Counselling Skill

There are so many skills you need to acquire or require if you are a job professional. Developing counselling skills is one of the essential factors in your career, as you can develop a good understanding of clients or the person you are in a conversation with. 

It also increases your communication skills, which helps you understand your clients more efficiently. Yes, you can improve these skills by yourself or just by observing. 

In this article, we will discuss basic counselling skills and the examples of the skills; we will explore ways to improve and implement them for better understanding and use. 

Define Counselling Skills?

Counselling skills are interpersonal and Technical traits used by a counsellor for a better understanding or relationship with their client. These skills help a counsellor establish trust and ensure that your clients feel heard and understood. 

Some main reasons must be understood. 

What are the seven basic counselling skills? 

There is a wide range of skills that a counsellor needs to attain. But here we are discussing the primary core skills. 

• Listening :

Listening is the first and most crucial skill in counselling skills. Listening correctly is not only about oral attention; it also gives you a sight of understanding. There are two critical components of listening: 

Verbal listening: This is an audible demonstration that you completely understand the point of view of your customer. There are some affirmations or cues like: I understand, go on, I see, I agree, or you can engage using some vital information related to the conversation or some important five points that your client-side is a great way to make the client comfortable and show that you are listening to them. 

Active listening: Active listening is when you completely understand the point of view of your client speaking, understand their message, information and respond thoughtfully. 

• Ability to take notes: 

This ability shows how active you are in a conversation and helps you maintain a good record during the conversation. Also, you can refer to these notes for an in-depth analysis of the situation or problem. Or when finding a solution. 

• Communication: 

Communication does not mean you have to respond to the client; it means what you are saying, what fits in your conversation, noticing what your client is thinking about, and the answer they want to know.

• Questioning 

Questioning means giving a clear pointer that you are listening to the conversation; you want to clarify your doubts, which increases the speaker’s interest in the conversation. The counsellor should utilise open-ended and closed-ended questions to interpret what the client is saying. 

• Self-awareness: 

Counsellors should know how their body language, gestures, and facial expressions affect clients or others when sharing their personal information or choices.  

It includes Eye Contact, Gestures, Body Language, and Facial Expressions. 

Maintaining good eye contact with the client shows how you are into that particular conversation. When you are not speaking, your body and gestures speak. Which means crossed arms give a sign of disinterest. Your body language speaks a lot more than your words. Your facial expressions are the ones that can create a warm, friendly and supportive environment

• Trustworthiness: 

Building or maintaining trust makes others very comfortable in any conversation or in-depth details. It would help if you were adept at building and maintaining trust. 

• Patience:

Patience is one of the most awaited skills for a work professional or establishing a career in counselling skills. Because the priority is given to a person with higher patience skills. so this skill shows how you are going to manage everything 

• Observation: 

If you have good observation skills, you will quickly and effectively serve the speaker’s point of view, Such as it helps you in a better understanding. You will only understand the skills I have discussed below if you have good observation skills, so it is imperative to practise them. 

Conclusion:

With counselling skills, a counsellor treats his clients. To achieve this skill, a counsellor must go through some proficiency tests. After that, he becomes eligible to counsel people. There are a bunch of characteristics that a counsellor should convey. 

This article has discussed the basics of counselling skills and their ethics. But the only thing you need to do is practise these skills by yourself and observe them yourself, such as: Active listening, Note-taking, Questioning, Interpretation, Non-verbal communication, Self – awareness.