Basic Counselling Skills

Course Overview

After working with the public a short while I quickly realized I was getting in over my head. I was surprised to discover how emotional and ‘real’ people's issues could get. I had people in tears or sharing complex personal stories. I had vulnerable people turning to me with hope and pleading in their eyes…and my knowledge and mastery of the mechanics of helping others had in no way prepared me to handle this aspect of my work.

Anyone who administers to the public welfare may end up in the role of therapist. This includes alternative health practitioners such as massage therapists and naturopaths to coaches, doctors, dentists, nurses, social workers, or teachers. This course is designed to help you be prepared to help others with really intimate life issues. To others you may be in the role of an ‘expert’ inspiring them to willingly share meaningful and significant aspects of their life for a reason; because they trust us and often because they have no where else to turn.

This counselling skills training course is created to offer others what I often learned the hard way. What I discovered was deceptively simple and utterly counter-intuitive.

I came to discover there are certain basic counselling skills crucial for success in certain job titles. A large part of our work requires awareness and finesse.

Frankly few of us are born with the intuitive knowledge of how to just be with another person as they explore the conditions of their inmost core. Our natural response is to consider what they are saying from our own perspective and to respond from our own perspective as we normally would.

The one deceptively simple skills this counselling skills course is designed to help develop is the ability to listen to another person. The goal is to understand what another person is really trying to say. This means acquiring the ability to establish and maintain rapport. Sustaining successful rapport requires active listening skills. Active listening skills encourage the story teller to dig deep. Skills such as paraphrasing, clarifying, and open ended questioning let them know your’re hearing their story.

This counselling skills course will help you reflect back what the person is saying without coloring it through your own judgments and opinions to understand it from their point of view. This requires the ability to create empathy. This course takes an in depth look at the characteristics and qualities of empathy.

Often just being with another person and letting them know you hear their story from their point of view creates their own clarity. In many more cases than thought possible clarity is the central element lacking. They will be in a much better position to decide and make intentional choices

This flies in the face of how we normally interact. Usually when we listen to someone we speak and respond with our own additions to the conversation. Even when we extend ourselves to try to understand what another is are saying, we hear, understand, and evaluate from our own point of view.

The counselling skills required to be an excellent therapist no matter what your actual ‘job title’ are counter-intuitive and therefore need to be learned. What I discovered was deceptively simple and utterly counter-intuitive…it is not about looking for a solution or giving advice. It is about holding a safe space for another as they explore the conditions of their inmost core. This provides healing.

Who is the course for?

This course is for anyone who would like to strengthen these skills for professional and personal reasons including, alternative health practitioners, sports coaches, doctors, dentists, nurses, or others who will be dealing with the public.

What you will learn!

During this course you will learn the basic counseling skills,

1. Rapport- how to develop and maintain.

2. Empathy- learn the characteristics and qualities for creating empathy.

3. Active Listening Skills- reflect back what another person is expressing.

4. Skilled Helper Protocols.

5. Interviewing Skills.

6. Working With Difficult Clients.

This course engages the ideas on three fronts:

1. Theory: learn key ideas of counseling skills.

2. Practice: practice (groups of three) as:

   1. listener

   2. client

   3. observer

3. Self development: experiential exploration of your own response to the ideas.

This structure reflects a central idea in counselling that you need to understand the concepts, develop your counselling skills, and become more self-aware.

In-Class = 27

Extra-Curricular Reading & Homework =  10

Practicum = Not Required

Personal Hypnotherapy Session = Not Required

Supervised Practicum Session = Not Required
Total Credited Hours = 37