Counselling Skills

In the last few years, counselling has become something of a growth industry. It seems that no major life event, whether joyous or traumatic, can take place without being accompanied by an offer of counselling. This growth has extended to the workplace. Here effective managers have adopted the very best of counselling skills and adapted them to improve face-to-face communications with their staff. The result is not strictly counselling in the professional sense but a way of managing people that we can call “the counselling approach”.

When it comes to handling difficult people problems that affect the health, productivity, and well-being of employees, past models of telling people what to do, followed by discipline and ultimately punishments such as dismissal, are no longer acceptable. Using a professional approach, with the use of known skills that work, and which treat people with dignity, respect, and valuing, is the only course that can succeed. This is the promise and reward that comes from learning the skills of the Counselling Approach.

1. The Counselling Approach
   1. What “the Counselling Approach” Is
   2. Problems at Work
   3. People Maintenance
   4. Workplace Problems
   5. The Manager as Helper
   6. Emotional Intelligence
   7. The Principles of the Counselling Approach
   8. Key Points
2. Awareness, Acceptance, and Growth
   1. Discuss the Issues
   2. Opening Up Awareness with the Johari Window
   3. Refusing to Budge
   4. Giving People Feedback
   5. Jewels in their Crown
   6. Jewels in our Crown
   7. Acceptance
   8. Key Points
3. Personal Growth
   1. Trust
   2. Bind and Bond
   3. Autonomy
   4. Giving Calhoun the Ball
   5. Initiative
   6. Digging a Trench
   7. Industry
   8. Kicking to its Feet
   9. Identity
   10. The Sting of a Scorpion
   11. Intimacy
   12. I Knew You’d Come
   13. Generativity
   14. The Acorn Planter
   15. Integrity
   16. The New Emperor
   17. Counselling & Growth
   18. Key Points
4. Dispositions of Counselling
   1. Warmth
   2. Empathy
   3. Specificity
   4. Genuineness
   5. Confidentiality
   6. Professional Distance
   7. The Touch of Integrity
   8. Self-Renewal
   9. Key Points
5. The Counselling Interview
   1. Aims
   2. Preparation
   3. Environment
   4. Role
   5. Stages
   6. Process
   7. Follow Up
   8. Key Points
6. The Art of Listening
   1. Stop, Look and Listen
   2. Take Yourself Out of Things
   3. Look Through a Window, Not a Mirror
   4. Stay Tuned In Even When You Don’t Like the Music
   5. Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs
   6. Be Alert, Alive and Attentive
   7. Take Your Time
   8. Detective Listening
   9. Respond to the Moment
   10. Key Points
7. Questions for Meaning and Understanding
   1. Questions for Information
   2. Questions for Confirmation and Response
   3. Questions for Understanding
   4. Key Points
8. Challenging
   1. Bring Things Out In the Open
   2. Point Out the Discrepancies
   3. Incongruence
   4. Link the Contradictions
   5. Not Getting In Their Way
   6. Challenge Faulty Thinking
   7. Gentle Suggestion
   8. Key Points
9. Moving On
   1. Referrals
   2. Specialist Help
   3. The Follow-Through
   4. Key Points
10. People Problems
    1. Performance Problems
    2. Sickness Absence
    3. Career Counselling
    4. Bereavement Counselling
    5. Personal Relationships
    6. Key Points
11. Web Resources on “Counselling Skills”