and silence ensues. However, the ability to remain silent, using silence for therapeutic purposes, is one of the key skills in objective counseling. For example, good friends do not need to talk all the time, and lovers spend time in silence. So the consultant, "reading" the silence:
- increases emotional understanding between yourself and the client;
- enables the client to immerse himself in himself, explore his feelings, attitudes, values, behavior;
- helps the client understand that the responsibility for the conversation belongs to him.
Significant meanings of silence in counseling express anxiety, an attempt to collect thoughts, confusion (with a client). The counselor needs periods of silence in order to reflect on the past part of the conversation and formulate the next question or not to miss an important one. A pause may indicate that the client and the consultant are looking forward to continuing the dialogue, each on their part. Or that the conversation is at an impasse. Or the client is deliberately silent, checking the reactions of the specialist. Don't let the client manipulate the silence. You need to behave as the situation requires: the consultant is obliged to break the empty silence and not rush to do the same when there is a productive silence. If the client falls silent and the silence lasts a long time, you can make the comment: “You seem to be very thoughtful. Would not like to sharewhat do you feel now? " or "What is important for yourself do you hear in this silence?" At the same time, it is worth remembering that the client bears his own responsibility, whether to break his silence.
Also, the psychotherapist is obliged to observe ethics. Ethical provisions are variable, but the main one is that the consultant is obliged to inform the client about:
- main purposes of counseling;
- their qualifications;
- consulting fees;
- the approximate duration of the consultation:
- advisability of counseling;
- the risk of a possible temporary deterioration in the condition during the counseling process;
- confidentiality framework.
The privacy boundary begins where there is a security threat to someone. Also, the consultant is strictly forbidden to enter into an intimate relationship with the client. Where they take place - counseling ends up as such. At the same time, in his practice, a consultant one way or another encounters completely different people, who have not only different problems, but also types of personalities that differ from one another in behavior and symptoms. Each of these personalities requires a special professional approach of the consultant. The selection of a psychological technique for correcting one or another behavior, if it is destructive, also depends on the type of personality. The consultant himself in the process also adapts to the client in a certain way, which requires accuracy and specific skills, already as a practicing specialist, and not just a person,engaged in a frank conversation.
Insight 8. Practical counseling of different types of individuals
In everyday life, you may encounter a person of a certain personality type and not know how to behave correctly in this case. Or it can be difficult for a novice psychologist to immediately recognize the type of client. There are a number of signs by which it is easy enough to do this and choose a technique.
Personality disturbing- often interrupts the consultant during the conversation. It is appropriate to ask directly whether the client understands what he is doing. If a person avoids self-orientation of the conversation, you need to understand how this evasive behavior benefits him. In this case, a complete personality analysis is needed. You should also let the client speak out, express his anxiety in words: voicing the client's experiences reduces the degree of his anxiety, which interferes with normal communicative contact. Therefore, you should discuss his condition with an anxious client, fix your attention on the present, and not on the disturbing future. That is, to summarize what the client said for a specific period of time. The question "What is happening now?", Which the consultant asks the client from time to time, so that he understands what is happening and his problem, can help to return to the present.
A depressed person should be taught to know and hear their own desires, goals, values, eliminating the obsessive desire to adapt to someone. Counseling for a depressed person is aimed at returning her to herself, her individuality, building relationships with a world that is not hostile and does not seek to suppress. It is necessary to form in a depressed person an image of himself to which he aspires, an idea of himself, what he wants to become, to outline real ways and goals to achieve this.
Aggressive personality- a person usually responds in a mirror-like manner to an intense emotional experience of a dialogue partner: to anxiety - with anxiety, to sadness - with sadness, and aggression - with aggression. This pattern is based on the phenomenon of syntonicity: a person's emotional complicity with what is happening around. An acute reaction is inherent in persons with the cycloid and schizoid type of disorder. Therefore, in order to soften, and not make the client's aggression more, one should not react, not respond to his emotions, not reinforce them or reinforce them. Practically - confidently and calmly listen to the client, without getting involved in his experiences.
An aggressive personality, when calmly perceived, revealing respect and acceptance for emotional reactions, finds that an aggressive outburst is useless and usually calms down, then more calmly engages in dialogue. This is due to the understanding that a person is heard in his calm state.
Psychological counseling for clients with psychosomatic illnesses is associated with the study of the history of their life, the formation and formation of personality, its psychological problems. Particular attention should be paid to early childhood trauma and psychological conflicts that originated in the parental family. To resolve the conflicts that are relevant for consultation, an analysis of the first basic conflict that entails symptoms is required. The psychosomatic patient may be characterized by latent and suppressed aggressiveness towards the specialist. Its representatives of dynamic psychiatry call "deficit aggressiveness". She also protects the client, as he himself perceives it. If a person suffers from alexetimia - he is not able to understand and express his feelings, it is required to apply the techniques of body-oriented psychotherapy.
The personality is schizoid - is at a considerable distance from others and the world itself. She is helpless in him. When working with a schizoid personality, a consultant is also obliged to maintain a psychological, emotional distance, not allowing himself to be too openly involved in the inner world of the schizoid. Such a person reacts aggressively to any rapprochement, so he should feel safe, no matter what happens during the consultation.
With such a client, the connection technique is optimal - that is, the use of the most acceptable way for a schizoid to interact. Priority - on an intellectual level, together with the client to analyze phenomena and events, rationally try to understand their meaning and meaning, establish logical connections between phenomena and objects, forming an explanatory logical scheme for a person that he could accept purely at the level of intelligence
Personality of the hysteroid type- differs in brightness, demonstrativeness, eccentricity of external behavior. Strives for change and freedom, thirst for everything new and risky. Avoids restrictions, traditions, patterns and order. A typical expression of hysterical behavior is an obsession with satisfying one's desire in spite of everything. A novice consultant may be impressed by the unusualness of the hysterical personality, the manner of speech, the intention to deal with their problems, which seems obvious. However, hysterics love the game. At the same time, a sexual tone, seduction can be given to psychological contact with a specialist. Therefore, sense control and maximum distance are very important here. The very sexual behavior of hysterics often has the character of a game, which E. Bern called "dynamo": first there is a sexual provocation, and then,when a person begins to react, blaming him for unlawful behavior. Without getting involved in the emotions of the client, the consultant must remain at a rational, intellectual level of interpreting events, revealing reality to the client as it really is. Relatively speaking, drop from heaven to earth. This kind of work is definitely emotionally difficult. It requires constant training from the specialist himself.
- one of the most difficult types. He differs significantly from others: both in his attitude towards himself and towards other people. For her, they are a source of danger or pleasure, regardless of whether the other person wants the same. This is a person constantly taking. She cannot give. Therefore, he is often satiated, has no control over his needs. She is impulsive, aggressive, it is difficult for her to empathize with anyone, almost impossible. People with such disorders are extremely cruel, self-centered. At the same time, they tend to skillfully manipulate, shift the blame onto others (projection). When working with antisocial clients, the consultant needs to correlate his feelings with reality at any time and rely on them, because this is a sure way to avoid manipulation by the client and do his job properly. As seen,with insufficient preparation, the consultant is not immune from the negative influence of the person with whom he works. It is important here to maintain rationality, to be able to distinguish between certain manifestations emanating from a person. That is why distance is so important, the ability to build it in acute situations. However, this cannot replace the maximum possible understanding of the person who needs help. After all, objective psychological support is a natural component of successful therapy: at first, a person relies on a consultant in a situation in which he cannot rely on himself. It also helps fight fears and phobias that are not easy to deal with alone. In the course of counseling on a problem of concern to the client, being (along with the client) in the process of learning,the consultant is obliged to follow the principles of correctness, self-control, respect for the individual, observe ethics, not cross the line of professional relations when interacting with the client who has asked for help. The structuring process can facilitate this task for the practicing consultant.
Insight 9. Concept and purpose of structuring
Structuring in one way or another relates to the process of consulting as a whole. It means organizing the relationship between the consultant and the client, isolating each stage of consulting, evaluating its result. Also - providing the client with the maximum possible amount of information about the consulting process. In practice, after completing one stage, the consultant, together with the client, discusses the results and formulates conclusions. To make sure that the evaluations of the results of a particular stage by the consultant and the client coincide with each other. Thus, structuring is present in the process throughout the entire consultation, as an integral part of it.
Working with a client is carried out according to the “step by step” principle: each next stage begins with an assessment of what has been achieved. This approach contributes to the desire of the client to actively (productively) cooperate with the consultant, creating the opportunity, in case of failure at a separate stage, to return to the past. The essence of structuring is the client's participation in planning the consultation process - the person in need of assistance is not on the sidelines.
The ultimate (and main) goal of psychological counseling for a client with any problem in the field of psychology is to help the client go through all the stages of personal experiences and growth, come to adaptation, and find himself in changed conditions. The consultant becomes a guide to this renewed reality, ensuring that the client's vision becomes undistorted and holistic. Only together a consultant and a client can achieve the best result, solving a wide range of psychological problems that arise in the life of almost every person.