The Therapeutic Alliance and the Importance of the Basic Counselling Skills

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In this essay I am discussing the therapeutic alliance and the importance of the use of basic counselling skills. I have organized a 15 minute counselling session with a student named Rob in which he is the client and I am counselling him on a real issue. In order to discuss basic counselling skills in depth, I am identifying only three of the skills that I used in the session. They are: attending skill, reflective statements and the use of questions. I also evaluate how well I applied these skills and suggest how I could improve my use of them. Overall I reflect on my experience and discuss what I am taking away from this exercise and what it means for my future development. The object of this exercise is to reflect on what the basic counselling skills are and to re-enforce my awareness of how I am using them and their impact on the client. To briefly summarize the session with Rob, he talks about his upcoming project of travelling to Europe with his girlfriend. He is enthusiastic about it and it is relatively easy for him to open up and express himself. By exploring the light topic of a holiday overseas, Rob gets to talk about the core issue of stress that he is experiencing in general in trying to be more financially stable. He comes into the session having previously recognized an old behaviour of limiting himself financially. He goes on discussing how the trip and his relationship with his girlfriend are incentives to change that long-held behaviour. He feels challenged and motivated and sees that however difficult and somewhat stressful this stage of his life is, the “bad” -as he labels the hard times- is part of the journey. With regards to money, learning to be more active in putting strategies in place to concretise his trip to Europe is a challenge that Rob is ready to face. As for one of my own challenges, I was feeling nervous about this session for a

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