child and adolescent counseling chapter 6

Person-centered counselor believes people: • Have worth and dignity and deserve respect • Have the capacity and right to self-direction • Can select their own values • Can learn to make

Carl Rogers

• Childhood marked by close family ties, a strict religious and moral atmosphere and the

appreciation of hard work.

• Attended graduate school at Union Theological Seminary

• Fellowship at Institute of Child Guidance

• At Ohio State University as a professor began to publish cases in “client-centered therapy”

• Spent most of his time working with and

writing about person-centered therapy with groups

Person-centered counselor

believes people:

• Have worth and dignity and deserve respect

• Have the capacity and right to self-direction

• Can select their own values

• Can learn to make constructive use of

responsibility

• Have the capacity to deal with their feelings,

thoughts and behaviors

• Have the potential for constructive change

Theory of Counseling

1 Two people in psychological

contact

2 Client is in a state of incongruence

3 Therapist is congruent and involved

in relationship

Theory of Counseling (Cont.)

4 Therapist has unconditional

positive regard for client

5 Therapist has empathetic

understanding of the client’s frame

of reference

6 Communication of empathetic and

positive regard is achieved.

Theory of Counseling

• Do not give advice, ask question or make interpretations

• Put clients in position of charting the

direction of their counseling interviews

• Limit responses to summaries and

clarifications of the content, feelings, and expectations for counseling presented by the client

Theory of Counseling

Clients receiving person-centered counseling

learn more about themselves and their

unsolved problems than they have ever known before because they are in the teaching role of trying to help counselors understand their (the clients’) situations The task of the person-

centered counselor is to take periodic oral

quizzes on how much they are learning and

understanding

Theory of Counseling

• Counselor creates a warm and accepting

atmosphere for client

• Counselor reflects client’s inner world with

warmth, acceptance, and trust

• Main goal is assisting people in becoming more autonomous, spontaneous and confident

• Ultimate goal is for client to be a fully functioning person who has learned to be free and who can counsel self

Counseling Method

• Counselor as person vital, a model

• Possess and demonstrate openness,

empathic understanding, independence, spontaneity, acceptance, mutual respect and intimacy

• Strongest techniques: congruence

(genuineness), unconditional positive

regard (respect) and empathy

Rogers’s Six Principles

• First principle: “…I have found that it does

not help, in the long run, to act as though I

am something I am not.”

• Second principle: “I have found it

effective…to be accepting of myself.”

• Third principle: “I have found it to be of

enormous value when I can permit myself

to understand another person.”

Rogers’s Six Principles (Cont.)

• Fourth principle: “I have found it to be of

value to be open to the realities of life as

they are revealed in me and in other

people.”

• Fifth principle: “The more I am able to

understand myself and others, the more

that I am open to the realities of life and the less I find myself wishing to rush in.”

Rogers’s Six Principles (Cont.)

• Sixth principle: “It has been my

experience that people have a

basically positive direction.”

• Phase I is where you are now

• Phase II is where you would like to be

Gordon’s Dirty Dozen Road Blocks to Communication

1 ordering: directing

2 warning: threaten

3 moralizing: shoulds and oughts

4 advising: give suggestions

5 messages of logic: counter argument

6 judging: criticism

Gordon’s Dirty Dozen Road Blocks to Communication

(Cont.)

7 praising: butter them up

8 name calling: ridicule

9 psychoanalyzing

10 reassuring: give sympathy

11 probing: who, what, why?

12 humor: distraction

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication

Level One: Discounting Feelings

• “Oh don’t worry about that we all have problems worse than that.”

• “If you think you have a problem, listen

to this.”

• “You must have done something to

cause that.”

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication (Cont.)

Level Two: Giving Advice

• “You need to study harder.”

• “You should eat better.”

• “Why don’t you make more friends?”

• “How would you like your brother to

treat you the way you treat him?”

• “You should look for another job.”

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication (Cont.)

Level Three: Summarize the Problem

• “You feel _ because ”

• “You are sad because your best friend moved.”

• “You are happy because your team

won.”

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication (Cont.)

Help for Level 3:

• First counselors ask themselves whether

client is expressing pain or pleasure

• Then find the correct feeling word to describe the emotion

• Do not parrot the exact words of the client

but capture the feelings to help them recognize their emotions as indicators of

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication (Cont.)

Level Four: Summarize the Goal

• “You feel _ because and you want .”

• “You are anxious because you have to give a speech and you want to be

more confident about it.”

Carkhuff’s Levels of Communication (Cont.)

Level Five: Initiate a Plan

• “You feel _ because and you want We can begin

by looking at what you have been

doing to solve the problem.”

Motivational Interviewing

• person-centered

• directive approach for increasing intrinsic motivation

to change by investigating and confronting

ambivalence

• mixes person-centered fundamentals of warmth and empathy

• techniques of questioning and reflective listening

• incorporates goals about change and provides

specific interventions to encourage the client toward

Motivational Interviewing

Four principles

1.The counselor uses reflective listening to convey

understanding of the message and caring for the person 2.The counselor must develop the discrepancy between the person’s stated values and his or her current

behavior to create motivation for change

3.The counselor addresses resistance with reflection

rather than confrontation

4.The counselor supports the client’s self-efficacy by

Summary for children

• Counselor provides a warm, caring

environment

• Children can explore their emotions and

consequences of their action

• Can evaluate the alternatives and select

one to try

• With young children, counselor may have to assume a more active role

Child-centered Play Therapy

Basic Principles

1.The counselor has a genuine interest in the child and builds a warm, caring relationship.2.The counselor accepts the child

unconditionally, not wishing the child were different

3.The counselor institutes a feeling of safety and permissiveness in the relationship,

allowing the child freedom to explore and

Child-centered Play Therapy

Basic Principles (Cont.)

4 The counselor maintains sensitivity to

the child’s feelings and reflects them

in a way that increases the child’s understanding.

self-5 The counselor strongly believes in the

child’s capacity to act responsibly and solve personal problems, and allows

Child-centered Play Therapy

Basic Principles (Cont.)

6 The counselor trusts the inner direction

of the child, allowing the child to lead

the relationship and refusing to override the child’s direction

7 The counselor does not hurry the

process.

8 The counselor uses only the limits

necessary for helping the child accept

Child-centered Play Therapy

Counselor lives out these messages:

• I am here (nothing will distract me).

• I hear you (I am listening carefully).

• I understand you, and I care about

you.