“If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur.” (Rogers, 1961, p.33) Carl Rogers hypothesised that a therapist can and should work towards establishing a therapeutic relationship with the client. This relationship has certain characteristics, which create an environment that facilitate the client’s self-actualisation. My driving motivation to learn basic skills and personal qualities of an active and effective listener is the evidence that the techniques help people make movements towards their fullest potential.
This paper will present my investigation of the basic skills and personal qualities of being an active and effective listener alongside evaluation of my strengths and weaknesses in each area listed. In order to provide a structure to the investigation and evaluation, this paper will enumerate and provide my summary of the microskills hierarchy (Ivey, 2014, p.11) from Ethics, Multicultural Competence, and Wellness, up to The Five-Stage Interview Structure. Subsequently, this paper will highlight areas of the skills and techniques that I resonate with and include Christian perspectives and ethos alongside the brief summary.
Ivey (2014) presented the microskills hierarchy, which demonstrate a pyramid of counselling dimensions essential for building cultural intentionality. This pyramid has at the base, Ethics, Multicultural Competence, and Wellness foundation dimensions. Ivey summarised Ethics as “Do no harm to your clients: treat them responsibly with full awareness of the social context of helping.”
At the beginning of this semester, during the Ethics class, I realised suddenly that behaving ethically is not solely about my own values and what sort of clients I can choose to work with. Rather, an ethical counsellor will seek to do the most beneficial for all clients that come to him or her. At times, the most beneficial may be referring the client to someone who is better equipped to work with the client’s specific issue. Some of the guidelines that guide a Christian counsellor like myself, in Australia, are ethical frameworks of organisations such as Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, Australian Association of Social Workers and Christian Counsellor Association of Australia, in addition to that of employing organisation and state or federal government.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Ethics, I am aware of certain groups of people whom I might have difficulties providing non-maleficent and beneficent service. These are the people who I will need to take extra care to treat with unconditional positive regard, with the help of supervisor(s), and endeavour to do whatever is the best for them, including but not limited to referring them to another counsellor (Mearns and Thorne, 2007).
Ivey and Ivey (2012) presented the RESPECTFUL model (pp. 18-19) which illustrated a list of multicultural considerations, beyond racial and ethnicity that a counsellor can use to achieve Multicultural Competence. The list is comprehensive and it encourages me to consider many aspects which otherwise might not have been at the forefront of my multicultural consideration.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Multicultural Consideration, my identity as a Christian Asian in Australia provides me with strength to relate to many other Christian Asians. However, I endeavour to be careful not to develop an “I know already” complex where I become insensitive to the subtle yet important differences such as Family Background, Trauma, Chronological/Lifespan Challenges etc.
Finally, at the very base level of the microskill pyramid is the Strength-based Wellness model suggested for the counsellor to help clients identify and build up their resources (Egan, 2010; Mearns and Thorne, 2007). In this model, the counsellor embarks on a journey with the client (consciously or unconsciously) to seek positive assets. These positive assets are useful to enhance positive regard of the client, both from the counsellor and client’s perspective. The positive assets search will thread the counselling sessions and be invaluable during the Restory stage of the Five-Stage Interview Structure. Further details will be presented in later section of this paper.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Wellness, I have on occasions been able to able to identify client’s strengths and competences effectively and on other times, forgotten to attend with the intention to listen for Strengths. Reflecting on the occasions when I was not able to attend fully to the client, I was most likely distracted by emotions that have been triggered by client’s story. This experience has shown me that it is tantamount for me to receive counselling and supervision so I can be well and attentive to client.
Attending Behaviour and Empathy is on the next level of the pyramid. In my investigation, I discovered the importance of Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquetts’ (2010) three V’s and a B (Visual contact, Vocal qualities or tone, Verbal tracking, Body language) used to attend to the client and personal qualities and attitudes, grossly described as empathy, that are instrumental to application of effective attending behaviour. Carl Rogers suggested non-judgemental and authentic attending to be an important part of empathic listening (1961). Mckenzie and Monk (1997) also suggested gentle persistence and curiousity to identify strength and competence in client as essential aspects.
Cormier, Nurius and Osborn (2009) claimed that “the capacity to discriminate various nonverbal behaviours of clients and their possible meanings” is important for discovering clues about client’s emotions. Detecting selective attention patterns during verbal tracking may also provide valuable clues on the client’s focus and avoidance (Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett). Another valuable Verbal Tracking tool is the use of Silence. Silence, used appropriately, seem to have the ability to accentuate Reflection of Feelings. Next is the Body Language, appropriate display of Body language is crucial to demonstrate empathy and effective Attending Behaviour (Geldard, 1998).
Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett (2010) discussed fascinating neuroscientific evidences of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons, which are activated in an observer in the presence of another person experiencing emotions. These mirror neurons activate similar physiological arousal in the observer’s and client’s body. As a counsellor in training, I believe it is important for me to learn to differentiate physiological symptoms created by mirror neurons from my personal emotional arousal.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Attending Behaviour and Empathy, I seem to have natural ability to attend to clients empathically. That strength can be further enhanced through a contemplative practice where I hone my ability to put aside emotions and thoughts triggered during an interview for processing with a supervisor.
This section of the paper present the basic listening sequence, comprising; Client Observation Skills, Open and Closed Questions, Encouraging, Paraphrasing and Summarizing and Reflection of Feeling.
Observation can be summarised as attending to the nonverbal behaviour and verbal behaviour in order to discover patterns or deviation from patterns. Observation include individual and multicultural variation, conflict, incongruities and discrepancies, and counsellor’s own behaviour. Observation skills is used to guide microskills and strategies and facilitate movement from stage to stage (Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett).
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Observation Skills, I seem to be able to pick up deviation, incongruities and discrepancies readily. However, I seem weak in ability to bring to articulate the discrepancies. I wonder if this inability is perpetuated by my tendency to avoid confrontation. I intend to bring it forth to my personal counsellor for analysis.
The next stage of the listening sequence is the use of Open and Close questions. Questions can be used to build trust, search for specifics but should be used with care, keeping in mind that over use of questions may cause the session to sound like an interrogation (Rennie, 1998).
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Open and Close Questions, I have been formally trained as a data collection interviewer and understand the use of questions. However, I seem to dislike the use of questions for fear of abuse and cause the session to sound like an interrogation or overly directive. This awareness of the underlying fear may free me to use of questions appropriately.
Encouraging, Paraphrasing and Summarising is the next level of basic listening sequence. It is the main way to feed back to client on what has been heard empathically. Encouraging is done through the use of encouragers and restatements; nonverbal encouragers, head nods and smiling, verbal restatements, repeats of key words and short sentences.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Encouraging, I have sufficient proficiency in encouraging clients to continue sharing without talking much. In the past, I was concerned about head nodding excessively, however after observing myself in an encounter, I realised that I subconsciously distinguish my head nods (in degrees) and appropriately according to the verbal tone and body language of the client.
Paraphrasing is used for the purpose of performing a check with client to ensure that the counsellor has received the gist of what has just been heard, in addition to bring to client’s attention what they have just said and correct the counsellor if the paraphrase was inaccurate. Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett suggested that clients will not feel the need to repeat their story when clients feel listened to but instead proceed to provide more details in response to the paraphrase.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Paraphrasing, I seemed preoccupied with not introducing words that might be directive. This awareness of my tendency to be preoccupied with using the right words may liberate me and allow me to concentrate on using the keywords from the clients instead.
The summarising technique is a collection of paraphrases in which the counsellor verbally re-present client’s thoughts and comments. The aim of summarising is to use client’s key words to bring to the forefront strengths and resources displayed.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Summarising, I have not had the opportunity to practice this technique extensively. I suspect with practice, I will be able become proficient with Paraphrasing, hence Summarising.
The next level on the pyramid is Reflection of Feelings. Reflection of Feelings is providing feedback to the client by verbally communicating a key emotion of the client immediately. Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett suggested that clients may develop more awareness of that reflected emotion and explore it in depth. Following elements are suggested for use to reflect feelings; sentence stem, feeling label, context or brief paraphrase, tense and immediacy, checkout.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Reflection of Feelings, I seem more efficient at reflecting sadness, anger and fear than other emotions. I am curious about the cause of this lopsided ability. Hopefully, I will be able to process the phenomenon, gain insight to the situation and as a result improve in understanding of myself and become better at reflecting feelings.
In this next section, this paper will present the Five-Stage Interview Structure; Empathic Relationship, Story and Strengths, Goals, Restory and Action. These stages with the Basic Listening Sequence and Attending Behaviour can be used to form a complete session. Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett suggested that these five stages are foundational regardless of the theoretical orientation of the counsellor.
In Stage One, Empathic Relationship, the counsellor and client use the session(s) to build rapport and provide information such as informed consent and client’s rights.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Empathic Relationship, I have the ability to build rapport with clients and have been able to enter Stage Two and Three with clients quite proficiently.
In Stage Two, Story and Strengths, the counsellor makes use of the Basic Listening Sequence to explore the client’s thoughts and feelings. In this stage, the counsellor listen to client’s story to help the client feel understood and listened to. Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett suggested that strength and resources search is a very important part of this process.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Story and Strengths, I am inconsistent with the ability to focus on reflecting strengths and resources.
In Stage Three, Mutual Goal Setting, the counsellor seeks to facilitate the client to define and refine their goals. Counsellor may also summarise and reflect the differences between the current story and goal.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Mutual Goal Setting, I need to work on a more proactive approach to awareness and clarification of goals with client and check back at mid session for consistency or need to amend goal. Also, it would be helpful to remember to close the session with a recheck of the goals.
In Stage Four, Restory, the counsellor encourages the client to “discover their own solutions (p.192) in attempt to aim for a decision and new story.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Restory, because I have not been actively focusing on the strengths and goals stage, I found it difficult to encourage the client to explore solutions. I endeavour to remember to revisit goals and look out for strengths in order to assist the client to move through the Restory stage more effectively.
In Stage Five, Action, Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett suggested contracting, homework and journaling, follow-up and support to help the client move to action.
Upon reflection of my strengths and weaknesses, in this area of Action, I have had proficient training in coaching and has been able to assist many clients put their solutions to actions in the past. I suspect the scenario in counselling will differ and require sensitivity and consideration for successful application.
In this next section, this paper will reflect on the personal qualities instrumental to being an effective counsellor. Milner and O’Byrne (2002) listed some personal qualities that an effective counsellor should possess. Self-awareness is one of the highest qualities. This self-awareness includes humble self-questioning, mental flexibility (reflective and reflexive), warmth, unconditional positive regard, non-dominant attitude, open-mindedness, objectivity, maturity, tolerance of tension and ambiguity. Other qualities named are “enthusiasm and consistently held belief in the capacity of people to find their own solutions” as essential qualities (Dolan, 1981).
Many of the above listed beliefs are reflected in the person of Jesus, with except of humble self-questioning, consistently held belief in the capacity of people to find their own solutions. As a Christian, I belief that Jesus came as our solution and as a man who knew no sin hence did not need to entertain self-questioning. When encountering someone, I believe that Jesus is there in the midst of the session, journey with the client and me. That belief, in addition to my belief that Jesus loves the client unconditionally allows me to consistently believe that Jesus will lead the person to their solution.
Upon reflection, I may possess some of the qualities listed above however I believe that I can only be an effective counsellor if I maintain a consistent posture of leaning towards Jesus Christ while He lead and use me (with the microskills competency) to help the client.
In conclusion, I possess certain strengths, qualities that I can use together with the Basic Listening Sequence and the Five-Stage Interview Structure to provide effective counselling service. I will increase in competency, when I enhance the weaknesses in the different areas identified, through consistent practice. I continue to be enthusiastic about what I believe God has called me to and understand the efforts and work I will have to put in to be more effective. I look forward to this journey of self-awareness, reflection, relearning and application, where I humbly learn to walk alongside others, in the spirit of Christ.
