COLLEGE OF EDUCATION GRADUATE STUDIES

GRGC 201
Counseling Techniques 1
MIDTERM EXAM
SECOND SEM, SY2018-2019

RUBY ANN D JEREMIAS

Counseling Techniques 1

Directions: Please read and understand the statements carefully and before answering
them. Answer in your own words and do not copy paste. If you need to quote from a
source, please cite the source properly. (70 pts)

1. The following is part of a given counseling conversation between a counselor and

a client. (15 points)

Client: “Well, I have long liked to engage in an activity that can make me busy
and grow from it.”
Counselor: “Have you started looking for something to do or have you started
on doing something?”
Client: “ No. I have not searched yet and I am not doing anything.”
Counselor: “You say you would like to engage in an activity that can make you
busy and grow from it, but you haven’t searched or tried doing something that
you like.” You have not made steps to do it.”

a. Identify what counseling skill/Technique is shown?

b. When is this skill/technique used?
c. What does this skill do to help the client?

ANSWER(Answers to ABC were incorporated)

A. The counseling skills that presented in the above conversation between client and
counselors are as follows.
1. Listening
 Uses of Listening Skills
As a counselor, I consider listening skills as some of the most fundamental
skills in the field of counselling. I cogitate listening as a fundamental skill in
nurturing and maintaining counseling relationships. This is for the reason that
it is only through listening that a counsellor will be able to discern what a client
is going through and therefore, be in a position to help the client with her or his
problem, it also psychologically helps a client to know that he or she is being
listened to. Clients who come to counseling, not being listened to might result
to the client having the feeling of some discomfort about the counseling
procedure and that it may cause some issues with the counseling process

How does it help the client?

Listening is the initial step that the client will feel welcome and accepted. It bear
some moral element of respect and acceptance which will paved way for the
development of trust and facilitate sound counseling relationship between the
client and counselors

2. Asking Questions -- A questioning process to assist the client in clarifying or

exploring thoughts or feelings. Counselor id not requesting specific information
and not purposively limiting the nature of the response to only a yes or no, or
very brief answer. a. Goal is to facilitate exploration 3 b. Have an intention or
therapeutic purpose for every question counselo ask. c. Avoid asking too many
questions, or assuming an interrogatory role. d. Best approach is to follow a
response to an open-ended question with a paraphrase or reflection which
encourages the client to share more and avoids repetitive patterns of questions

3. Confronting- One of the counselling skills present in the above conversation.

Uses: Confrontation is necessary and important skills for counselor in
challenging client over a discrepancy or disagreement. It is an attempt by the
counselor to gently bring about awareness in the client of something that is
inconsistent as for instance the responses and the action
 What does this skills do to help the client?
Confrontation is the skill that can assist clients to increase their self-awareness.
It can be used to highlight discrepancies that clients have previously been
unaware of

School counselling as a profession first evolved in the late 1800 primarily as a response
to the Industrial Revolution and the vocational guidance movement. The vocational
guidance movement was all about preparing the young people for their entry into the
workforce. This follow the establishement of the National Vocational Guidance
Association to promote school counselor

The first school counselors in the United States emerged in the late 1800s, the time of
the Industrial Revolution. However, the United States may not be the first place that
school counseling was recognized. There have been traces of school counselors dating
back to the late 16th century. An argument has been made that says that counseling
and guidance principles began in ancient Greece and Rome with the philosophical
teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Evidence suggests that techniques of modern-day
counseling was practiced by Catholic priests in the Middle Ages. In the United States,
the school counseling profession began as a vocational guidance movement. Davis is
considered the first school counselor in the United States because he was the first to
implement systematic guidance programs in 1908, Parson "Father of Vocational
Guidance" established the Bureau of Vocational Guidance to assist young people in
making the transition from school to work.

From the 1920s to the 1930s, school counseling and guidance grew because of the rise
of progressive education in schools. National Association for College Admission is
founded in 1937. This movement emphasized personal, social, moral development.
Many schools reacted to this movement as anti-educational, saying that schools should
teach only the fundamentals of education. This, combined with the economic hardship
of the Great Depression led to a decline in school counseling and guidance.

In the 1940s, the U.S. used psychologists and counselors to select, recruit, and train
military personnel. This propelled the counseling movement in schools by providing
ways to test students and meet their needs. Schools accepted these military tests
openly. Also, Carl Rogers' emphasis on helping relationships during this time influenced
the profession of school counseling.

3.The difference of what counselling is as compared to other activities which present

wellness and recreational effect for individual is that counselling is a professional field of
undertaking done by professional individuals highly skilled and knowledgeable to do the
task of helping individual address some life difficulties, adjustments, coping etc..
Counseling is a process which involves well-planned activities in order to achieve the
desired goal of therapeutic undertakings. It is an undertaking bounded by ethical
standards where counselors bounded with a high sense of accountability and
responsibility.

Case Conceptualization

History and Background Information:

Leticia, known to her friends as Let, is a 45 year old single woman who is known
to have a good stature as a BPO manager in a company for more than 12 years. She is
known to have a good scholastic standing as a child. She is fat and lousy and with few
friends. She has been in contact with a man in a distant place to which she acknowledge
to have a romantic affair with her. She would later suffer from some psychosomatic
problem characterized by sadness, detachment and low self-esteem

Presenting Problem

Let, as she is often called by friends experiences some signs of psychosomatic

problems, detachment characterized by lesser motivation especially towards work,
lousiness, and lesser self-esteem. She is seen to have problem in her eating habits and
made it as a way of her dealing with stressors. Learning about her experiences, it was
learned that Let, as a child experienced bullying from a rival in her class. She wouldn’t go
out despite of having few friends and would rather spend her time communicating with a
man who is known to her as her lover. Later, the guy whom Let met in online dating would
denounce any romantic connection with her and blaming Let for the misinterpretation of
their friendship. Soon Let experience problems about herself feeling down and droopy.
She then appeared lousy and unmotivated to work.

PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE

Subscribing to the psychoanalytic perspective in dealing with Leticia’s case, it can

be understood that Leticia’s presenting problem with sadness, low self-esteem, physical
problems (getting weight and lousiness), relational problem and poor social activities can
be traced back to Leticia’s early experiences as a child and other experiences that she
repressed and avoided. Leticia’s problem with her weight can be understood as to have
something to do with how she manage her stressors which gives way to too much oral
gratification which maybe a cause of over fixation in the oral stage. This overindulgence
to eating in order to combat frustrations, limited social connections can be explored more
in understanding how Let passed through the different psychosexual stage as a child.
The relationship Let has with her parents and to other significant others in early years is
critical in understanding her case. By using notable techniques like free association, Let
can be encourage to speak everything about her childhood memories and to expose her
early experiences regardless of how trivial, embarrassing and painful are those
experiences. The bullying that Let experience as a child can be interpreted as to affect
her social relationship and having limited friends which resulted in her isolation and limited
confinement. The condominium which Let, chose to live can explain more about let
personality if enough information about her can be provided. The condominium where Let
stay though it would present her less inferior stature and her position in her work is critical
in the understanding of how Let perhaps live and make use of some defenses in order to
hide some of her hidden struggles. Let problems with her long distant mistaken love affair
speaks of Let inner sexual conflicts where problem can be traced back to as to how she
managed her sexual urges as a child and how gratification occurred to meet the demand
of the self.

TREATMENT

PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT PLAN FOR LETICIA

Goals Intervention

Long Term Date

-To eliminate symptoms and to resolve
conflicting issues of the past causative
to the emergence of the presenting
struggles of the client
-To strengthen the ego in order to live
a well- adjusted personality and to
bring about significant change in the
lives of an individual
Short Term Time
-To process issues and concerns From the onset of the counselling
which contribute to the emergence of therapy to the elimination of the
the presenting problem counseling
-To encourage the client to collaborate
actively in the course of the therapy
Framework/Approach:

Session 1 Activities and Techniques

Objectives Establishing relationship with the client
-Establishing counseling relationship
with the client
Session 2 (Exploratory Stage) Initial Interview
Exploration of the client’s Follow- Up Interview
problem and background Clinical Assessment

Session 3 Activities and Techniques

Conceptualization of the client Formulation
case and discussing treatment plan Presentation
-Discussing goals of the therapy Interpretation of the central issue
-Levelling of expectation

Session 4 (Working Stage) Activities and Techniques

Work on the maladaptive and
inflexible personality traits and
emotions and cognitive functioning,
especially in the interpersonal domain
 Maintenance of focus
 Interpretation of the
transference
  Recognition, challenge,
interpretations, and resolution of
early resistance
 High level of therapist activity
 Free Association

Session 5 Working Stage Activities and Techniques

 Self-esteem boosters:
Increase self-esteem,
reassurance, praise,
adaptive skills, and ego functions encouragement
 Reduction of anxiety
 Respect adaptive defenses,
challenge maladaptive ones
 Clarifications, reflections,
interpretations
 Rationalizations, reframing,
advice

 Free Association
 Modeling, anticipation, and
rehearsal

Session 6 Follow up Assessment

Conduct a comprehensive evaluation Follow UP
of the client’s progress Wrapping Up
Terminate the counseling Ending of the therapy

Letecia Reyes Ruby Ann D Jeremias

Name of Client Name of Counselor