Effective counseling skills are vital in forming a strong alliance between the client and therapist.
When combined, such competencies support clients through treatment and help them reach their goal of overcoming the pressures of modern life and leading a more fulfilling existence (Tan, Leong, Tan, & Tan, 2015).
Various counseling skills can be learned and developed to foster and maintain the psychological process, including good communication, problem solving, and goal setting, and introduce coping techniques such as self-talk and visualization (Nelson-Jones, 2014; Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2015).
This article introduces and examines counseling skills and techniques for supporting the psychological process underpinning therapy and setting and achieving counseling goals.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Strengths Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will help your clients realize their unique potential and create a life that feels energizing and authentic.
Most therapists and counselors would agree that a good counseling relationship is fundamental to being effective with clients. Such alliances build on several counselor-offered qualities, core conditions, and skills, including “empathic understanding, respect and acceptance for clients’ current states of being, and congruence or genuineness” (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 9).
While psychological practitioners recognize the importance of the counseling relationship, they also agree on the need for interventions using skills directed by their theoretical orientation.
When viewed as a relationship with core conditions and a selection of interventions, counseling is recognized as a psychological process, usually with the goal of “altering how people feel, think and act so that they may live their lives more effectively” (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 10).
Various counseling skills underpin the psychological process and are required to become an effective therapist. They have five different goals (Nelson-Jones, 2014):
The therapist’s skills help the client achieve one or more of the goals above, overcome the problems they face, and acquire techniques to support new ways of thinking and behaving.
Effective counseling and therapy require many skills; they combine to build and maintain the therapeutic relationship and improve the likelihood of a positive outcome from the psychological process (Cochran & Cochran, 2015; Nelson-Jones, 2014).
While there are various skills, the following are practical examples requiring positive and specific counseling skills.
Visual images can be powerful tools for entering and understanding a client’s frame of reference (Nelson-Jones, 2014).
When a client explains their situation and the challenges they face, it can be helpful to form a mental representation of what life may be like for them. Visualization can provide insight into how they interpret events problematically, using their personal experiences and beliefs to shape their internal representation (Nelson-Jones, 2014).
Self-talk is a valuable intervention for clients learning to cope with stress and anger (Nelson-Jones, 2014). Skilled therapists help clients with self-talk in the following ways:
Therapists may occasionally counsel clients in potential or immediate danger. While their influence may feel limited, “counselors’ primary source of influence to keep clients safe through situations of imminent danger is the therapeutic relationship they form with each client” (Cochran & Cochran, 2015, p. 201).
Strong therapeutic relationship skills, such as the following, help manage client crises:
These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to discover and harness their unique strengths.
