In one effective conversation between a person who seeks help and the professional they have turned to, it can be witnessed the use of counseling skills. Those skills are a very important part of relationship building between the client and the counselor because they are viewed as the building blocks (McLeod, 2011). There is a range of different skills that are used in a counseling conversation starting with attending and ending with witnessing (McLeod, 2011). The counseling relationship creates space for conversations that are typically about something that has happened in the client’s life such as dilemmas, conflicts, or issues (McLeod, 2011). Individuals seeking counseling may have previously tried seeking help without achieving a desirable outcome so it is very important that counselors use counseling skills appropriately in order to provide the necessary help. In this essay, three skills will be discussed: attending, questioning, and the use of silence. My understanding of these skills will be presented by connecting them with an experience from my childhood. Finally, my future learning goals will be presented.
During the counseling session, the counselor’s attention should focus on the client (McLeod, 2011). In order to engage in the conversation, the counselor should concentrate on the present moment (Rigby, 2001). This is part of the skill of attending which shows the client that the counselor is listening (McLeod, 2011). Moreover, attending is giving physical attention to another person (Bolton, 1986). The full attention of the counselor is required in order to support clients in finding a resolution to the issues presented through greater self-understanding. This could also support the client to find solutions to problems in the future (Manthei & Munro, 1997). Moreover, Smaby and Maddux (2011) suggest that through the skill of attending, clients could establish if the counselor is ready to listen and help.
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Egan (1994) presents the important aspects of attentive conversation and suggests it consists of 5 characteristics – sitting properly, open posture, leaning forward and looking interested, eye contact, and remaining relaxed (SOLER). These aspects contribute to non-verbal communication which according to Rigby (2001) is very important for attending. Egan (1994) suggests that sitting at a comfortable angle facing the client shows that the counselor is ready to engage in conversation and an open posture conveys openness (Egan, 1994). Leaning forward and maintaining eye contact shows that the counselor is interested and engaged in the conversation (Egan, 1994). Remaining relaxed helps clients to not feel the tension and share at their own pace (Egan, 1994).
I consider attending as one of my strengths because I used to be a football player in my home country Bulgaria. In sports, individuals have to be 100% focused in order to perform well. Before every training, my coach used to say, “shake your head and go on the pitch!” He wanted the players to be fully invested in the training. I am very grateful to him because he taught me the importance of attention and discipline. Even when watching members of my team playing, I could see that when a team member has not focused their eyes were not on the ball, they were not relaxed and they were standing with crossed arms. All this resulted in a performance that was not good enough which led to their substitution. I wanted to be a regular starting player so before every training session I used to try hard to think only about football for the duration of the game. After more than 10 years of training, I adopted attending to other aspects of life. For example, before football training, I was easily distracted, which made studying very difficult. With the skill of attending, I discovered that if I want to be successful, I have to fully invest myself in it.
I have found attending very useful during the triads. I was able to easily maintain focus on the client by using my football coach’s method of clearing my head before the session. The feedback I received from the observers was very positive and it was reported that I maintained good eye contact. By focusing on the client, I was able to mimic their movement (In that case when the client leaned forward at the beginning of the session I leaned forward too). Moreover, Geldard and Geldard (2001) suggested that this matching of non-verbal behavior can help the clients relax and can enhance the counseling process. The feedback also suggested that I was very invested in the client, using the moments when the client looked elsewhere to quickly check the clock without being noticed and continue eye contact. The client provided feedback that they felt listened to and because of this, felt comfortable sharing more than anticipated.
I will continue improving my skills by following the SOLER (Egan, 1994) method in future triads and client sessions. Furthermore, I will be researching further into the use of attending and will also continue playing football by paying more attention to body movement.
The second skill that I will talk about is questioning. Questions represent linguistic forms for which the main purpose is to receive information and answers (McLeod, 2011). Neukrug (2012) suggests that in counseling the number of questioning techniques can determine solutions to a client’s problems. However, questions have to be minimal and appropriately asked (Hough, 2014). Questions can be both helpful and problematic. McLeod (2011) suggests that one of the risks of asking questions is that the client may lose the focus of the conversation. However, Hough (2014) suggests that questions can be successfully used in counseling but the questions should be as open as possible. McLeod (2011) states that being a counselor consists of using the conscious approach of asking and not using questions that sound like they are for granted. One of the main factors in questioning is that questions should be asked to facilitate the client and not to answer curiosity (Hough, 2014).
McLeod (2011) suggests that question types suitable for counseling are open, closed, and hypothetical. Open questions can encourage clients to explore their problems further whereas closed questions are focused on specific information (McLeod, 2011). Hypothetical questions are usually future-focused and support the client to consider new possibilities and outcomes (Newman, 2000).
Most counselors report difficulties in not asking questions (McLeod, 2011; Hough, 2014). However, for me asking questions is very difficult because I am scared of asking inappropriate questions. Throughout childhood, I was very curious and used to ask about everything – the origins of a certain food, the use of a certain object, and the intentions of others. I used to make my dad angry because of the many questions I asked.
I stopped being so curious when I was in first grade and I asked a question that the other children considered stupid and funny. They all laughed which made me feel very sad and I cried. I was 7 years old so I think I was crying about many things. I do not remember what question I asked, but I still remember how unhappy I felt for asking it. This experience has made me anxious about asking questions.
I found questioning really challenging in the triads and GRP. During the final triads which were specifically for questioning skills, I was struggling to formulate good questions that could facilitate the client to continue speaking. I was very nervous and wanted to be the last person in the role of counselor. When my turn arrived, I felt so anxious about the thought of asking problematic questions. Before the triad, I was reading the lecture slides again to memorize some examples and use them during the triad. Despite the nervousness and anxiety, I managed to practice in the triad and ask three questions. It was challenging to think of the questions but I still did it. The feedback suggested I was nervous but nothing was mentioned about the questions which made me feel better. During the GRP, I was also very nervous and did not ask any questions which resulted in not knowing how to support my group with the task.
After the lecture and triad about questioning, I used the hot-penning task to write about the reasons behind my nervousness with questions. I had previously recorded in my personal journal that I found the idea of writing whatever is on my mind for 3 minutes without stopping very helpful (Radkov, 2019). Writing about my experiences with questioning again, makes me feel more relieved.
For my future learning, I need to practice further questioning by completing online question paraphrasing exercises similar to those presented during the lecture. Furthermore, I will read more extensively about the appropriate use of questions in counseling.
The third skill to be explored is the use of silence. Hough (2014) suggests that in order to listen effectively, it is sometimes necessary to remain silent and that clients require silence in order to use the space to reflect. Moreover, McLeod (2011, p.63) states that “the spaces between words are highly significant in any counseling conversation.”
The use of silence can be both appropriate and inappropriate. The advantage of silence is that it can help the client and the counselor to gather their thoughts. It can also give the counselor time to reflect and provide the client with control of the conversation (McLeod, 2011). However, sometimes the client can feel uncomfortable and according to Rogers (1942), this can occur before the therapeutic relationship is established.
Silence is a skill that I consider a strength and weakness. I use silence to allow myself and the client time to reflect. I learned from my parents that silence is very powerful. I was taught that if I did not have anything to say, it was better to not say anything and use the time to think. This had a great impact on me because as previously mentioned, I was a very curious child and was not always thinking through what I asked and said. In addition, I have learned to use silence as a skill through the observation of others (Bandura, 1977). The nursery school was the first place where I observed that when you do not know anything you stay silent. Moreover, when the class did not know the answer to a question, the tutors encouraged us to take time and think.
I found silence very useful during the triads because I was able to allow the client time to think at his own pace and also allow myself an opportunity to summarise the session so far. This made the final summary easier. However, the use of silence can be challenging because you do not know how the other person will react. I frequently use pauses and perhaps rely on them too much. In one of the triads, when I was observing, I found that the client found the silence awkward. This made me realize that I need to increase my understanding of the use of silence because in the future I will not know how the client may feel about this and it may have a negative impact on the session.
For further learning, I will definitely try and utilize silence later in the counseling session rather than close to the beginning because it may feel uncomfortable. Moreover, in future triads, I will try to observe the time when silence is used in order to explore the period of time required for the effective use of silence.
This essay discussed the skills of attending, questioning, and the use of silence in counseling sessions based on my triad and GRP experience. From this, I identified aspects of my personal strengths and weaknesses. Attending is a skill that requires the counselor’s full focus (McLeod, 2011) and I consider this a strength because of my experiences with football training. Questioning is a skill that I found very challenging and I need to develop my skills in how to ask suitable questions. The use of silence can be very useful but it has its risks and I need to learn not to rely on it too much.
When assessing my current counseling skills, I am still at the beginning of my professional journey. My future learning plans involve further reading, practicing, and most importantly trying.
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