14 Challenging Skills

Mutum Silpa Devi

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1. INTRODUCTION

 

In counselling, challenging is a skill used as a basis of reality testing. Very often counsellors experience clients differently from the ways in which clients experience themselves (Berenson & Mitchell, 1974). A challenge usually meant when there are discrepancies between how the client’s expresses their experience and the way things really are. The power of challenge in counseling and psychotherapy tends to be overlooked or underestimated. But it can contribute to identify, explore and clarify the problem and/or opportunity.

 

There are a number of assumptions for using challenging skills that fits well with the counseling process. They are:

  • Clients can change if they choose to.
  • Clients have more resources for managing problems in living and developing opportunities.
  • The Psychological fragility of clients is overrated both by themselves and by others.
  • Maladaptive behaviours of clients can be significantly altered.

If all these hypotheses are sound, and the helping process is socially influence, then challenging client is central to counseling process.

In this session, the process of challenging and its place in counselling will be discussed.

 

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

 

At the end of this lesson you will be able to

  • understand basic principles, strategies and techniques of challenging

  3. THE GOALS OF CHALLENGING

 

Challenge focuses on both clients’ awareness of their experiences, behaviours, feelings and the actions that flow or should flow from that awareness. If the challenge is effective, clients are influenced to overcome the weakness, develop new perspectives that are action related, and are influence to act on. Therefore goals of challenging can be any one or combination of the followings depending on the situation demands:

  • Challenging clients to participate fully in the helping process.
  • Helping clients to understand the blind spots in thinking and acting.
  • Helping clients to develop new perspectives.
  • Helping clients to comprehend the current impact of their experiences, behaviors and feelings.
  • Inviting clients to explore the short and long term consequences of their behavior.
  • Challenging clients to own their problems and unused potential.
  • Giving clients feedback on their success and failures in the helping process.
  • Helping clients move beyond discussion to action.

  3.1. When the counsellor does use challenging skills?

  • When clients lack the awareness of relevant experiences, behaviors, and feelings
  • When there is a faulty or incomplete interpretation or understanding in clients’ experiences, behaviors, and feelings
  •  When clients lack the comprehension of the consequences of their behavior
  • When there is discrepancies in client’s lives
  • When clients are hesitant or unwilling to act on their understandings.

3.2. Principles of Effective Challenging

  1. Counsellor should keep the goal of challenging in mind. Challenge must be integrated into the entire counselling process. Counsellor should understand that the goal is to help clients develop alternative perspectives and frames of reference to clarify problems situations and to get on with the other steps of the helping process.
  2. Counsellor should allow self-challenge. Giving clients plenty opportunity to challenge themselves is a good start for challenging. The clients should not be blame immediately for lack of their progress. The counselor can provide the clients with problems and structures that help them engage in self – challenge.
  3. Chounsellor should earn the right to challenge. It has been suggested that some helpers don’t have the right to challenge others since they do not fulfill certain essential conditions. Some of the factors in earning the right are determined by quality of relationship, understanding the client and being open to challenge.
  4. Counsellor should be careful about the way a counsellor challenge clients. The same challenging message can be delivered in such a way to invite the cooperation or arouse the resistance of the client. Counsellor should be sensible of client’s present ability before challenge.
  5. Challenge is build on successes. High- level counsellors do not urge clients to place too many demands on themselves all at once which will likely to fail. Rather, they help clients place reasonable challenge on themselves and in the process help them appreciate and celebrate their success.
  6. Challenge should be specific. Counsellors should remember that the clients don’t know how to proceed with vague challenges.
  7. Counsellor should challenge clients’ strengths rather than weaknesses. Confrontation of strengths means pointing out to clients the assets and resources they have but fail to use.
  8. Counsellor should challenge clients to clarify values. Challenging clients to clarify their values and to make reasonable choices based on them is effective. It should be on value conflicts rather than values themselves. The counsellor should not challenge by force to accept the values which they don’t believe.

3.3. The Challenging Skills

 

Counsellors use a variety of challenging skills to help clients understand themselves, others and the world more effectively and act more constructively. The skills of challenging are: (1) advanced empathy (2)confrontation (3)self disclosure and (4) immediacy.

 

 4. ADVANCED EMPATHY

 

Empathy is of two levels, basic and advance. Basic empathy can be acquired at relevant surface feelings and meanings, while advanced accurate empathy gets in feelings and meanings of clients that are buried, hidden, or beyond his immediate reach. Even when counsellors see the world from the clients ‘point of view, they often see it more clearly with a different width and depth.

 

Advanced empathy does not only understand the clients’ perspective but also see the implications of that perspective for effective or ineffective living. The communication of advanced accurate empathy is the counsellor’s way of sharing his or her understanding of those implications with the client. As such it is a bridging response to helps clients move to more goal-related perspectives. It challenges the clients to take a deeper look at themselves.

 

Advanced empathy can be communicated in a number of different ways with the clients.

 

4.1.Expressing what is only implied

 

When the client is exploring his or her experience, behaviors, and feelings, the counselor can point out what the client implies but does not say directly.

 

4.2.Identifying themes

 

Advanced empathy also includes helping clients to identify and explore behavioral and emotional themes in problem situations. Here themes are self – defeating patterns of behavior and emotion the clients hinted in number of ways but hasn’t said explicitly. For example, poor self- image, dominance (behavioural themes in the client’s life). Once counsellors recognize these themes, it should be communicated to the clients in a way that enable the clients to see it too.

 

4.3.Connecting Island

 

Advanced empathy means helping the client fill in the missing links in the information provided during the self – exploration process. The ‘islands’ refers to the feelings, behaviours, experiences the client revealed as if unrelated to one another where the counselors job is to find the connection.

 

For instance, if the client presents two separate “islands” of behavior- (1) his general dissatisfaction with his marriage and his disagreements with his wife and (2) his drinking habits. Here the missing link, one only hinted at, might be that he is using drinking as a way of punishing (connection) his wife.

 

4.4 .Helping Clients Draw Conclusion From Premises

 

Another way of conceptualizing advanced empathy is to help clients draw their own conclusions from premises the client implied.

 

4.5.From The Less To The More

 

Through advanced accurate empathy, what the client said in confuse manner is stated clearly by the counsellor; what is said half- heartedly is stated convincingly; what is said vaguely is stated concretely; and what the client presents at a superficial level is re- presented by the helper at a deeper level.

 

5.   CONFRONTATION

 

Confrontation is an invitation to examine some form of behavior that seems to be either self- defeating, harmful to others, or both, and to change the behavior if it is found to be so.

 

Confrontation focuses on the discrepancies, distortions, evasions, games, tricks, excuse making, and smoke screens in which clients involve themselves, but that keep them stuck in their problem situations. All of us have ways of defending ourselves from ourselves, others and the world. For instance, blaming others for my misfortunes helps me to save face, but it disrupts interpersonal relationships and prevents me from developing a healthy sense of self responsibility. The purpose of confrontation is to invite clients to challenge their defenses that keep them from managing problem situations and developing opportunities.

 

5.1.Challenging Discrepancies–

 

Confrontation can be used when there is discrepancies between what clients think or feel and what they say; between what they say and what they do; between what they are and what they wish to be; between their expressed values and their actual behavior. In these situations, the counselor should properly and tentatively point out this discrepancy and the client moves forward. And also the client needs support and help to overcome her embarrassment.

 

5.2.Challenging Distortions-

 

Some clients cannot face the world as it is, and therefore distort it in various ways. When it happens, it is counselors’ duty to enable clients to see the reality by using the contrasting images revealed by the clients.

 

5.3.Challenging self- defeating internal experiences and behavior

 

Challenging clients’ self-limiting ways of thinking can be one of the most powerful methods for behavioral change. And, just as negative cognitive states stand in the way of problem solving, so positive cognitive states can contribute greatly to managing problems and developing opportunities. When the clients express self-limiting behaviors, it is counsellors’ responsibility to confront that negative thinking. Role reversal can be a useful exercise.

 

5.4.Challenging Excuses–

 

Excuse making is a part and parcel of everyday life which is universal. It can contribute to severe problems in living. Categories of excuses that need to be challenged are:

 

Complacency is when the clients fail to realize the seriousness of a situation

 

Rationalization is when clients clinging to unwarranted assumptions or distort information where it enables the client to avoid what they don’t want to do. The ability to rationalize seems to know no bounds.

 

Procrastination is when the clients put off setting goals, developing strategies, and acting on it after the counselors help explore problems endlessly during the helping process itself.

 

Passing the buck is when clients deny of his responsibility by passing it to others.

 

5.5.Giving Feedback-

 

Confrontation involves giving the client feedback on his or her behavior. The client should be as involved as possible in each of the steps of this process. While giving feedback, the counsellor should follow the following principles.

 

1)Avoid labeling: Derogatory labels put clients down and make them resistant to accepting and acting on feedback.

2)Describe the situation and the relevant behaviors: describe the context and the self-limiting behaviors in question as specifically and as accurately as possible.

3)Describe the impact or consequences of the behavior: it is to point out of how relevant parties are affected by the behavior in term of both emotions and behavior.

4) Help clients identify what they need to do to manage the problem: for instance here a client can be helped to identify what he/she needs to start doing and stop doing in order to live peaceably with others in the home.

A surprising number of clients come to the counselor with the expectation that the counselor is going to do something to fix them. So it is counsellors’ duty to continually challenge them to a successful counseling process.

 

6.  SELF- DISCLOSURE

 

Another form of challenging client is to share something about the counsellors. Direct counsellor self-disclosure has two principal functions: modeling and the development of new perspectives and new directions for action.

 

Self disclosing is a form of modeling, a way of both showing clients how to disclose themselves and encouraging them to do so. Counselor self-disclosure can help clients develop the kinds of new perspectives that are needed for goal setting and help them see the need for action.

 

Counselor self-disclosure should follow certain guidelines:

  • Appropriate self-disclosure – counsellor sharing is appropriate if it helps clients achieved the goal outlined, talk more about themselves and problem situations. Self- disclosure that is exhibitionist is inappropriate.
  • Keep it selective and focused- when it keeps clients on target and doesn’t distract from investigating their own problem.
  • Don’t burden the client – counsellor should not share something which will add as a burden to the clients.
  • Don’t overdo it- counselors’ self- disclosure should not be too frequent.
  • Remain flexible – counselor needs to be able to adapt his disclosures to differences among clients and situations.

7.   IMMEDIACY: ENCOURAGING DIRECT, MUTUAL TALK

 

A distinction has been made between self-disclosing and self- involving statements by helpers and tend to see the latter as more useful. Immediacy is self-involving statements provided by the counselors which refer to the helper’s personal reactions to the client during the counseling session. According to Rogers’, what happens between the counsellor and his client facilitated the counseling process. Such cases are challenging for both counsellor and client. Immediacy is one’s ability to explore with another what is happening in their relationship.

 

7.1.Types of Immediacy

 

There are two types of immediacy:

 

7.1.1.    Relationship Immediacy-It refers to the counselor’s ability to discuss with a client where he stands in the overall relationship to the client. The focus is not on present interaction but on the way the relationship has developed. The counselor is reviewing her good relationship with the client to help clients to develop some new perspectives on a difficult relationship outside.

 

7.1.2.    Here – and- now Immediacy-It refers to the helper’s ability to discuss with clients of what is happening between them in the here and now of any given transaction. The entire relationship is not being considered, only the specific current interaction. Here the counselor can do two things. First, she deals with the impasse in the session by examining what is happening in the here and now of the relationship. Second, she begins to explore the possibility that what the client is doing here and now is an example of her self- defeating approach to interpersonal relationships in her day-to-day life. She is tentative in what she says and invites the client to present her perspective.

 

7.2.Immediacy: A Complex Skill

 

Immediacy is a difficult and demanding skill. One reason people such as the couple do not engage more readily and more opportunely is direct, mutual talk is that they have never learned to do so. Like other human-relations skills, immediacy or ‘you-me’ talk has three components: awareness, communication ability and assertiveness.

 

7.2.1. The awareness component – If the counselor is going to talk to a client about what is happening between the two of them- either in the overall relationship or in the here and now of this interaction. Then it is to be known- of what is happening.

 

7.2.2. The communication component – Immediacy is a communication skill formed by a combination of three other skills:

 

a) Empathy- one must not only perceive what is happening between the counselor and the client, but must be able to put the perceptions and understandings into words.

b) Self – disclosure- being immediate involves revealing how a counselor think and feel about what is happening in the relationship with the client.

c)  Challenge- immediacy often involves pointing out discrepancies, challenging games, exploring distortions and the like. Immediacy, however, requires that helpers confront not only the discrepancies they find in their clients but also those they find in themselves. Immediacy requires mutuality. It is important to invite clients to explore the relationship.

 

7.2.3.   The assertive component – Immediacy is not an easy skill for many people, even when they possess the awareness and know-how to engage in it. Basic empathy can be easy because, in a sense, it is giving a give to the other. The other challenging skills discussed here can be relatively easy because the focus remains on the client. Immediacy is difficult because it is of its nature very self – involving. Helpers who are struggling with intimacy in their own lives can expect to have trouble with this skill.

 

7.3.Situations Calling for Direct, Mutual Communication

 

The skill of immediacy can be most useful in the following situations:

  • When a session is directionless.
  • When there is tension between helper an client
  • When trust seems to be an issue
  • When there is a “social distance” between helper and client in terms of social class.
  • When dependency seems to be interfering with the helping process.
  • When counter dependency seems to be blocking the helping relationship.
  1. CONCLUSION

We must remember that counseling is a helping process where the counsellor facilitates the clients to solve and manage their problem for effective functioning in the society. Some clients goes for counseling are looking for someone to challenge them. Once challenged, they are capable of doing anything to manage and solve their problems. Some are on the brink of challenging themselves and need only a nudge, others have potential but not the will, some knows what to do but not doing it. Counsellor to be with these types of clients needs to be a gentle but tough challenger.

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