13 Art of Helping Skills
Mutum Silpa Devi
1. INTRODUCTION
Humans are social beings. We help one another to survive, to adapt, to evolve and to develop. When family members help, we call it responsibility; when neighbours help, we call it friendly; when friends help, we call it caring. Helping is a fundamental human activity. With these helping hands, we move forward and live our lives. The survival of individuals, communities, and society at large depend on mutual aid giving. However, at the time of crisis, tragedy, illness, disability, and death, we need more help than we usually need. In these situations, the help offered by our near and dear ones are not helpful for various reasons. All too often the sincere offers of help are resented, resisted, or refused. This is mostly because one may have a lot of goodwill to render help but lack the necessary skills. The professional helpers are needed under these situations.The professional helpers work mostly in the domains of counselling, health care, rehabilitation, education and social work. Helping professions required studying the curriculum of accumulated scientific knowledge and developing the skills to be an effective helper.
2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson you will be able to
- understand basic skills of counselling
- comprehend how these skills help the client throughout the process of counselling
3.CONCEPT OF COUNSELLING
Before getting into the helping skills, the concept of counselling as helping should be understood.
3.1. Counselling – a helping process:
Counselling is a dynamic process during which a trained individual assists another person who is functioning at a low or ineffective level to become a more efficient functioning person. Therefore counselling is often described as a helping process. It is also an art and like any art, it necessitates to master certain specific skills to make the process effective. According to Nelson Jones, ‘skills’ pertain to areas of skill, the level of competence and effective implementation. Therefore counselling skills are sets of skills acquired through training and experiences with practice for effective assistance of people overcoming their problems.
3.2. Skilled Helper:
Helpers have adequate basic intelligence awareness of their own intellectual possibilities and limitations. They respect the world of ideas but also practical oriented so they turn good theory and research into practical programs that enable them to help clients more effectively. Skilled helpers are integrators. They help clients to explore their experience, feeling, and behaviour. As the client explore and reveals about themselves, the helper assist the client to integrate the information to understand themselves and their behaviour better. They extend their insight and understanding to assist client sets problem-managing goals and move toward constructive behavioural change. They are not afraid to share their experiences if it will advance the helping process. They are also not afraid to challenge client if there is a discrepancy in their information and experience. But skilled helper does all these things with genuine respect and empathic understanding towards the client.
3.3. The goal of Helping:
A client becomes a client because they are involved in problem situations that they are not handling well. The goal of helping is that the counsellor helps the client to come to terms with, solve, or transcend those situations; and manage their problems in living more effectively.
For example:
Sheela was devastated with her husband’s sudden death. She was only 36 with three small kids to raise all by herself. She felt disbelieving, angry, betrayed, and depressed all at the same time. After a period of grieving and isolation, she finally, in despair, talked to a family friend who also referred her to a professional helper. With their help, Sheela came to term with her life; a life without her husband, a life set to prioritized herself and her children. Finally, she managed to live much better than she thought she could.
As the case clearly demonstrated, the goal of helping is not to make everything all right. Sheela’s husband didn’t come back from death, she still raised her children alone. The central part of helping process is to help the client discover what kind and degree of problem management is possible in a situation.
4. HELPING SKILLS
4.1. Dynamics of counselling skills in helping process:
The contribution of Carkhuff and Berenson in identifying helper’s skills were enormous. They analyzed Roger’s core conditions and other necessary qualities shown by the facilitative therapist. These qualities were defined to distill two distinct helper skills namely ‘responding’ skills that communicate accurate empathy and ‘initiative’ skills that enable action. Further analysis revealed two more skills ‘attending’ skills that ensure that the full attention is paid and ‘personalizing’ skills that lead to ‘ownership’ of problems and commitment to act to deal with them constructively. Then helper skills are linked and sequenced as ‘Attending – Responding – Personalising – Initiating’.
Further analysis of these skills, they realized the impact it has on the ‘helpee’/ client’s outcomes. It became clear that ‘attending’ skills were the windows to helper’s attributes that communicated to the client. Attending skills which were called as pre-helping skills, facilitate a willingness in the client to become ‘involved’ in discussing personal issues which lead to the helping stage. Likewise, the quality of helper’s ‘responding’ skills was significantly linked to the level of the ‘exploration’ undertaken by the client when discussing personal issues. ‘Personalizing’ skills provided an effective connection between the client’s exploration and their action afterward. Because it provides a better ‘understanding’ of the implications of what they have explored, their personal responsibility towards the problem and to improve the circumstances. The final helper’s skill ‘initiating’ help enabled constructive ‘action’ by the client.
Thus the helping process involved a relationship between helper skills and client outcomes through three- phases process which progress towards a common goal.
The helping skills i.e., attending, responding, personalizing and initiating skills are detailed below:
4.2. Attending Skills
Attending refers to the ways in which helper is ‘being with’ the client both physically and psychologically. The ways in which a helper is present with the client is very crucial in order to develop a deep understanding interpersonal transaction. Attending effectively invites the client to trust the counsellor, open up and explore the significant dimensions of their problem.
Attending can be considered in three successive levels which include: 1) Microskills, 2) observing and 3) listening skills.
4.2.1 Microskills of attending physically
Microskills are the ways in which a helper assure that he is physically present to a client. Attending physically is crucial in establishing counselling relationship. It is a known fact that human communicates through nonverbal language (80%) more than with words (20%). Unconsciously the helper sends messages to the client with his body language and attitudes like – yawning, looking at the wristwatch, narrowing the eyes etc- which will be picked up by the client without our being aware of them. Effective helpers are always mindful of what cues and messages they are sending as they interact with clients. Because through the tone of voice, eyes, hands, lips, gestures communicate the interest or lack of interest.
Gerard Egan developed ‘SOLAR’- a model of healthy attending- were the ways a helper can use their own body to communicate appropriate messages to a client.
S- Face the client SQUARELY: A posture of turning the body towards the client indicates involvement. The bodily orientation you adopt conveys the message that you are involved with the client. This posture conveys “I am available to you; I choose to be with you.”
O- OPEN POSTURE: Adopt a poster which indicates openness, avoidance of crossed arms and legs and other defensive body languages. Open posture can be a sign that counsellor is open to the client and to what he has to say.
L- LEAN toward the client: Leaning forward is the natural result of deep involvement. This posture means “I’m interested in you and what you have to say.” Leaning back can mean “I’m not entirely with you,” or “I’m bored.” However leaning too far forward is an invasion of personal space which may frighten the client. It can be conceived as a demand on the other for some kind of closeness or intimacy.
E- EYE CONTACT: Maintaining good eye contact is a sign of deep involvement in the interaction. It is not the same as staring. On the other hand, if a helper frequently looks away from the client, it may be a clue of reluctance to get involved with the person.
R- RELAXED while engaging: This means not fidgeting nervously or engaging in distracting facial expressions. This can make the client wonder what’s making you nervous.
Once a counsellor feels natural in engaging in the behaviours listed above, he will be able to focus his attention on the client. However, it is important to note that these microskills are few guidelines, not rigid rules.
4.2.2. Observing skills
It is the ability of the counsellor to see and understand the nonverbal behaviours of the client, which is a rich source of learning about the client. Observing the client’s appearance and behaviour help counsellor to infer the client’s physical energy level, emotional feeling state, and intellectual readiness for helping.
A counsellor can observe the client’s physical, emotional and interpersonal aspects. Physical observation includes the body build, physical appearance, and level of energy. Emotional observation involves facial expressions, the expression of eyes and lips, posture, body stance, grooming etc. Interpersonally counsellor observes how she relates to him, positively negatively or neutrally. Through these observations, the counsellor needs to infer the energy level and feeling status of the client.
4.2.2.1. Infer Energy level: A high energy level allows an individual to experience the fullness of life. Persons with the low level of energy have difficulty in meeting the demands of everyday life. Everything is a burden and they experience their day-to-day routine as overwhelming. To determine the energy level of the client, the counsellor must observe body movements, posture, gestures etc. Where alertness is an indication of high energy, slouchy posture, and slow movements are the indication of the low level of energy.
4.2.2.2. Infer the Feelings: The richest source of data concerning the counselee’s feelings is posture, facial expression, and grooming. Cheerful people sit erect in their chairs, smile and neatly dress. On the other hand, depressed people sit with head hanging down, look sad, and are careless in their ways of dressing.
A person’s nonverbal behaviour has a way of “leaking” messages to others. Nonverbal behaviours are generally spontaneous than verbal behaviour due to autonomic physiological responses. Non-verbal behaviours can confirm the truth in what is being said verbally-eyes light up (facial expression), lean forward (bodily motion) and says animatedly (voice quality). It can also reveal the faulty in a verbal message. For example, when the counsellor challenge the client’s denial of being upset (‘I am not upset’ being her verbal communication), her voice faltered a bit (voice quality) and her upper lip quivered (facial expression). Thus her nonverbal behaviour carried the true message. Nonverbal behaviour also emphasizes what is being said verbally. Slouching down and putting her face in her hands-adds emotional colour or intensity to verbal message. Therefore, observing to understand the nonverbal messages of the client is an important task for helpers.
4.2.3. Listening Skills
Listening is an important skill a counsellor must mastered to understand the entire context of client’s verbal message. When a client talks, a counsellor should listen to three aspects of the context. They are the client’s experiences, their behaviour and affect.
4.2.3.1. Experiences: It is what happens to the client. The client talks about their problem situation in terms of an experience. For example, getting suspended from school, which is the client’s experience as well as the problem situation.
4.2.3.2. Behaviours: It is what the client do or fail to do. For example, ‘I haven’t even begun to look for a job. I know there are none in this city’. Here the client talks about their problem situation in terms of their behaviours.
4.2.3.3. Affect: It is the feelings and emotions that arise from or are associated with either experiences or behaviour. If a client tells that she gets depressed after drinking too much, she is talking about the affect associated with her problem situation.
Listening framework is concerned with helping clients clarify their problem situations. A problem situation is clear when it is understood in terms of specific experiences, behavious and specific feelings and emotions.
A Skilled helper monitors the quality of their attending and listening. The skills of attending are described as pre-helping skills but it is to be practiced throughout all stages of helping process.).
4.3. Responding Skills
Previously the helper has focused on taking information and understanding the client through effective attending skills. The client who talked so far wants to know if the counsellor has listened to them. The counsellor can assure the client through the verbal report of what they have narrated. Responding skills is the ability to respond intelligently to the client’s expression for further problem exploration.
The purpose of responding is –
- to give assurance to the client that the counsellor understood her message;
- to make her hear her message in an orderly way, that is, just the real message leaving out all that accompanied the message;
- to gives clarity to the counsellor himself regarding what he understood and
- it also serves as a stimulus for the client to talk further and explore more.
The skill of responding involves being able to communicate the understanding of the unique situation as presented by another. Responding involves responding to content, feeling, and meaning.
4.3.1. Responding to content: The content is the most obvious part of the client’s expression. A counsellor responds to content in order to clarify the critical ingredients of the helpee’s experiences. The ingredients of content are emphasized by the basic interrogatives, which may be summarized as 5WH: who, what, why, when, where and how. Who and what was involved? What did they do? Why and how did they do it? When and where did they do it?
Responding to content facilitates the process by which the client continues exploration and provides missing information. Once the ingredients are clear, the counsellor should respond to the content by rephrasing the helpee’s expressions. This is to communicate and confirm the understanding the counsellor received from the client’s expression.
4.3.2. Responding to feeling: Feelings are the client’s affective experience of their problem situation. Identifying the client’s feeling would be easier if the counsellor used observation of nonverbal expressions and listening skills effectively throughout the interaction. Once the dominant feeling and its intensity are identified, the counsellor must respond to the client.
4.3.3. Responding to meaning: Responding to meaning is the counsellor’s response to the combination of feeling and content of the client’s expression. It is so called because the combination of feeling and content give each other meaning. The content gives intellectual meaning to the client’s feelings likewise the feeling gives emotional meaning to the contents of client’s experiences. A response to meaning is not complete until it communicates both feeling and content. For example, ‘You feel sad (feeling) because your friend moved away (content)’ or, ‘Your close friend moved away (content) and now you feel sad (feeling).
4.3.4. Completion of the Responding: When the counsellor feels that the client has explored all relevant areas of her personality and touched bottom, then, he has to summarize and present the client with a picture of the whole situation and how she feels in that situation. The summary must be brief and neat, also it must be approved by the client.
4.4. Personalizing skills
Personalizing skills assist the client internalized their experiences by focusing on themselves. A counsellor helps the client to become aware of the fact that she is playing a part in her problem. The purpose of this stage is to enable the client to understand where she is with respect to where she wants or needs to be in her world.
The client may report their experiences by putting all the blame on others for their problem situation. But it is likely that the client also has a part in the problem situation. The most effective method to improve the situation is for the client to acknowledge the part she plays in the problem and to work out a way of lessening or removing it altogether. So, personalizing is to bring awareness of the client of her personal deficits.
This awareness can be dealt with three levels. They are:
4.4.1. Personalizing the meaning: It refers to the impact, effect or implication the situation has on the client.
4.4.2. Personalizing the problem: It refers to what the client is doing or failing to do that becomes her problem. It is counsellor’s role to point it out this behaviour of the client so that she would understand her roles of commission or omission.
4.4.3. Personalizing the goal: It is the rectification of deficiencies in client’s role to improve the problem situation. In this level, the counsellor helps the client to internalize the goal of undoing what she had committed or doing what she had omitted.
The counsellor should be careful about the timing of personalizing because the clients take a long time to own their responsibility. When the client is not ready for personalizing, the counsellor falls back on the stage of responding, until the client is ready to review her convictions.
4.5. Initiating skills
As the process of helping is progressed as, the client talk, the counsellor attended, listened carefully, responded well, internalized the problem, personalized the client’s deficit and finally framed and reframed the goal. Now it is counsellor’s duty to initiate the client to act. Initiating skills are the helper skills to facilitates the client’s action to achieve her goal. Initiating involves defining goals, developing programs and
4.5.1. Defining goal: When a counsellor help client set a goal, it should be defined clearly in order to make it achievable. The goal should be outcome-oriented, specific, measurable, realistic, economic and consistent with client’s values.
4.5.2. Developing strategies: Strategy is the art of identifying and choosing realistic programs for achieving goals and doing so under adverse condition. Here the counsellor helps the client to develop a realistic program to achieve the goal defined earlier.
4.5.3. Implementing the program: Some clients, once they have a clear idea of their goal and strategies to achieve it, just go ahead and do it. However, most of the clients need a greater or lesser amount of support and challenge from helper at the implementation stage. Some of the skills a counsellor may use to help the client stick to the program are identifying the client’s restraining and facilitating forces, training them to be assertive, using contracts, getting performance feedback, using reinforcement etc.
4.6. CONCLUSION:
Counseling is a goal oriented process and skills are the means and tools to achieve its goal. It is important to identify and understand the helper skills that facilitate clients for more effective ways of living. However, if only counsellors were to without the clients cooperating and taking their share responsibility, it would not be a successful helping process. Therefore, it is a two-way collaboration between the counsellor’s helping skills and client’s actions that lead to a successful basis of change and growth.
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