Practicing Counseling Sessions
Practicing counseling sessions was something I was dreading from day one. I am not the best actor and it takes me out of my comfort zone. The first session turned out to not be as bad as I thought it would be. I learned that a few of my fellow classmates were nervous with this exercise as well. When I was observing my groups, I notice the level of eye contact that was made. Each person tried to keep eye contact even though we were nervous when it was our turn to be the counselor. It was quite cold in the classroom so we could not really look at body language because some us were shivering. We did keep in mind the Amy Cuddy video we watch about body language and how it can say a lot about you. When it was my turn to be the counselor, I was
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Body language and eye contact are important when working with clients. Each of us tried to keep eye contact with one another to ensure that we were listening. The text also taught us to be soothing in tone and keep a nice facial expression. I personally learned the importance of reflecting and paraphrasing back to the client. As it was my turn to be the client, my counselor was able to repeat everything I said about my pretend problem with perfectionism. She stated everything I told her about my problem and it made me really feel as if I was being listened to. Encouragement is another factor I noticed while in our groups. According to our text, encouragement is used to boost the client’s courage to confide in the counselor. This was used while one of my classmates was listening to her client in the group. She encouraged her client to keep talking. She said things like “tell me more” and “very good thank you for sharing”. In our sessions, reflections of feelings were also used. When I was the counselor, as I was repeating what was said to me, I also said that I understand you are feeling upset about the issue with a different adjective than the client used. I incorporated words that showed I was really listening and trying to understand what the client was feeling and to receive confirmation about the feelings. The text tells us that reflecting is the verbal way of showing empathy to the
Body language and eye contact are important when working with clients. Each of us tried to keep eye contact with one another to ensure that we were listening. The text also taught us to be soothing in tone and keep a nice facial expression. I personally learned the importance of reflecting and paraphrasing back to the client. As it was my turn to be the client, my counselor was able to repeat everything I said about my pretend problem with perfectionism. She stated everything I told her about my problem and it made me really feel as if I was being listened to. Encouragement is another factor I noticed while in our groups. According to our text, encouragement is used to boost the client’s courage to confide in the counselor. This was used while one of my classmates was listening to her client in the group. She encouraged her client to keep talking. She said things like “tell me more” and “very good thank you for sharing”. In our sessions, reflections of feelings were also used. When I was the counselor, as I was repeating what was said to me, I also said that I understand you are feeling upset about the issue with a different adjective than the client used. I incorporated words that showed I was really listening and trying to understand what the client was feeling and to receive confirmation about the feelings. The text tells us that reflecting is the verbal way of showing empathy to the