Facilitate the Counselling Relationship and Process

1. Support clients to identify concerns

1.1 Follow the client’s story and stay with their perspective to assist the client to feel comfortable and express their concerns freely

1.2 Explore the client’s presenting issues and establish their nature and depth, giving attention to the possibility of underlying issues

1.3 Identify and promptly deal with situations requiring immediate action

1.4 Support clients to identify their primary concerns in relation to the presenting issues and to prioritise concerns on which to work

1.5 Recognise indicators of client issues requiring referral and report or refer appropriately in line with organisation requirements

2. Support clients to work through concerns

2.1 Identify and work with uncertainty and ambivalence of clients

2.2 Support clients to experience and process difficulties

2.3 Draw attention to, and discuss parallels and links in client’s experience as appropriate

2.4 Identify and implement interventions that have meaning for the client’s immediate situation and that are most likely to facilitate client understanding and actions

2.5 Support client to identify and use known and previously unknown strengths

2.6 Explore perceptions of client’s feelings by reflecting back, clarification and review

2.7 Assist clients to become aware of underlying issues where appropriate and begin to identify ways of dealing with them

2.8 Acknowledge and work with changes in client’s life as appropriate

3. Monitor the counselling process

3.1 Monitor and review the counselling process with clients to ensure it remains of value

3.2 Proactively identify and work on threats and disruptions to the counselling process with clients

3.3 Review and compare own and client’s perceptions of the process and provide suggestions and advice in response

3.4 Address any tension between client’s hopes and expectations and the reality of resource limitations

3.5 Facilitate change at a pace the client can tolerate and assimilate

3.6 Recognise and assess the appropriateness of ending the current counselling

3.7 Acknowledge, value and work with individual uncertainty in the counselling relationship

3.8 Apply ethical codes of conduct in addressing counselling dilemmas

4. Bring the counselling process to an end

4.1 Enable client to identify when the process is approaching its conclusion

4.2 Enable client to identify, acknowledge and evaluate what is and is not changing, both in the counselling process and in their situation and understanding

4.3 Use the ending process to enable client to understand the nature and impact of earlier issues

4.4 Use boundaries of the counselling relationship to assist the ending process

4.5 Plan, structure and contract endings appropriately with client

4.6 Support client’s sense of autonomy during the ending process

4.7 Inform clients about any opportunities for further support

4.8 Identify unresolved issues and discuss further work if appropriate

4.9 Complete documentation and reporting according to organisation requirements