Collaborative Helping Skills is a T1 for courses in the helping professions that helps students learn the basic skills of helping. The course is a requirement for any student in counseling, psychotherapy, or social work as it prepares the student for the work they will be doing with clients. This book has a focus on developing skills that are collaborative by involving the client in the helping process/solution and it has an integrated focus on multicultural skills and social justice. The book first outlines the basic process of counseling and counselor self care, then goes into conversation and counseling, receiving, attending, listening, positive regard, empathy, and connection. Then the author moves into the basics of developing a relationship with the client as well as relating to the experience. Finally the book moves toward the treatment planning stage via a shared experience by involving the client in the process. Every chapter will contain the following pedagogy: • Case study • Sample dialogue • Chapter objectives • Boxed capsules to highlight key skills • Reflections on practice • Experiential exercises • questions for reflection • Video demonstrations

Responding to and Confirming Meaning

Responding to and confirming meaning

Introduction

Chapter 5 looked at the receptive dimension of therapeutic conversation, focusing on how counselors read meaning into the text of a client's sharing. The chapter also concluded with some practices for encouraging that sharing. This chapter introduces ways of responding that go further—practices for engaging in a back and forth with clients to consolidate mutual understanding. When counselors respond to confirm their reading of the client's experience, there is a switch from (primarily) monologue on the part of the client to dialogue between counselor and client, a movement from one voice to two.

On first meeting a client, or early in a repeat conversation with a client, it's usually appropriate to do more listening than speaking, ...

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