Counselling skills -Qualities of a Counselor - Education Psychology (BEd)

1. Counselling skills –
Qualities of a counsellor
Suresh Babu. G
Assistant Professor
CTE CPAS Paippad, Kottayam

2. Counselling skills
Counseling is an art and as such like any art it requires
certain specific skills if it is to be effective. The basic
skills are:
(1) Acquainting Skill
To acquaint means to make oneself familiar with
something. Acquainting involves the skill of building
rapport with the counselee who has come with a lot of
expectation. The success of establishing an informal
workable contract, called as therapeutic alliance,
between the counselor and counselee depends on
supporting skills such as:
(a)Welcoming skill – involves ability of counselor to
receive the client warmly.

3. (b) Providing Privacy – for speak freely and
express emotions.
(c) Chit-chat – engaging in some neutral type
conversations to ease the fear and anxiety.
(d) Confidentiality – keeping information
entrusted to the counselor by client, as secret.
(e) Invitation to talk – Knack of triggering the
client to talk whenever feels some difficulty.
(2) Observing Skill – Includes body language, eye
movement, breathing, paralinguistic like accent,
emphasis, intonation, pause etc…

4. (3) Founding Skills –
(a) Attending Skill – attending physical,
observing, listening.
(b) Listening Skill – tone of voice, feeling, word
they use, expression, content, imagination etc
(d) Reporting Skill – Probing, reflecting etc
(4) Diagnosing Skill – Skill to formulate
hypotheses, Skill to administer test, Skill of
interpreting the scores, Skill of locating
problem area, Skill of pinpointing the problem,
Skill of facilitating.

5. (5) Personalizing Skill – (Go beyond what the
client has expressed) Personalizing the meaning,
Personalizing the Problem, Personalizing the
goal.
(6) Reframing Skill – (looking through different
framework) Meaning reframing, Context reframing,
Skill of stimulate, Skill of expressing, Skill of self-
disclosure etc.
(7) Initiating Skill – (facilitating development) Skill
of defining goal, Skill in helping the client,
economy in action etc
(8) Evaluating Skill – ongoing
evaluation, client- centered
evaluation, skill of
self-evaluation.

10. Qualities of a Good Counselor
Magnetic Personality – Highly cultured, social
interests, capacity for work, intelligence, broad
scope for knowledge and interest, scholastic
aptitude, respect for fact, good judgment, etc. are
some of the personal qualities that a counselor
should possess.
Wide range of interest – He should be
interested in various types of people, children in
his home and school life, activities
in which the children are generally
interested, working with the people.

11. Personal adjustment – The counselor should
possess maturity, emotional stability, sense of
worth, self-reliance, confidence, flexibility and
adaptability. And also have well aware about his
strength and limitation.
Interpersonal relationship – Should have
capacity for being trusted by others, respect for
needs of others, tolerance of viewpoints of others
than one’s own, and respect for individuals
Professional competence – should know his job
well, wide knowledge of the world and its ways
especially in the field of occupations, well
conversant with the techniques of counseling.

12. Leadership – ability to stimulate and lead
others and should possess dependability.
Professional dedication – Vocational
interest, professional attitude, sense of mission,
loyalty and enthusiasm for the cause of
education, dedicated to service in student,
strong professional ethics, willing to work etc.
Philosophy of life – have civic sense, an
acceptable value system, respect for personal
autonomy and integrity of the client etc.

13. Empathy – the ability to feel and describe the
thought and feelings of others.
Confidentiality – Keeping the secrecy of
information disclosed by the client. Have
absolute and relative confidentiality.

15. Rapport in counseling
• Rapport refers to a relationship of confidence,
trust and mutual appreciation between the
counselor and counselee in a counseling
situation.
• Webster’s dictionary defines the term rapport as
a harmonious and sympathetic relationship
between two individuals.

16. Techniques to establish Rapport
David and Robinson suggested the following
techniques to increase rapport:
1. Sympathy
2. Assurance
3. Approval
4. Humour – attempt to ease tension
5. Personal reference – telling own experience
6. Non- personal reference – telling others
experience

17. Role of counselor in serving pupils
 Assisting pupils to know themselves.
 Help to accept their aptitudes, abilities, interests and
opportunities for self-fulfillment.
 Helping for decision making competency.
 Giving material information and evaluation to staffs
about pupils.
 Determining impact of school program in pupils.
 Information for significant changes
in school.
 Assisting parents for understanding
developmental need of the pupils.
 Development and use of
community resources.

18. Role of the counselor in Guidance
Programme
 Understanding students.
 Collecting educational and occupational information.
 Conducting interview.
 Conferring with parents and teacher.
 Disseminating information's
 Arrange orientation talks.
 Work with community.
 Liaison with external agencies.
 Organizing guidance service in school.
 Providing counseling
 Co-ordination.
 Research projects.

19. How to become
a good counselor