Here, there are all the summaries of the chapters of the book Psychological Communication, by H. van der Molen, G. Lang, P. Trower & R. Look. It's the 2nd edition, done in 2020.

Hope you enjoy!

“…each observer gains a partial superiority of insights from the peculiar position in which he stands.” (William James, 1899)

Chapter 1: Intro

1.1 Purpose and Structure

• Part I: processes involved in counselling
  • Chapter 2&5: theory underlying counselling, nature of effective helping-skills based on theories
  • Chapter 2: philosophy for working with people on their personal problems
  • Chapter 3: client-centred therapy
• Part II: detailed description of concrete skills needed to help a person
  
  • Chapter 6: nature and function of the basic skills needed to conduct a counselling interview
  • Chapter 7: more complect skills that build on those mentioned in Chapter 6
  • Chapter 8: process of working out solutions to problems and implementing them
• Good helping: have a goal in mind, able to modify approach towards client at various stages of the process. It is not enough to know what we want to achieve in counselling, we must also have the skills to bring I about in practice

Chapter 2: The Helper’s Basic Attitude

2.1 Intro:

• Helper stand: personal choice, influenced by helper’s own ideas and beliefs as to how people should behave towards each other

2.2 Typical Attitudes of Friends and Relatives:

• Michael displays uncertainty when communicating message to friend (unsatisfaction with his studies) --> unsure whether they should bother somebody with their problems --> possible friend reaction --> reassurance, encouragement, well-meant advice, clear and direct approach.
  • Motivations of both parties:
    • Michael: does not want to be considered a worrier
    • Michael’s friend: distance himself from Michael’s problem. He can relate to Michaels problem, but he attempts to push such thoughts to the back of his mind.
  • Parents reactions:
    
    • Appeal to Michaels’ sense of responsibility: “You should think over it very carefully”
    • Suggestion in a firm manner: “stop thinking in a negative way”
    • Strong personal involvement in having a son who is a good student, displays sense of involvement and a feeling of joint responsibility
      
      • Important to not protect a person too much since can result in diminishment of their own sense of responsibility. And failure is a painful but essential and integral aspect of human experience
    • Love tends to suggest a more directive line of helping
      
      • Authoritarian behaviour is not always inspired by lust of power of domination, but often by a sense of responsibility and care for another person

2.3 The Basic Attitude of the Helper

• Questions as guidelines:
  • What is the helper’s own basic attitude and how does it affect how they work with the client?
  • How do they motivate client to search for solutions to their problems?
  • What are the helper’s own motivation in the helping proces?

2.3.1 The Diagnosis-Prescription Model:

“Client as an object of research”

• Use of psychological tests that enable helper to collect relevant data
• Use of helper’s own frame of reference, which is refined and sharpened by a series of questioning
• May lead to an overly goal-oriented and reductive approach

2.3.2 Cooperation Model:

“We shall look together at your difficulties, does that sound OK to you?”

• View client as self-reliant in searching for solutions to their problems
• Helper tries to place themselves in client’s experiential world
• Existentialist perspective: each person must freely choose their own way of living
• Compared to friends and relatives, helper less personally involved --> gives client room to express thought/feelings more freely
• Framework of reference: client’s experiential world, way clients feels and thinks

Chapter 3: Client-Centred Approach

“Without such a system of theories the helper may find themselves list in the complicated mass of information given by a confused client”

• Appropriate theory:
  • Explore the potential of the client in playing an active part in seeking solution
  • Theory should be explainable to the client
  • Should be broad enough to be applicable to a wide range of problems
  • Should be versatile enough to deal with problems ranging in severity

3.2 Rogers’ Theory

• Methods and theory developed from practical experience.
• Almost personal approach.
• His publications display strong links between theory and practice

3.2.1 Self-Actualization

• Self-actualizing tendency: fundamental motivational force driving a person to develop their potential
  • Course of development --> determined by the “quality” of experiences, which increases as person incorporates all types of stimuli, both internal and external, without inhibitions or resistance. Occurs naturally, provided that circumstances are favourable

3.2.2 Unconditional Acceptance

What does Rogers mean by “favourable circumstances”?

• Unconditioned positive regard: enables people to experience an underlying sense of security that they are accepted

3.2.2 The Origin of Problems

• Conditioned regard: love and acceptance dependent on their behaving in others, “better” ways.
  • State of incongruence: when no longer date to act according to own intuition, and start to modify behaviour and actions to the norms of environment. Conscious internal conflict

3.3 Rogers’ Method

• Perfect congruence and self-actualization is an ideal which we can only strive towards
• “We should behave towards the client in ways that compensate for the behaviour of important people in the client’s environment which act to impede the self-actualization process.”

3.3.1 Unconditioned Positive Regards

• Helper shows unconditioned positive regard

3.3.2 Genuineness

• To function in an authentic, congruent, and integrated manner
• Helper should acknowledge all their feelings about the client and use them appropriately during in counselling process

3.3.3 Empathy

• Accept client unconditionally and acts towards them in a genuine manner --> possible to enter client’s private world of experience
  • Rogers: “To sense private world as if it were your own, without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality. To sense anger, fear, or confusion as if it were your own, yet without your own anger, fear, or confusion getting bound up in it”
• Contributes to client’s feeling of security. They feel they can be themselves, and have the space to begin to untangle their thought and feelings --> one of the most characteristic aspect of the client-centred approach by Rogers
• Empathic response effective:
  
  • When client’s world is clear to counsellor
    
    • “Communicate his understanding, and voice meanings in the client’s experience of which the client is scarcely aware. This kind of sensitive empathy makes it possible for person to get close to himself and to learn, to change and develop.”
      
      • Voice meaning: closely reflect client’s experience --> new perceptions can be engendered
  • Widespread misconception about empathy:
    
    • Empathy = Mirroring: reflecting the thoughts expressed by the client back to them in exactly the same form
    • Non-directiveness: does not exist in reality, since consciously or unconsciously, helper is bound to respond to some aspects more empathically than to others --> Rogers was directing his clients to discuss their problems in particular way --> need to monitor our reactions very closely

3.4 Critique of Rogers’ Theory

“With Rogers ’work, a response was found to all those who sought to reject the frequently paternalistic attitude found in much of the helping literature”

3.4.1 Rogers too Optimistic?

• Potential for self-actualisation seen as too optimistic
  • Behaviourist claim that self-actualization only occurs when person is reinforced. More at stake than unconditional positive regard alone
• Rogers’ “goodness”: inherent quality to human beings
• “leave the client room for their own development”
  
  • While warmth and understanding essential in helping relationships, helper must be able to act as a stimulus for change

3.4.2 Too Vague

• Rogers, insufficient emphasis on modifying cognitive processes
  • Cognitive psychology: person selects, codes, and stores information and makes it available for later use
  • Cognitive reconstruction: deliberate adjustment of the style of information processing

3.4.3 Rogers is Essential

• General consensus in counselling --> good relationship between helper and client
• Warm and uncritical nature of contact with the councillor --> influences client’s own behaviour and enhances their relationships with others around them
• Helpers should interfere as little as necessary

3.5 Cognitive Theory of Experiencing

• Personal functioning from the perspective of cognitive psychology

3.5.1 Experiencing an active processing

• Rogers suggests metaphor of a plant which with light, water and the right nutrients grows naturally into what it should ideally become
• Self-actualization Wexler: rejects the notion of passive form of experiencing --> humankind is active in selecting, arranging, and bestowing meaning on their impressions. It is vital to be selective and discriminatory  in dealing with such large quantity of information
  
  • One can learn to change meaning that is placed on particular event
  • Active processes to fully assimilate new information, giving it structure and meaning
    
    • Differentiation: refine our beliefs and attitudes on the basis of incoming information. Their belief system has been enriched --> by talking and thinking through what the feeling really consist of --> acquire better insight into their emotions
    • Integration: process by which connections are made between different pieces of information, and an overall pattern is discovered. A whole is made from constituent parts and an orderly view of the world is maintained. It enriches our experience by allowing us to make sense of disparate pieces of information and to make future predictions
    • When those processes no longer meet the demands of incoming information --> person ahs difficulties making sense of their experiences

3.5.2 Role of Feelings

• Rogers’ theory: experience emotions and to be open to them, makes it possible to live as an individual. Feelings are stored somewhere in ourselves, emerge when we are open to them
  • Wexler: emotions do not occur from themselves but are directly linked to cognitive processes
    • “change produced by the activity of processing substantie information. Change in therapy is a by-product of the client’s activity of distinguishing and synthesising facets of meaning that create reorganization and change in the field”
• Why is the processing of information sometimes linked to feelings and at other times not?
  
  • Significance of information, however, by itself, not sufficient to predict emotional outcome
  • Occurrence of emotion --> degree to which person’s world is in a state of change
    
    • Strong emotions when information processing is disrupted with new information that does not fit into existing structure, but nevertheless has to be accommodated --> Wexler’s view in arousal of emotions

3.5.3 Does Rogers Really Regard Experiencing as Passive?

• Overly literal reading if his work
• Actively directing one’s attention: Rogers asks client to pay more attention to emotions and suggests that such emotions should be recognised and processed so that it can be given true value
• Rogers and Wexler’s processing of information: dynamic balance between active agency and more passive “openness” to experience --> equilibrium between intellect and sentiment, between action and receptivit

Chapter 4: Social Learning Approach

4.1 Intro

• Social learning framework: how learning processes result in changes in thinking and doing
  • Human as learning creatures who are influenced by environment but also shape it themselves

4.2 Social Learning Perspective

• Humans potential for development --> operates within biologically determined boundaries and in interaction with environmental influences
  • Process of mutual influencing --> relative influence, varies per person and/or situation

4.3 How is behaviour learned?

4.3.1 Modelling

• Learn activities by watching other do them, learning applied also to thinking, as one can get to know about others’ cognitive processes through their “thinking aloud” in talking or writing--> social learning theory.
  • How well someone directs/maintains their attention to be learnt  --> depend motivation
  • Model behaviour must be stored in memory in symbolised form --> degree to which the person can remember what they have observed --> learn quickly when they verbalize process to themselves
  • Knowledge --> practice requires practice

4.3.2 Learning Through Consequences of Actions

• Conscious process whereby we recognize and contemplate the consequences of previous actions in deciding plans for the future
  • Areas learning more automatic --> internalized recognition of likely consequences --> e.g. when touching a hot plate
  • Motivation for particular behaviour will change as the consequences of that behaviour change

4.4 Behaviour Regulated?

• Information processor (individual): acts as intermediary between stimuli and reactions

4.4.1 Expectations

“In order to function effectively people need to predict probable outcome of their actions --> attempt to make optimal use of their own abilities in achieving their goals, while avoiding risks.”

• Expectancies: learnt through continuing process of interpreting the connections between various events and outcomes --> produced as result of one’s own experiences as well as experiences of others.
  • Maladaptive when forming them on basis of too little information

4.4.2 Influencing expectations

• Outcome expectations: person’s belief that certain behaviours will general result in particular outcomes
• Efficacy expectations: person’s belief that they are capable of behaving in ways needed to achieve desired outcomes -->  influenced by person’s emotional state

4.5 Self-Regulation

“Even in the face of considerable external pressure, we are able to develop and maintain our own ways of doing and thinking.”

• Regulate behaviour --> less of a slave to their environment
  • To set their own standards for behaviour and have their own rules regarding reward and punishment --> one’s actions are influenced by external (“What is my environment doing to me?”) and internal factors (“What am I doing to myself?”)

4.5.1 Process of Self-Regulation

Process by which person in pursuit of a self-generated goal will reward themselves for reaching certain standards and punish themselves for not reaching them.

• Comparison with others very influential to set the standards and to know how satisfied you should be. One can also compare oneself with oneself, however, person should take matters such as ageing process into consideration

4.5.2 Tyranny of the Ideal-Image

• Level of self-esteem: depend mainly on the discrepancy between what has been achieved and what one wants to achieve, also degree to which this discrepancy is tolerated
• Unattainable ideal: place exhausting demands on themselves and becomes excessively self-critical --> society promotes such unattainable ideals and encourages people to fanatically seek goals of success and status which can never be achieved
  
  • Feelings of failure, powerlessness, guilt, and inferiority --> a vicious circle may then ensure whereby these feelings lead to reduced self-confidence, resulting in poorer performance and yet more self-reproach
    
    • Excessive daydreaming, fantasizing, telling “tall” stories, etc --> demands change from being a positive stimulating influence into a restraining or even destructive one
    • To acknowledge the need to set up more realistic targets may entail an abandonment of some cherished dreams
    • Complex issues of self-image --> when differences self and ideal-image are large in a wide range of the person’s areas of functioning, self-reproach may generalize and an accelerating process of depression may result

Chapter 5: The Helper at Work

• Helpers must set themselves a goal
• They will have to choose a fitting role, with an approach suited to the goal to be achieved
• And in order to maintain an overall view of their goals and roles during counselling, they will need a helping model

5.2 Clarity of Goals

“Only when they have set themselves definite goals will they be able to find out whether their interactions has helped reach that goal.”

• Setting goals:
  • Reduction or even solution to problematic “something”
    • Early stage --> for client to continue exploring for a while
  • Process goals: to create right conditions for effective counselling --> means selected by helper to reach outcome goals
    
    • Determined by insights they gain into the problems and the behaviour of the client
  • Outcome goals: require a tailor-made solution --> primary client’s responsibility, clients should choose for themselves show they want to shape their lives --> ensure that they are motivated to reach it
• Preference for minimal interaction
  
  • “When that proves to be sufficient, helper should do no more than offer insight. When insight does not lead to action on the part of the client, then it is time for the helper to assist the client in such a way that they can learn to carry out the actions needed to achieve their goals.”

5.3 Roles of the Helper

Orienting farmwork

Confidant

Helpers creates clarity and calmness during the sessions, is attentive and understanding of client and encourages them to speak freely

Communicative Detective

Helper tries to obtain clear picture of client’s (dysfunctional) thoughts/actions --> include reasoning behind their questioning whenever one is asked

Teacher

Helper provides more effective approach to their problems and discusses how they may best put this to good use

Coach

Helper assists client in putting newly acquired insights into practice and, if needed, will help in honing new skills needed for doing this

5.3.1 Confidant

“accepting the client unconditionally and by being congruent and transparent themselves.”

• Client thinks through the issues that are troubling them --> simultaneously differentiating, reorganizing, and integrating those thoughts in new better ways --> information processing
• Understanding and calm on the part of the helper are supportive in spite of client’s restlessness --> showing confidence that all will end well --> able to tolerate uncertainties better and seek a new order themselves, while being strengthened by their feelings of confidence
  
  • “They see more sides to the question (differentiation) and obtain an overview (integration), but in a more balanced manner.”
  • Cooperation model: optimal use of client’s capacity for solving their own problems
  • Genuine acceptance expressed, encourage client to put thoughts into words --> helper able to form a picture of client’s experiential world --> important because we wish to work form client’s own frame of reference
• Direction-giving influence by helper’s responses to actual specific matters put forward by client
  
  • “When helper sows a particular interest in certain themes, stands out as important to the client, and is viewed with greater interest by them

5.3.2 Communicative Detective

“helper needs to do more than just listen”

Detection Applied to the Client’s Subjective World

• Detective: only when helper knows how the client functions themselves, and construes their world, can they try to find solutions that will be accepted by the client
  • What odes the client choose to talk about and how do they decide?
  • What do they omit?
  • How does the client differentiate and integrate?

Too Little Differentiation and too Quick Integration

• Inviolable certainties and absolutist: all-or-nothing thinking define their experience. Exceptional occurrences hardly ever result in more relative thinking or more differentiation

Too Much Differentiation and too Little Integration

• Absorb too much information and cannot arrange this into a clearly defined whole
  • Caused by either by intrusion of sudden changes in the client’s environment or by their own tendency to look and see many sides to a question
  • Leads to uncertainty, confusion and anxiety

Detection Applied to the Client’s Objective World

• Objective world --> what client faces I reality
  • Helper does not know the real facts --> he will need to find out how client “constructs” their own experiential world, and try to get as close to the “facts” as possible
    • “My wife does not live me any more” --> “What makes you think that?”

Openness in the Communication with the Client

• Communicative detective: helper should disclose everything possible about issues under consideration --> at least insofar as it makes for improved and dynamic communication with the client
  • “Thinking aloud” --> important cornerstone for satisfactory cooperation
    • Sometimes helper will have to explain to the client more emphatically and explicitly how there are other and better ways to look at and deal with their problems

5.3.3 The Teacher

“How helper can convey their differing views of client’s problem without putting client’s experiential world under strain and damaging the cooperative alliance” --> transition from the role of detective to that of teacher:

• Explanatory role, tries to explain problems can be looked at in a different way --> these new insights require action --> the coach
  • Take understanding realized by their empathic work as ‘confidant’ and ‘detective’ and communicate this understanding to the client.
• Social learning theory:
  
  • “Helpers have to ask themselves to what extent the personality and capacities of the client form an obstacle to change. Furthermore, to asses to what extent different kinds of acquired behaviour and thinking can be ‘un-learned’ or corrected”

5.3.4 The Coach

“It is the duty of the helper to assist the client if necessary in executing their plans in their own environment”

• Guides them, encourages them to continue, and prepares them for success. Achievement is realised by the clients themselves according to their own judgement and their own sense of responsibility --> successes and failures are reviewed and worked through
• Trainning client in the desired behaviour until their sense of “self-efficacy” is high enough
• When behaviour is changed --> balance between client and those around them is disturbed --> may lead to problems --> important to be aware of possibility of complications

5.4 Helping Model

• By Egan (1994): framework contains set of logical, practical guidelines for carrying out counselling --> place various goals of counselling in planned sequence, to keep an overall view and direction

Problem Clarification

Making contact and gaining picture (actual) problems and how the client experiences them

Gaining New Insights

Reformulating and/or organizing and/or selecting problems to be solved or as preparation for solutions

Treatment of the Problem

Objective goals and planning and taking action to find solutions for concretely formulated problems. Evaluate results

5.4.1 Problem Clarification

“gain a better idea of client’s problems”

• Tasks:
  • Invite client to say what is bothering them --> a process goal
  • Create clarity about course of events
  • Not to make choices
  • Not engaged yet in setting outcome goals
  • Make vague statements more concrete

5.4.2 Gaining New Insights

• Goal:
  • Help client obtain more differentiated and clearer picture of their problem
  • Finding common thread in seemingly unrelated facts/problems
  • Work with client in selecting and limiting themes covered during discussion
    
    • Define objective goals that can solve problem/or part problem
    • “How does the client think, feel, and do, and what are the salient points in their way of thinking, experiencing and acting?”
  • Differentiation: dividing problem into many separate parts --> processes of differentiation and integration should go hand in hand
    
    • “quality and diversity of information should not, however, go beyond the integrative abilities of helper and client”
      
      • Always can turn back if they lose themselves in a maze of personal complexities
  • Teacher: help client obtain a more precise and clearly defined view of their problem

5.4.3 Treatment of the Problem

• Goal: to do something about the problem
  • “client needs to be accepted with their courage but also with their fear of the unknown.”
  • Decide together as clearly and concretely as possible how desired goal can be reached and what sort of (new) behaviour is needed for this

5.5 Model in Practice

“is important in order to determine how helper is to work, to look at the actual course of events, and to find out the reasons for any deviations from the plan. The model enables the helper to evaluate the situation after a given counselling session”

“model should not be seen as an end in itself; it is a means”

5.5.1 Cumulative Building of Goals and Tasks

“Every new interpretation put forward by the helper requires a further exploration of the client’s reaction”

5.6 Helper as a Person

Rogers’ work --> willingness to work towards becoming a better person

“Can I be perceived by others as trustworthy, as dependable, or consistent in some deep sense?” (Rogers, 1961, p.50)

“Can I permit him to be what he is -- honest or deceitful, infantile or adult, despairing or over-confident?” (Rogers, 1961, p.53)

“If I could, in myself, answer all the questions I have raised in the affirmative, then I believe that any relationships in which I was involved in would be helping relationships, would involve growth. But I cannot give a positive answer to most of these questions. I can only work in the direction of the positive answer” (Rogers, 1961, p.56)

5.6.2 A Suspicious Person?

“…studied psychology is no guarantee that one can see through one’s own subjective standards, prejudices shortcomings and childish desires. The helper’s theoretical knowledge s not safeguard against the general human tendency to self-deception.”

5.6.3 Distant or Committed?

“capacity to work with both involvement and at a distance” (Lang, 1999)

Controlled involvement: distance should not be confused with coldness

Chapter 6: Basic Communication Skills; Problem Clarification

6.1 Intro

• Skill: not only the traditional meaning of a sequence of learnt behaviours designed to achive a goal effectively, but also “disposition”, “to make ready”, “to be disposed to do something” --> behaviour that is “at someone’s disposal”; it can be made use of if desired
• Skill-oriented approach: enables helper to do what they themselves consider desirable by choosing from a series of skills
• Ivey and his researchers (1971, 1978): conceptual framework can measure effectiveness of helper’s behaviour. Also helps communication between teachers and students --> allows identify successes and failures of given counselling session

6.1.1 Goals Initial Interview

1. Establish working relationship --> try to put client at ease

2. Explore the problem

3. bring a sense of order to the problems

4. Make what the client can expect concerning this initial interview and the whole counselling process as clear as possible

6.1.2 Attitude and Skills

• Client-centred basic attitude: concrete communication skills needed to implement such attitude, which has to be demonstrated in behaviour
• Basic skills:
  
  • Listening skills:
    
    • Encouragement to tell their story
    • `Non`-selective: helpers exerts little influence, only respond by being attentive --> encourage and stimulate client
      
      • Virtually impossible, they will, consciously or not, be more attentive to certain parts of client’s story
    • Selective skills: helper select certain aspects client’s story --> greater directiveness
  • Regulating skills

6.2 Initial Contract

“Helper should therefore brief the client as early as possible”

• Briefing: expectations on both sides are discussed, best moment to do this depends on state of mind of the client --> helps to prevent unfocused chatting
  • Emphasizing that it is a joint undertaking with joint responsibility
    • Tolerance of uncertainty: many questions will remain unanswered and they should accept this with the confidence that this will be rectified later on

6.3 `Non`-Selective Listening Skills, Attending Behaviour

“listening with great fascination to someone, to the extent of forgetting yourself”

• Content Aspect: what is said
• Relational aspect: how it is said
• Mehrabian (1972) and Argyle (1981): half of all communication takes place through these non-verbal channels

6.3.1 Non-Verbal Behaviour

Facial Expression

“face is the primary site for communication of emotional states. It reflects intrapersonal attitudes; it provides non-verbal feedback on the comments of others; primary source of information next to human speech” (Knapp, 1978, p. 263)

• Communicate interest
• Facial expression can betray inner workings --> helper will have to take that into account to avoid incongruence in their behaviour
  
  • Consciously manipulate/control expressions or
  • Directness: allow their facial expression show what they are feeling

Eye Contact:

“occasionally meets eyes of the client. Should not stare at the client, but neither should eye-to-eye contact be entirely avoided”

Body Language

“relaxed, sympathetic posture”

Encouraging Gestures

“By nodding and using supportive hand gestures, as well as absence of distracting movements, encourage client to continue talking”

6.3.2 Verbal Following

“another `non`-selective way to show attention”

• Comments should link up as closely as possible with what client says and does not introduce new topics
• Minimal encouragement: brief verbal responses intended to encourage client and show that they are being listened to

6.3.3 Use of Silence

“silence can also be a sing of encouragement”

• Brief silence, controlled by the helper
• Client falls silent --> helper should assess/identify different kinds of silences
  
  • Busy processing something
  • Find it hard to continue talking --> avoidance behaviour
  • Client does not know what else they should say or do

6.3.4 Retrospective View

“those new to counselling, are so eager to help and feel so strongly that they should do something for client quickly, that they often cannot muster the patience to listen first, with the result that they tend to ask a lot of questions, and client is given little space”

“the helper, when listening to client recount their problems, are themselves reminded of similar experiences in their own lives. […] It is hard to suppress the tendency to think that `this will probably be exactly the same` and ask questions from that viewpoint”

6.4 Selective Listening Skills

• Selectivity: helper may pay more attention to certain aspects of client’s story than to others, going more deeply either content or into the feeling of certain subject

6.4.1 Asking Questions

“aim is helping client to put their thought into words and clarifying their problems”

Open questions

• Considerable amount of freedom in formulation of their answers, clients can talk from their own frame of reference
• Only restriction is that client should talk. Other times there are open question restricted to certain subject
• Helper can use open questions at various points:
  
  • Beginning of an interview
  • During the interview --> when they do not quite understand client or want to know more about certain subject

Closed (Direct) Questions

• Often stem from the helper’s frame of reference
• Degree of suggestiveness: depends on tone in which the helper poses their questions

Why-Questions

• Open questions, can appear quite threatening, especially beginning of the contact
• Stress important of tone

6.4.2 Paraphrasing of Content

“Briefly reproducing in one’s own words what client has said”

• Selective listening skill, demonstrates genuine interest, acceptance and understanding
• Paraphrase: gives “translation” of essence of what client has said
  
  • Client realizes that being listened to, is refreshing and encouraging for them. Helper needs to possess certain flexibility in use of language
  • Helper finds out whether they have understood client correctly
  • Giving client a clearer picture of their problems
• Selective reinforcement of certain parts of client’s story to the neglect of others --> helper can deduce from client’s wait of talking what they think is most important
• Risk of expressing in their paraphrasing their own preconceived ideas rather than “returning” the client’s own words
• Tentative tone of voice --> gives client opportunity/invitation to correct helper when they are not entirely accurate

6.4.3 Reflection of Feeling

“By paraphrasing, the content aspects are stressed, whereas a reflection places greater emphasis on the emotional side, it is about reproduction or mirroring of feeling”

• When helper reflecting feelings, abstain from giving own value judgment, instead showing mainly understanding --> manifestation of empathy
  • Show client that their feelings are understood, accepted and worthy of attention
  • Acceptance gives client greater sense of security and the courage to express feelings which they themselves may find hard to accept with greater ease
  • Control function: helper checks whether they have assessed the client’s feelings correctly --> tentative tone

6.4.4 Concreteness

• Listening and encouraging
• Open and closed questions to create greater clarity
• Paraphrasing and reflections --> enhance accuracy and specificity of the problem’s description
• ‘Comparable problems’ --> attitude disregard uniqueness of people and their experiences
• ‘Everything’s gone wrong’
  
  • Distinction between surface structure and the depth structure of statements
  • Distinguish between antecedents and consequences

6.4.5 Summarizing

• Functions:
  • Give structure
  • Whether they have understood the client correctly
  • Encourages the client to explore
• Timing:
  
  • Helper feels the need (e.g. after lengthy and/or confused stream of words)
  • Client has apparently said everything they believe
  • Beginning of a new interview, to pick up the previous conversation

6.5 Regulating Skills

“to safeguard order and clarify in the counselling dialogue”

6.5.1 Goal-Setting and Goal Evaluation

• ‘Goal-evaluation questions’: the answer to this question may lead to an adjustment of original outcome goal

6.5.2 Situation Clarification

“Helper’s ability to recognize and discuss ambiguities or misunderstanding occur during relationship between themselves and the client”

• Meta-conversation: original discussion is considered from a certain distance
  • Uncertainties or Implied Expectations:
    • Client fins it very hard to talk about their problems
    • Client jumps from one subject to another
    • Dialogue round in circles

6.5.3 Thinking Aloud

“The helper should not only disclose their conclusions, but also about the thoughts and considerations leading up to them”

• Functions:
  • Helpers becomes more ‘ordinary’
  • Helpers do not get stuck themselves --> liberating effect
  • To get acquainted with client’s frame of reference, it is necessary for them to ‘think aloud’ --> when helper also does this, increase change of client following helper’s example
• Interpersonal Process Recall: methods students trained systematically. Feedback from supervisor and client, and they themselves, consider which unspoken thoughts gave rise to their responses
• Situation clarification: obscurity or differences in mutual expectations or in the relationship itself
• Thinking aloud: helper explains the background to certain question before posing it

6.5.4 Ending

• Distinction between finishing interview, and ending entire contact
• Announce at beginning of interview how much time is available
• Meta-communication about how client has experienced the interview
• Door Handle Phenomenon: client is only dare to talk about it when they are leaving