The following notes are an aid to up-skilling and cross-skilling your counseling micro-skills, to complement your university studies or supervision training. They are not a replacement for your class/internship materials and instruction.
Reference
Beck, K., & Kulzer, J. (2018). Teaching counseling microskills to audiology students: Recommendations from professional counseling educators. Seminars in Hearing, 39(1), 91-106. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0037-1613709
Summary
- Psychotherapy (professional counseling) and other health and rehabilitation workers use counseling micro-skills
- Effective use of counseling micro-skills = strong therapeutic alliance
--> positive intervention outcomes
- Recommended to be taught as soon as possible in graduate programs b/c a foundational skill - Role-play and simulated patients provided embodied learning (experiential)
- practice, repetition, feedback
- Four critical counseling micro-skills: 1. Active listening
2. Nonverbal communication
3. Silence
4. Empathy
- Detailed rubric to grade student demonstration of micro-skills
- A learning activity is provided to enable identification and understanding of the 4 key counseling micros-skills, and best practice for learning
- Strong therapeutic alliance à higher client compliance with intervention
- Counseling micro-skills are recommended for health and rehabilitation professionals, as well as psychology professionals
- Professional counseling = Formal relationships encouraging and supporting mental wellness and functioning across individual backgrounds and goals
- “… assess, diagnose, and treat mental disorders using evidence-based interventions” (p. 4)
- holistic philosophic foundation with a strengths-based approach
- Delivery of modality specific counseling (i.e., theory-driven) requires grounding in counseling micro-skills
- Excelling at therapeutic interventions necessitates a solid grasp of counseling micro-skills
- The therapeutic relationship is more important than the therapeutic technique
>50% intervention effects found due to therapeutic alliance (Lambert, & Barley, 2002)
- Therapeutic alliance = Cultivation of trust and rapport btw therapist and client
Next installment: Active Listening (stay tuned)
~ Charmayne
