The Counsellor: Person and Professional
The Counsellor as a Therapeutic Person
- Our own genuineness has a significant effect on our relationship with our clients
- Research indicates: person of the therapist is a primary factor in successful therapy
- The person of the psychotherapist is always intertwined with the outcome of
psychotherapy
- Clients place more value on personality of therapist than specific techniques used
- Found: personal & interpersonal components are essential to effective psychotherapy
- The contextual factors – the alliance, the relationship, the personal and interpersonal
skills of therapist, client agency and extra-therapeutic factors – primarily
determinants of therapeutic outcome
- Both the therapy relationship and the therapy methods used influence the outcome
of treatment, but it’s essential that the methods used support the therapeutic
relationship being formed with the client
Personal characteristics of Effective Counsellors:
- Effective therapists:
➢ Have an identity: they know who they are, who they’re capable of becoming,
what they want out of life & what’s essential to them
➢ Respect and appreciate themselves: they can give & receive help/love out of
their own sense of self-worth & strength
➢ Are open to change: exhibit a willingness and courage to leave security of the
known if they’re not satisfied with the way they are
➢ Make choices that are life oriented: they’re aware of early decisions they make
about themselves, others & world. Committed to living fully
➢ Are authentic, sincere and honest: who they are in their personal and
professional life – work in harmony
➢ Have a sense of humour: able to put the events of life in perspective
➢ Make mistakes & willing to admit them: they don’t dismiss their errors
➢ Live in the present: they’re not stuck in the past or fixated on the future.
➢ Appreciate the influence of culture: aware of the ways their own culture
influences them, & they respect the diversity of values espoused by other
cultures. They’re sensitive to the unique differences arising out of social class,
race, sexual orientation and gender
➢ Have a sincere interest in the welfare of others: concern based on respect, care,
trust and a real valuing of others
➢ Possess effective interpersonal skills: capable of entering a world of others
without getting lost in this world, they strive to create collaborative
relationships with others.
➢ Become deeply involved in their work and find meaning in it: they accept the
rewards flowing from their work, yet they’re not slaves to their work
➢ Are passionate: have the courage to pursue their dreams/passions
1
, ➢ Able to maintain healthy boundaries: although they strive to be fully present
for their clients, they don’t carry the problems of their clients around with
them during leisure hours.
- Consider these characteristics a scale. A given trait may be highly characteristic of
you, at one extreme, or it may be very uncharacteristic of you, at the other extreme.
Personal Therapy for the Counsellor:
- Counsellors can benefit greatly from the experience of being clients at some time
- Strongly support: some form of self-exploration
- Orlinsky and colleagues suggest that personal therapy contributes to the therapist’s
professional work in the following ways:
➢ 1.) personal therapy offers a model of therapeutic practice in which the trainee
experiences the work of a more experienced therapist & learns experientially
what’s helpful or not helpful
➢ 2.) can enhance a therapist’s interpersonal skills
➢ 3.) can contribute to a therapist’s ability to deal with the ongoing stresses
associated with clinical work
- Through our work as therapists, we can expect to confront our own unexplored
personal blocks – we should be aware of what these conflicts are & how they’re likely
to affect us as persons and as counsellors.
- Personal therapy can be instrumented in healing the healer.
- By becoming clients, ourselves, we gain NB experiences in viewing ourselves
- Learn to develop patience with out patients. We learn what it feels like to deal with
anxieties that are aroused by self-disclosure and self-exploration. We can learn how
to creatively facilitate deeper levels of self-exploration in clients
- Own therapy helps us avoid a position of superiority over others
The Counsellor’s Values and the Therapeutic Process
- Crucial: aware of our values, of where and how they acquired them and of how their
values can influence their interventions with clients
The Role of Values in Counselling:
- Our values are core beliefs that influence how we act, both in our personal life &
professional life
- We need to guard against the tendency to use our power to influence clients to
accept our values.
- The counsellor’s role is to create a climate in which clients can examine their
thoughts, feelings, actions & to empower them to arrive at their own solutions to the
problems they face
- You may not agree with some of your client’s values, but you need to respect their
right to hold different values from yours – especially: counselling clients from a
different cultural background & don’t share your own cultural values.
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The Counsellor as a Therapeutic Person
- Our own genuineness has a significant effect on our relationship with our clients
- Research indicates: person of the therapist is a primary factor in successful therapy
- The person of the psychotherapist is always intertwined with the outcome of
psychotherapy
- Clients place more value on personality of therapist than specific techniques used
- Found: personal & interpersonal components are essential to effective psychotherapy
- The contextual factors – the alliance, the relationship, the personal and interpersonal
skills of therapist, client agency and extra-therapeutic factors – primarily
determinants of therapeutic outcome
- Both the therapy relationship and the therapy methods used influence the outcome
of treatment, but it’s essential that the methods used support the therapeutic
relationship being formed with the client
Personal characteristics of Effective Counsellors:
- Effective therapists:
➢ Have an identity: they know who they are, who they’re capable of becoming,
what they want out of life & what’s essential to them
➢ Respect and appreciate themselves: they can give & receive help/love out of
their own sense of self-worth & strength
➢ Are open to change: exhibit a willingness and courage to leave security of the
known if they’re not satisfied with the way they are
➢ Make choices that are life oriented: they’re aware of early decisions they make
about themselves, others & world. Committed to living fully
➢ Are authentic, sincere and honest: who they are in their personal and
professional life – work in harmony
➢ Have a sense of humour: able to put the events of life in perspective
➢ Make mistakes & willing to admit them: they don’t dismiss their errors
➢ Live in the present: they’re not stuck in the past or fixated on the future.
➢ Appreciate the influence of culture: aware of the ways their own culture
influences them, & they respect the diversity of values espoused by other
cultures. They’re sensitive to the unique differences arising out of social class,
race, sexual orientation and gender
➢ Have a sincere interest in the welfare of others: concern based on respect, care,
trust and a real valuing of others
➢ Possess effective interpersonal skills: capable of entering a world of others
without getting lost in this world, they strive to create collaborative
relationships with others.
➢ Become deeply involved in their work and find meaning in it: they accept the
rewards flowing from their work, yet they’re not slaves to their work
➢ Are passionate: have the courage to pursue their dreams/passions
1
, ➢ Able to maintain healthy boundaries: although they strive to be fully present
for their clients, they don’t carry the problems of their clients around with
them during leisure hours.
- Consider these characteristics a scale. A given trait may be highly characteristic of
you, at one extreme, or it may be very uncharacteristic of you, at the other extreme.
Personal Therapy for the Counsellor:
- Counsellors can benefit greatly from the experience of being clients at some time
- Strongly support: some form of self-exploration
- Orlinsky and colleagues suggest that personal therapy contributes to the therapist’s
professional work in the following ways:
➢ 1.) personal therapy offers a model of therapeutic practice in which the trainee
experiences the work of a more experienced therapist & learns experientially
what’s helpful or not helpful
➢ 2.) can enhance a therapist’s interpersonal skills
➢ 3.) can contribute to a therapist’s ability to deal with the ongoing stresses
associated with clinical work
- Through our work as therapists, we can expect to confront our own unexplored
personal blocks – we should be aware of what these conflicts are & how they’re likely
to affect us as persons and as counsellors.
- Personal therapy can be instrumented in healing the healer.
- By becoming clients, ourselves, we gain NB experiences in viewing ourselves
- Learn to develop patience with out patients. We learn what it feels like to deal with
anxieties that are aroused by self-disclosure and self-exploration. We can learn how
to creatively facilitate deeper levels of self-exploration in clients
- Own therapy helps us avoid a position of superiority over others
The Counsellor’s Values and the Therapeutic Process
- Crucial: aware of our values, of where and how they acquired them and of how their
values can influence their interventions with clients
The Role of Values in Counselling:
- Our values are core beliefs that influence how we act, both in our personal life &
professional life
- We need to guard against the tendency to use our power to influence clients to
accept our values.
- The counsellor’s role is to create a climate in which clients can examine their
thoughts, feelings, actions & to empower them to arrive at their own solutions to the
problems they face
- You may not agree with some of your client’s values, but you need to respect their
right to hold different values from yours – especially: counselling clients from a
different cultural background & don’t share your own cultural values.
2
