Biblical Counseling, Session 2, Instructor: Vivian Villalobos, MSMFTi, MAICS

Session 2 How Does A Christian Counselor Respond to tough issues?

Using Counseling Skills to connect with others

Creating a “ministry of presence” - Attending Behavior

Attentiveness is a powerful tool -What is attending? It provides a fundamental understanding in the most important skill of counseling; make contact with the other person – it is empathy! Walk a mile in my shoes! It is a core requirement – Unconditional Positive Regard = listen without judgment, silence, a look of approval, a nod, you value a person and not what they do! It comes from the heart, you can’t fake it. No matter where they come from you regard them in a positive way. Value contributes to the self-respect, and sense of security serving as a powerful reinforce and facilitator of communication. Good listeners are like a magnet! They feel that you care. It is the ability to stand in another’s shoes and not discount their emotions. The other feels valued, accepted and understood. If you do a good job attending, this is the feeling the other person will have. As Christians, God is always attending to us Psalm 55:2! Psalm 86:6 Psalms 4:3 etc. God has unconditional love and value towards us.

There are four key ideas to keep in mind when you are learning the skill of attending behavior. Hearing requires action. Psalm 66:18 We all want others to listen and value and emphasize with us!

1. Relax physically; feel the presence of the chair as you are sitting in it. Sit comfortable, both feet on floor, in a relaxed position. Body language is so important!

2. Use eye contact to help you focus upon the other person, to communicate you are listening. (check for cultural norms – i.e. Asian cultures they don’t look you directly in the eye) Vary your gaze rather than staring fixedly. Or bodily distance.

3. Your facial expression should show you as a pleasant person, radiating warmth and interest in the person you are counseling. Jesus was personal in his involvement with the disciples and others. He was personal, sensitive and caring and operated in the power of the Holy Spirit. He accepted others, gave worth to the individual by giving them his personal attention. He accepted the woman caught in adultery and Zacchaeus the tax collector. Matthew ll: 28 come to me all that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

4. Set for yourself the task of “following” what the other person is saying. Fit your comments or questions into the context being provided. Stay with the topic that is introduced by the other person and help them to develop it rather than “topic jumping” from subject to subject or interrupt. Take your cues from the person with whom you are talking and watch the tone of your voice. The goal is to listen attentively. How do you feel when you get cut off?

James 4:19 Proverbs 18:2 Proverbs 1:5 Psalm 115:6 Matthew 11:15

The complete message – nonverbal communication is 55% - tone of voice is 38% and actual words are 7% !

First of all, you must establish trust with your client!

Scan text - READ PAGE 31 “Key Points for Busy Counselors”

Counseling Skills - How To Listen: Active Listening

Active listening requires intentionality using active listening skills of encouraging, paraphrasing and summarizing that keep clients talking.

Encouragers – head nods, positive facial expression, “uh-huh,” “oh” “I see” “Interesting”a brief restatement – simple acknowledgments showing you are tuned in but offer no judgment of your own.

Paraphrasing – observe and hear client’s important words and use them in your paraphrase much as the client does. “I hear you saying…” “It sounds like…” this helps to clarify and give feed back. Then you are checking for accuracy “Am I hearing you correctly?” “Is that right?” “So I hear you say …(client words) then “Is that how you see it?” This conveys acceptance of the other person by telling them in effect, “I respect you as a person with the right to express yourself.” “I really want to hear your point of view” and “I am interested in you.”

Summarizing covers a longer period of interview. Often used to begin or end a session or repeat back to the client what was said before.

Connecting: help them see some connection between one situation and another or between one set of actions and another. Sometimes this involves connecting the past with the present in order to help the person see the continuity of behavior. Use with caution.

Reflective Comment: when a counselee is attempting to sort out thoughts and feelings restate what the client said.

Confronting comments – A confronting comment is one that tends to bring a counselee face to face with some aspect of the problem or behavior that they have not recognized or verbalized. This technique should be used with caution. A good rule of thumb for beginners is to use other and less threatening techniques first.

Empathic comments – unlike sympathy which tends to be more emotional empathy is largely an intellectual process in which the counselor with minimal emotional involvement attempts to put himself/herself momentarily in the counselees frame of reference.

Puzzling Comments: Counselees who would become threatened by direct confrontation can frequently be helped to move towards more adequate and satisfying courses of action when the counselor exhibits a puzzled or quizzical attitude. In effect, a puzzling comment tends to evoke a soul-searching effect on the part of the client without the defensiveness that often results from direct confrontation.

Asking Good Questions: Open vs. Closed Q Exercise

Open Questions: are those that can’t be answered in a few words. They tend to facilitate deeper exploration of issues. Typically open questions begin with what, how, why or could. An open invitation to talk may be best understood when compared with a closed approach: for example,

Open: How has your marriage been going for you?

Closed: Are you married? Do you get along with your wife?

Open questions provide room for the client to express self.

Closed questions: very few words - emphasizes factual content as opposed to how one feels, many times they can be yes or no answers. Closed questions often begin with is, are, or do.

After they answer your open question, simply ask, “What else?” it keeps them talking!

Phrases for Active Listening

Encouraging
Show that you want them to continue talking. / “Can you tell me more?”
Clarifying / “When did this happen”
Summarizing
Stating you can pull together all the things they have said. It helps the speaker move on the next idea. / “Let me see if I understand what you just said.”
Speaker: “I have a lot of problems at work and want to quit.”
Counselor: “It seems you are going through a lot at work.”
Acknowledging / “It sounds like you are very angry right now.”
Open Questioning
Shem them you want to understand what they are saying. / “Why?... “What would you like to see happen?”
Speaker: “I can’t stand my job.”
Counselor: “What don’t you like about the job?”
Responding / “I see it this way… How do you see it?”
Problem Solving / “How would you resolve this issue?”
Empathizing
Reflecting the feeling responding with a feeling word / “I can appreciate why you feel that way.”
Speaker: “I want to quit but cant afford to do that.”
Counselor: “That can really make you feel bad.”
Reframing / “I hear that you feel ___ when she/he ___ because…”
Speaker: “My boss is not giving me the recognition I deserve at work.”
Counselor: “It seems like your boss is not valuing you as an important worker.”
Normalizing / “Many people feel the way you do…”
Validating
Show them you care / “I am glad you feel comfortable talking to me about this.”

Roadblocks to Open Communication

Ordering – Directing – Commanding / Telling the other to do something, giving an order or command / “You must…”
“You have to…”
“You will…”
Warning – Threatening / Telling the other what consequences will occur if they do or do not do something / “If you don’t then…”
“You’d better or else…”
Moralizing – Preaching / Should and ought – invoking ague outside authority as accepted truth. / “You should…”
“You ought…”
“It’s your duty…”
Advising / Giving solutions or suggestions to others because you know best. / “What I would do is…”
“It would be best if you…”
Teaching – Lecturing / Trying to influence the other with facts, counter arguments, logic, information or your own opinion. / “Here is where you are wrong…”
“Do you realize…”
“This is what I did when I had that problem…”
Judging – Criticizing – Disagreeing – Blaming / Making a negative judgment or evaluation of the other. / “You are argumentative, lazy, etc.”
“You will never change.”
Name Calling – Labeling – Stereotyping / Putting the other person into a category, usually negative. / “You are unrealistic… emotional…angry….”
Interpreting – Analyzing – Diagnosing / Telling the other what their motives are or analyzing what they are doing or saying communicating that you have the all figured out. / “You are just trying to get attention…”
“What you really need is…”
Withdrawing – Distracting – Using Sarcasm – Humoring / Trying to move the other away from the problem, withdrawing from the problem yourself, pushing the problem aside by changing the topic. / “Did you think you would get away with that?”
“What were you thinking?” “You must be joking!”
“Oh, look at that?”
Probing – Interrogating – Cross Examination / Trying to find reasons, motives and or causes, rather than focusing on what the other wants to say. You determine the course of the conversation. / “When? How? What? Where? Who? What time?”
Denying the importance of another’s feelings / Trying to “Make” the other feel that their feelings are not important. Telling other people that you know how they feel. / “I felt like that once..”
“It’s not so bad.”
“You’ll feel better if…”
Determined to Win / Make your point, because you have the last word. / “Yeah, but…”

Healing begins with a change of heart

Active listening conveys back to the sender understanding of their communication. In Active listening the counselor feeds back what he/she thinks the sender’s message meant without evaluation, logic, analysis, advice or over questioning. Active listening helps people free themselves of troublesome feelings by encouraging the free expression of those feelings. Active listening promotes a relationship of warmth between you and the other person. A person who experiences being heard will feel close to you and then you in return will feel warm and close to the other person. They can then transfer that experience to others.

Summary: Ask Good questions! Clarify, Reflective, Connect, Gather information and confront

Watch your comments – Reflective, Empathic, Puzzling, Enabling, Connecting, Confronting

Let’s Practice! 30 minute Group Exercise:

In groups of 2 each one has an opportunity to be the speaker and the listener. Each take 15 minutes to answer a question. One is the speaker and the other is the listener. Listener: Practice the active listening skills - encouraging, paraphrasing, summarizing, open questions, watch body language, and tone of voice.

“How do you react when your spouse/boss/friend speaks to you about behaviors or an attitude they believe needs to be changed? When your spouse/boss friend talks to you about an area of your life, do you dismiss what they’re saying to you?”

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