Applied Counseling Psychology of Addictive Behaviors

Question: Discuss about theApplied Counselingfor Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. Answer: Introduction People encounter problems or obstacles in their lives and that affect them emotionally. These problems have serious repercussions and find it difficult to cope with it on their own. They find it difficult to convey their personal crisis and vulnerabilities to their families and friends. An effective counseling course provides the person an opportunity to express their personal matters safely and find resolutions or provide acceptance to them in coping with the encountered problems (Corey 2015). The effective counseling has a dual relationship. It is an empathetic effort between the receiving person and the counselor. It is a commitment made to the counseling person to change their behavior and thinking patterns. There are many phases in an effective counseling session. The acts of relationship building, assessment of the crisis or problem, the goal setting for an effective counseling session, the alteration in the behavior of the receiving counseling patient and the termination of th e session evaluating the sensitivity and referral from the client (Okun and Kantrowitz 2014). The heart of the counseling is the development of empathic attending skill in the session (Linehan 2014). I believe that the counseling person should be heartily in my company and provide full attention to the session. The counselor should provide its full attention to the client empathically by attending behavior. As a counselor, I believe the role of attending a session, the act of effective listening to the skills and asking questions are the key aspects in an effective counseling session. The active and the passive engagement helps the client to tell about their issues, building a rapport and encourages interpersonal communication. On the other hand, a counselor should also welcome the client warmly. While attending a session, a counselor should also make a client feel comfortable in disclosing their thoughts and emotions (Fatter and Hayes 2013). Being a counselor, for developing the attending skills, I focus on every clue, pause and piece of information provided by the client. The attention should be directed only to the client and going with the flow of the client. This is sometimes difficult for the counselor to be focused on the client but physical and mental attention is required directed to the receiving person. I act patiently and try to make the client free from constraints and psychological blockage. In the process of developing attending skill, there should be a gradual building of relationship between the client and the counselor. It begins with the introduction of the client along with other necessary background information required for the counseling session to begin. There should a comfortable interaction between them and that helps to gain knowledge about the client on a personal level. The client should feel valued, accepted and is willing to share their personal information to the counselor (Ivey, Ivey and Zalaquett 2013). The attending of empathic behavior is also associated with active listening skills of the counselor and the client. It is a fundamental tool in the counseling process. It is not only the process of listening to the client but also showing the client that you are involved in listening and understanding the clients problem. The communication via listening is the main requirement in an effective counseling session (Barnett et al. 2014). Being a counselor, I believe in listening and communicating with the client is the most valuable asset and key to a counseling work. The active listening gives the client encouragement to talk without hesitation, ensuring a positive and open environment for the client. It is the act of taking interest in the client and making them feel understood in conveying their feeling and personal information (Fawcett and Borck-Jameson 2014). In an active listening session, I take a note of the exact words, body language and pitch of the client. There is a phase of reflective listening that is equally important. In this process, a counselor restates whatever said by the client as to convey to them that they have been heard clearly. It is a process of acknowledging the client and validating them so that they can talk further. I believe, while listening, a counselor should avoid any kind of distractions and by not being judgmental, support the client in the best possible way. The speaker should feel positive and could interact on a deeper level in conveying the personal information (Nelson-Jones 2015). The reflective listening consists of paraphrasing, as it is a reflection of the content. It does not necessarily mean that the counselor have to keep an account of every word, rather have to give emphasis on important facts that client convey. It is the understanding of the client that they are accurately heard and not feel ignored (Miller and Rollnick 2012). The reflection of feeling comprises of the awareness that the counselor is competent about the feelings and the emotions and is willing to hear. It is effective in a counseling session because the client would be prompt to speak without any hesitation or interruption. I also prefer selective listening in a counseling session. I give attention to selective facts that are important conveyed by the client and overlook the other information. For example, if a client is depressed in the first meet, but with continuous session, they start to feel positive in their thoughts and behavior, the counselor only pay attention to the facts that relay the initial state of the depression. During the question session, I ask the client to keep take away notes or recording of the session and have them on their desk to be used during the next session. After the listening session, there is an active session for questioning. The art of asking questions to the clients is the most difficult job of a counselor in a psychotherapy process. After the clients conveys the problems or tell their story, the counselor asks questions to clarify each piece of information provided by the client. It provides a platform for new questions and provides new areas for discussion. It helps to point out the issue and clarify the doubts regarding the information perceived. It is a medium for self-exploration as it helps the client to recall the information related to the clients journey (Dryden 2013). Asking questions to the client will convey the client that the counselor is informed about all the answers. For questioning, the counselors have to be knowledgeable in asking the appropriate and direct questions to the client (Evans et al. 2015). The questions asked in a counseling session are very specific and accurate in perceiving the right information from the client. For example, the questions like have you been to a counseling session before? From your viewpoint, what is the problem that you are suffering? How do you feel about your problem and what makes you feel better? and most importantly the questions What do you expect from the counseling session that you are here? and why are you taking up this counseling session?. The questioning is very crucial to get the honest answers and to build an emotional relationship between the receiving counseling and the counselor. There are two kinds of questioning done in a counseling session: the open and closed type of questions. The open kind of questions is asked that are answered in a detailed way. They are the best kind of questions asked as it builds a trusting relationship between the client and the counselor. It makes the client goes into a deeper thought and exploration of their story. In the process of asking questions, the counselor should be very careful, as the questions should not provoke any kind of offensive feeling in the client leading to negativity (Rogers 2012). The closed questions are answered in short forms with responses like yes or no. These kind of closed questions calls off any discussion, obtain pertinent information and not exploring the crisis. The client feels considerate that their problems are heard and they can feel empathized. From my perspective, I think the questions asked could also help the client to feel motivated to be on the track and not deviated in any form. After the questioning session, the counselor takes into account the clients view about the session and evaluates it. After the evaluation, the session is terminated with the referral from the client. The job of being a counselor is not easy. They have the responsibility to change a persons way of thinking and behavior encountered with a problem or suffering. People and their story are different, so the counselor has to behave differently in dealing them. They have to be patient in dealing a person seeking counseling as it could provoke negative thoughts or offensiveness in the client. The real sense of concern for the client condition is required in a counselor for the effective counseling session to occur. The counseling is a way of building trust between two people to understand the problem and find ways to minimize or solve to make them live life in a better way. Therefore, by continuous practice and commitment in this arena, a counselor could help people live life from a new and better perspective. 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