1.  Introduction to a counseling interview using person-centered counseling and reality therapy.
"We have 25 minutes to work on anything you would like."

2.  Listening for "Big 3."
(a)  concern, problem or (where you are in relation to where you like to be in your life)
(b)  feelings about the above concern
(c)  expectations for counseling

Helping your clients to tell their storiesCavoid over-using closed questions requiring only one word or a yes or no response.

3.  Let your clients know you have the message on the Big 3.

You are feeling ___________________________,
because ________________________________,
and you want ____________________________.

If your clients say you don't have the message, listen once again for the Big 3.  Let your clients be your teachers and consultants because they are the experts on themselves.  Therefore, let your clients teach you about their situation until you understand it at the A level.  Teaching may also be one of the better ways to learn something in depth.  Counselors do well to function as students in the counseling situation.

4.  Ask your clients to teach you about what they have been doing to try to resolve their problem.

5. Ask your clients to evaluate these solutions as to their helpfulness in solving the problem.  Also have your clients examine the payoffs they get from doing the things that don't seem to help.

6. Ask your clients if they are willing to give up the ineffective things they do to solve their problem.

7. Ask your clients to brainstorm a list of additional alternatives for solving their problems.

8. Ask your clients to evaluate each alternative for its probability in helping them get what they want.

9. Ask your clients to commit themselves to trying one of their alternatives and to report the results to you.

10. Close the session by asking your clients to summarize or review what was accomplished in the session (two to four minutes).

11. Use other counseling techniques from Gestalt, RET, Behavioral, TA, Logo therapy, Psychoanalytic counseling, and Individual Psychology when needed to help your clients help themselves.

Open invitations to talk are extremely useful in a number of different situations.  For example:

1. They help begin an interview.
a) What would you like to talk about today?  How have things been since the last time we talked together? etc.

2. They help to get the interviewee to elaborate on a point.
a) Could you tell me more about that?  How did you feel when it happened?

3. They help elicit examples of specific behavior so that the interviewer is better able to understand what the interviewer is better able to understand what the interviewee is describing.
a) Will you give me a specific example?  What do you do when you get "depressed"? What do you mean when you say your father is out of his mind?

4. They help focus the client's attention on his feelings.
a) What are your feelings as you're telling me this?  How did you feel then?
 

Helpee: I'm so out it; I can hardly operate.  I can't do anything because that feeling is always there.
Helper: Like there is a terrible burden that you are carrying around.
 

Helpee: I could hardly believe it.  That was probably one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.
Helper: You were really happy.
 

Helpee: I couldn't think of anything to say when he said that he liked my hair.  (blushes)
Helper: You must have felt pretty happy, but also a little embarrassed.
 

Helpee: After that I suggested that we all go out for some beer and pizza, but they all kept playing cards.  (low affect, sudden slouch in posture, etc.)
Helper: You must have felt pretty disappointed when no one responded to that.

angry anxious melancholy
defiant fearful dismayed
rebellious jittery  depressed
dubious clutched up detached
skeptical helpless low
suspicious scared empty
repulsed relieved morose
hostile panicked sick
peeved embarrassed affected
grouchy tense burdensome
spiteful shaky excluded
annoyed on edge concerned
resentful uneasy down
bitter nervous sorry
ready to fight terrified sorrowful
furious guilty tearful
bad-tempered relaxed destroyed
deceived easygoing weighed down
deceitful at ease stopped
disgusted calm trapped
disgusting quiet lost
mad mild bleak
hateful reserved forlorn
hurtful tired pessimistic
hut drowsy optimistic
tricked sluggish failure
used  out of it suffering
disregarded concentrating heavy hearted
discounted involved distressed
ignored engaged withdrawn
explosive interested blue
malice apathetic listless
maligned uncaring unworthy
fuming worn out unable
steaming weary restless
infuriated fatigued discouraged
rage bushed miserable
displeased vigorous gloomy
hot active exhausted
revengeful full of pep worthless
jealous vivacious uncertain
envious alert clear-headed
obsessed efficient regretful
upset forgetful happy
insulted lively friendly
frustrated confused considerate
retortful energetic sympathetic

1. Content

Helpee: I'm certain that you wouldn't understand, but it's terribly difficult for me to talk about the ways I have messed up my life.
Helper: I'm aware of how difficult it must be for you to discuss these things.  I also find it hard to talk about some of my self-defeating things so I know that you must be experiencing a great deal of difficulty.

2. Feeling

Helpee: (Crying)  I'm so upset since my girlfriend left me.
Helper: I can appreciate what you must be experiencing a few years ago my girlfriend left me, and I really felt lonely and down so judging from your crying and slumped posture you must be feeling quite lonely and down now, too.

3. Content and Feeling

Helpee: When I want to make a point with my boss yet can't seem to get it across, it makes me totally frustrated just adding to the problems between us.
Helper: There have been times when I get terribly frustrated by not being able to get my point across, so I think I am somewhat aware of how your not being able to make your point with your boss must only be serving to add to your frustration.

4. Lacking Identical Experience

Helpee: Then when that baby died after only two weeks, it was more than I could take.  (crying)
Helper: I've never lost a child, so I don't know if I know exactly how you feel; but when my little sister died, I remember a very empty, alone kind of feeling that I sense you might be feeling now.

5. Lacking Identical Experience

Helpee: It's just no use . . . I don't care about anything anymore . . .I wish I would just never wake up again . . . there's really no reason to go on.
Helper: I've felt really discouraged and down a lot of times, but I guess I can't fully understand the way you feel now because life has always been so valuable to me.  It must be really hard to keep going if you feel differently.

Some examples are listed below.  Note that all the examples deal with the content of the helpee's statement.  This does not mean that the Question Into Statement skill cannot deal with feelings.  In fact, making a question into a statement with regard to the helpee's feelings may be the most useful form of making a question into a statement.  However, technically you are using both the Reflecting of Feeling and the Question Into Statement skills.  You have already learned the former skill, consequently, the emphasis here will be on making questions into statements with regard to the content of the helpee's statement.

Helpee:
Things at work are in a mess because I can't get along with my boss or my fellow employees.
Helper Question:
Aren't things going well at work?
Helper Question Into a Statement:
It appears as if things aren't going very well at work.

Helpee:
I just couldn't get to sleep last night because of this headache I had.
Helper Question:
Do you usually have difficulty sleeping because of your headaches?
Helper Question Into a Statement:
It's my impression that your headaches must be fairly severe to cause you to have difficulty falling to sleep.

Helpee:
I just can't seem to make up my mind about anything anymore.
Helper Question:
What do you suppose makes it so hard for you to make decisions?
Helper Question Into a Statement:
It looks as though something seems to be blocking you every time you are faced with a decision.

Helpee:
My husband and I have more or less been going our separate ways for several months now.
Helper Question:
Why don't you and your husband get along?
Helper Question Into a Statement:
It seems to me that you and your husband may not be getting along very well since you've both opted to kind of go your separate ways.

The following are some good examples of accurate paraphrasing:

Helpee: I don't know about him.  One moment he's nice as can be, and the next he is a real bastard.

Helper: He's pretty inconsistent then.

Helpee: Every day there is something new to do.  There must be ten different activities going on at one time around here.

Helper: So there are lots of activities for you to choose from.

Helpee: He's really crummy.  His degree is from a non-accredited school, he=s had very little training, and he has a very poor relationship with his wife.

Helper: You don't think he is very competent.

Helpee: He is supposed to be an authority, yet he's mixed up all the time.  He talks as if everything he says is true, but he=s quite uncertain a lot of the time.

Helper: You think that if a man gives you the impression that he knows everything, then he should know everything.

Although certainly not an inclusive list, the following are examples of good uses of confrontations in four of the most common areas:
1. Contradictions between the content of a client's statement (What (s)he says and his/her affect (she way (s)he says it)
Helper: How are you today?
Helpee: Oh, (sigh) things are just fine.  (slow speech, posture slumped)
Helper: You're saying you are fine, but you look and sound kind of down.

2. Inconsistencies between the content of two things (s)he says:
Helper: You just said that going along wasn't really important to you, but last week
the trip was all you could talk about.
Helper:You say you are always a failure but that seems to contrast with the way you described your last job a few minutes ago.

3.Inconsistencies between what (s)he says (s)he wants and what (s)he is actually doing:
Helper: You say that your incessant rambling is a problem you want to work on but you continue to ramble on here in the session.
Helper: Not being treated as a child at home has been one of the goals you=ve stated here, but you didn't take the responsibility for your own clothes as you said you would.

4. Inconsistencies between what (s)he says or reports feeling and the way you would expect to react or feel in the same situation:
 Helpee:AIt was really a nice thing that Jeannie married him after all. (smiling)
Helper:A I'm a little puzzled by your smile.  If my fiancée married another man, I think I would be quite upset.

A hint with regard to giving either positive or negative feedback is to state the feedback in
a non-threatening tone of voice.  Also, the use of an interested or concerned facial expression
and other non-threatening non-verbal behaviors will enhance the reception of your feedback.  Finally, using tentative phrases and nonjudgmental words and sometimes the use of another's first name will also help the receiver to see your feedback as non-threatening.  Some examples are as follows:

Negative: (John tapping his finger on the table.)
You know, John, I hesitate to say this as I don't want to upset you, but your tapping your finger really annoys me.

Helpee:I just don't know what to do about my falling to sleep at work.  Doctor, what do you think I should do?

Helper:Mary, we have discussed your tendency to always seek answers from others before trying to solve problems yourself, and quite frankly, your turning to me for the answer without seeming to have given it some thought of your own is quite disappointing to me.

Positive:(John sitting attentively.)
John, I really feel good about your being so attentive today and not tapping your finger like yesterday.

Helpee:I thought I might be able to keep from falling to sleep at work if I would just take a few minutes stretch break every hour or so rather than sitting continuously like I usually do.

Helper:Mary, I am pleased that you have come up with what seems like a good solution to your problem rather than automatically turning to me for the solution like your used to do.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving advice,
you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why I shouldn=t feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen!  All I asked was that you listen.
Not talk or do B just hear me.
Advice is cheap; 50 cents will get you both Dear Abby
and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I'm not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do
for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.

But, when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to
convince you and get about the business of understanding
what's behind this irrational feeling,
And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I
don't need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what's behind them.

Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, for some
people because God is mute, and he doesn't give advice
or try to fix things.  AThey just listen and let you work
it out for yourself.

So, please listen and just hear me.  And, if you want to
talk, wait a minute for your turn; and I'll listen to you.

--Anonymous