PRE-CONFERENCE WORKBOOK JULY 31, 2013

 

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About John

John has been a registered psychologist for the past 15 years and a certified trainer for the past 14 years. He is currently a member of the College of Organisational Psychologists and also acts as a coaching psychologist. John has worked in private practice treating people with personal and mental health problems as well as working in organisations assessing their needs and providing effective interventions and programs to improve both productivity and wellbeing within the organisation. John has a specific interest in developing and improving the wellbeing of people both in their private and workplace life and has been actively involved in programs associated with mental health awareness and support, positive and performance psychology as well as emotional intelligence and building resilience. As a presenter John brings a rich history of useful stories to bring the information he provides alive. He likes to add a good dollop of humour to his training and engage the participants to think and interact with the topic at hand.

JOHN’S TOP TIP

John’s favourite quote is:

“Before you argue with someone, first walk a mile in their shoes. That way if

they still want to argue, you are a mile away and have their shoes!”

About the Session

Many professions require counselling skills as part of their job requirements. These skills whilst for some are organic to their nature, nevertheless need to be learned, practised and honed to make us more effective in what we do.

The ABC of counselling workshop has distilled the core requirements of what it takes to effectively counsel and support people who need help. At the end of the workshop participants will have skills in being able to prepare themselves for a number of the core barriers when acting as an agent of change, will have practised key empathy building skills and be able to use a range of reflective thinking processes, and will be able to build a motivational case plan to match the needs and address concerns of the client. This workshop is a one day (shortened) version of the program which teaches participants to develop and hone their skills including:

Exploring the importance of attitude for both the client and the service provider and how that is expressed in communication exchange.

Engaging clients utilising rapport building and empathy to develop a safe place for clients to explore issues and consider change.

Exploring motivation to change and utilise a well-researched model of change management.

Set appropriate goals, address fears and develop an action based action plan.

JOHN LITTLETON UnitingCare Mental Health ABC of Counselling

9.00am—4.30pm, Wednesday 31 July (Pre-Conference Workshop)

SPEAKER INFORMATION

The ABC of

Counselling

Participant Manual

i

Contents

An introduction to the ABC of Counselling2

Rules for the Journey Key Themes of the Workshop Goal of Counselling

Attitude

The Counselling Journey

Reflective Listening Triad Role Play Reflective Practice Readiness to Explore Referring On Developing an Action Plan

Persuasion Techniques

Ending the Interaction Reference Section

2

An introduction to the ABC of Counselling

Many professions require counselling skills as part of their job requirements. These skills whilst for some are organic to their nature, nevertheless need to be learned, practiced and honed to make us more effective in what we do. The ABC of counselling workshop has distilled the core requirements of what it takes to effectively counsel and support people who need help. This workshop is a one day (shortened) version of the program which teaches participants to develop and hone their skills including:

Exploring the importance of attitude for both the client and the service provider

and how that is expressed in communication exchange.

Engaging clients utilising rapport building and empathy to develop a safe place

for clients to explore issues and consider change.

Exploring motivation to change and utilise a well-researched model of change

management.

Set appropriate goals, address fears and develop an action based action plan.

At the end of the workshop participants will have skills in being able to prepare themselves for a number of the core barriers when acting as an agent of change, will have practiced key empathy building skills and be able to use a range of reflective thinking processes, will be able to build a motivational case plan to match the needs and address concerns of the client.

The ABC of Counselling workshop utilises resources from

Carl Roger’s humanistic approach to therapy, Brief Solution Focused Therapy,

Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.

Unconscious

Incompetent

Unconscious

Competent

conscious

Incompetent

conscious

Competent

This Participant Manual contains all the materials required

in the training program.

As the program is active, participative, and

predominantly experiential, the training notes and presentation will be provided at the end of the third

session.

3

Rules for the Journey Everybody has a right to share from their own experience.

Treat other people’s personal information with respect and confidentiality.

Share your opinion as your own experience, not the truth. This is to avoid argument.

If you disagree with someone, talk from your own perspective (“I” statements).

Be careful not to take too much time when sharing an experience otherwise it can turn into a not so private therapy session and take up other people’s time.

If something in the course upsets you, talk to the facilitator first. If you have to leave the room please do not leave the training facility but stay around so someone can make sure you are ok (OH&S requirements).

Role plays are often uncomfortable and there is a desire generally to avoid them. However in this case they play an important role in allowing you to learn and develop skills in a safe place where you can make mistakes and it doesn’t matter. Better make mistakes in the workshop then with an actual client.

Enjoy yourself

“If Americans had a choice between going to heaven or going to a lecture on heaven.

they would probably go to the lecture.” Oscar Wilde

Key Themes of the Workshop

Listening

Reflecting

Exploring

Resolving

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Goal of Counselling

Counselling goals can include:

Attitude When a client comes to you and is vulnerable, upset or stressed, they are watching very carefully to see if you will reject or criticise them. Hence our behaviour towards them has to demonstrate openness and a positive regard to create a safe place for them to talk openly and share their problem. If you take a spring and twist it out of shape, you can contort the spring for as long as you keep concentrate on applying pressure. The moment you laps in concentration or start to weaken the spring will naturally twist back into its original shape. Attitudes work the same way, you can fake, feign or control your attitude as long as you keep focused on that and have enough mental strength to control your behaviour, tone of voice, what you say and body language. On the other hand if you work directly on developing a positive attitude to the client you don’t actually have to control anything and so can focus completely on the needs of the client. “A person does not feel themselves truly accepted until the least part of them is accepted”

Carl Justav Jung

Discussion – When engaging with clients who are distressed, what are we trying to achieve?

5

When communicating, what is the relevant importance of your:

Attitudes come from unconscious beliefs which are often constructed from our own history and past experience. Unconscious beliefs can be defined as:

Below our level of awareness most of the time

Directly influence our behaviour and feelings

Are subjective, defuse and vague

Have no sense of time or space

Approximate past events into present experience

Appear as intuitive (gut feeling, impression)

Make up 90% of what we do and feel

This is a Thematic Apperception Test: Below write a paragraph outlining what you think is happening in this picture

Tone of voice

%

Words

%

Body Language

%

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The ABC of Attitude:

“We are not so much disturbed by the things that happen to us but by the thoughts we have about them.

Epictetus

The Counselling Journey

Kick in leg by disabled person (6)

Kick in leg by punk

(6)

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Case Scenarios:

1. A person is complaining about not having enough time to get everything done: No matter how hard I try I can never get everything done, time seems to fly and I still seem to get stuck wasting a lot of time, I am terrified I am going to lose my job.

2. A person is distressed because they have lost an important file which has

confidential information in it: I am sure I had it last night and I am worried I left it on the train or put it somewhere, I have tried to retrace my steps but I feel overwhelmed and I can’t think straight, because people’s personal information could be in somebody’s hands right now.

3. A young person is describing how they feel: My place is chaotic, I don’t seem to

be able to let go or get rid of anything, I can’t function like this, I am embarrassed to have anybody visit and I can’t find anything. I feel so dysfunctional.

What is the first thing that you would “SAY” to them?

A B C D

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Reflective Listening Advantages:

Sentence Starters for Reflective Listening:

What I hear you saying is…………”

“So what you are saying is …………”

“Let me get this clear, what you mean is…….”

“Fear of that person, this is what you are feeling?!”

“It sounds like you are ……………”

“I can hear that you ……………...”

“so you’re…………… is that right”

Sentence Starters for Summarising:

“Just to recap…”

“So, if I can just review what you have said so far…”

“As I’ve been listening to you, your main concerns seem to be…”

“From what you’ve been saying it seems that…”

Sentence Starter for Normalising:

“It’s understandable that…”

“It’s a common experience…”

“People often talk about…”

“It makes sense that you would…”

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Triad Role Play Reflective Practice

Readiness to Explore Readiness to explore can only successfully happen with the following pre-conditions occur:

When rapport is established and the client feels understood

When the client is calm and able to focus on problem solving.

What are the signs that a person is ready to explore options?

What did you observe (strengths and areas for further development)?

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Open and Closed Questions:

Open Questions Used to Identify Key issues:

So that is what is upsetting you most?

So now are you clear what is most distressing for you?

So what do you think is the most important issues to address?

In all that has happened to you, what do you most need help with?

Tentative Confrontation:

“it sounds like one part of you feels…. And another part feels….”

“on one hand, it seems that…and on the other hand...” Praising:

That’s a very good idea!

So despite all those issues you managed to do something about it!

I can only imagine that it took a lot of courage to move out when he was threatening you.

So you think that writing your concerns down and giving it to her rather than fighting, might reduce the risk of aggressive behaviour? I thinks that is a good idea.

Discussion: when to use open and closed questions:

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Referring On You are not attempting to fix the person’s problem or even make them feel happy. Being aware of your own boundaries and limitations is important and needs to be made clear before you start and reinforced whenever necessary. Referring on to trained professionals will need to occur for those people with complex problems or significant mental health issues.

Develop an Action Plan

Specific:

Measurable:

Achievable:

Realistic:

Time Oriented:

Having a source list of referral agencies is important and may include: 1. Local GP’s who use Medicare plans and have good psychologists 2. Local Headspace centres 3. Local community health clinics 4. Local counselling agencies (Anglicare, Centrecare, Relationships

Australia) 5. LifeLine

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A A B B

C

C

Persuasion Techniques

Motivation to Change

Albert Bandura

Self Efficacy = the belief you can do the task Gain = what is in it for you to do the task Pain = risk factors, fears about what could go wrong & what it will cost

Persuasion and Negotiation Techniques:

Responding to Ambivalence:

Socratic “Yes” Set:

Embedded Command:

Direction Filter:

Chunking Filter:

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Ending the Interaction

“We’ve talked about _______and ______ and from what you’ve been saying it sounds as if _______ might be something you would like to try. I’m just wondering if there is anything else you would like to discuss today?”

“From what you have been saying it sounds like _____ are your main concerns today. I am wondering how you are feeling now after talking today?”

“Well done for coming up with those solutions, I would encourage you to continue to make those changes and seek help from a psychologist who can really help you achieve your goals”.

Reference Section Goleman, D. Emotional Intelligence.

Egan, G. The Skilled Helper. (Brooks/Cole Publishing, 1986)

Johnson, D.W. Reaching Out. (Prentice Hall International, 1990)

Quick, E.K. Doing What Works in Brief Therapy.

O’Hanlon, B. Do One Thing Different.

Miller, W. Motivational Interviewing.

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