COUNSELING:

AS AN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

DR. RUDYA A. ROALLOS, RGC, RPm

Psychology Professor, Bicol University
 Presentation Outline

3. Clientele and Audiences in

Counseling
3.1. Characteristics and Needs of
various types of clientele and
audience
a. Individuals
b. Groups and Organizations
c. Communities
 Presentation Outline

4. Setting, Processes, Methods and

Tools in Counseling
4.1. Settings
a. Government
b. Private Sector
c. Civil Society
d. Schools
e. Community
5. Counseling Services, processes and
methods
 COUNSELING:
As An Applied Psychology

CHARACTERISTICS AND NEEDS OF CLIENTS

PROCESSES, METHODS AND TOOLS
 CHARACTERISTICS
OF COUNSELING CLIENTS

 Clients who ignore boundaries (chronic lateness,

missed appointments)
 Clients who refuse responsibility (“you fix me”)
 Argumentative clients (hostile and skeptics)
 Clients who fear intimacy (avoidant)
 Incompatible clients (want something therapist
can’t and will not give)
 Clients who push therapists’ buttons (bring up
unresolved issues)
 Hysterical clients
 CHARACTERISTICS
OF COUNSELING CLIENTS
 Literal and concrete clients (unable to express internal
states)
 Feeling hopeless clients (actively suicidal)

 Clients with poor impulse control (offenders,

substance abusers)
 Clients with narcissistic behavior (egoistic)

 Client who are counter-transference objects (reminds

the therapist of someone in the past)
 Impatient clients (“fix me now!”)
 Counseling Process
1. Relationship Building
2. Problem Identification and Exploration
a. Define the problem
b. Explore the problems
c. Integrate the information
3. Planning for the Problem Solving
a. set a goal
b. identify and list all possible solutions
c. explore the consequences of the suggested
solutions
d. prioritize the solution
4. Solution Application and Termination
 “Therapists can not open hope
to open doors for clients that they
have not opened for themselves.”
– Corey
 COUNSELING STRATEGIES

1. Relationship Strategies – attending, accepting,

empathic understanding, being genuine and
transparent, respecting, listening, responding,
caring, and ensuring emotional security of the
client.

2. Communicating Strategies – responding to verbal

and non-verbal messages, silence, clarifying,
reflecting, inquiring, paraphrasing and
summarizing
 COUNSELING STRATEGIES

3. Assessment Strategies – evaluating the client’s

situation, coping levels, helping the client explore
suitable alternatives and determining appropriate
resources and referrals

4. Insight Strategies – facilitating the discovery of

conflicts, helping the client understand conscious,
unconscious and altered conscious thoughts.
 COUNSELING SKILLS
1. Listening Skills – counselor notes verbal and non-
verbal behaviors of client and responds to the basic
messages of client, clarifies content and emotions
and checks the client’s perceptions for accuracy
2. Leading Skills – leading the counseling interview,
encourages and elaborates discussions, focuses on
the issue by controlling confusion or diffusion,
conducts open and closed inquiries through
unstructured strategy of questioning
3. 3. Reflecting Skills – reflects feelings as he responds
to the client’s emotion, reflects contents as he
underscores the ideas and messages, and reflects
experience as he responds to client’s total
experience.
 COUNSELING SKILLS
4. Summarizing Skills – putting the client’s messages and
emotions together to make a total picture
5. Confronting Skills – recognizes and describes feelings,
reacts to client’s expressions and emotions, screens
and pinpoints feelings, promotes self-confrontation,
and facilitates the loosening of the client’s feelings
6. Interpretative Skills – facilitates awareness as he
symbolizes the client’s messages and emotions for a
wider understanding of feelings and for broader
perceptions
7. Informing Skills – gives valid information based on
research and expertise and discusses with the client
alternatives for possible solution of problems or
possible ways of attending the client’s concerns
 COUNSELING SKILLS
8. Teaching Coping Skills – encourages client to
learn effective ways of solving his problems by
creating conditions on how to solve his
problems by using his own resources
 Counseling Tools
1. Observation
2. Inventories/Questionnaires
3. Autobiographical sketches
4. Case Study
5. Assessment
a. Objective Tests
b. Projective Techniques
6. Anecdotal Records
7.Psychological Interview
Counseling Tools
Counseling Tools
Counseling Tools
Counseling Tools
 COUNSELING:
As An Applied Psychology

COUNSELING SEVICES,
PROCESSES and STRATEGIES/METHODS
 COUNSELING SERVICES
1. Individual Counseling is confidential short-term
therapy available to all clients/students. The
initial appointment will help clarify if short-term
individual counseling is recommended, and an
appointment will be made with a staff member
as soon as possible. If longer term counseling
services are needed, referral to a professional
will be made.
 roommate difficulties
 loneliness
 anxiety
 low self-esteem
 disordered eating
 stress management
 COUNSELING SERVICES

 abuse issues
 procrastination
 family problems
 interpersonal conflicts
 difficulty in intimate relationships
 questions about sexuality or sexual orientation
 depression
 cultural or ethnic concerns
 achievement conflicts
 concerns about use of alcohol or drugs
 gender identity questions
 COUNSELING SERVICES

2. Group Counseling. There are a variety of

counseling groups to help clients/students find a
forum of peer support and meet with other
clients/students who can relate to one another.

3. Career counseling is offered in either individual

or group formats to assist students with academic
and career issues.

4. Couple Counseling is offered in either one

couple or group of couples to assist in their
relationship conflicts or marital issues
 COUNSELING SERVICES

5. Family Counseling is offered to families

experiencing problems with child rearing or
discipline, parent-child relationship conflict and
dysfunctional issues like domestic violence and
abuse.
6. Community Referrals
7. Assessment
8. Training
9. Consultation
10. Research
 Counseling strategies should focus
on developing a client’s awareness of
his unlimited human potentials for his
or other’s good, not on strategies
directed toward conformity to various
standards difficult for him to
understand nor accept deeply.
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
1. Living and Learning Through Loss – an information-
based and experiential program for adolescents who
are in the midst of coping with significant life change
events like loss of a loved one or any family member
- the loss of someone special can lead to
depression, anxiety and anger
- dedicated to helping clients survive happily. It
focuses on the alleviation of emotional distress and
the relief of suffering & pain
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
2. Life Style Approach – an assessment technique
used for adolescents and adults with 8 avenues
giving information about one’s life style
a. Case history – knowing the client
b. Psyc’l interviewing – talking to client
c. Expressive behavior – observing client
d. Psyc’l testing – measuring the client
e. Family constellation – social influence
f. Early recollections – finding out client’s meaning
of life
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
g. Grouping – interacting with client
h. Symptomatic behavior – knowing the
client’s tell-tale signs
- Life style approach emphasizes the interrelatedness
of man as a social being with personal social
problems
- Information sharing with client explores and focuses
on the 3 areas of social living such as work/school,
love and friendship
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
3. Life Review – the process of helping older persons
develop insights into one’s life by focusing on
transitions or approaching transitions such as critical
changes in life style, aging, retirement, loss of loved
one or one’s own approaching death
- helps in facing critical developmental issues and
problems such as low self-concept or low self-esteem
and unable to use the past in understanding the
present and visualizing the future
.
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
4. Fantasy Therapy– use to make contact with
unavailable person, unfinished events or business,
feelings that are resisted
- Client is encourage to talk and express repressed
feelings and emotions like
grief , guilt and hatred
“EMPTY CHAIR” – placed in front of the client
– will help client into saying goodbye
- saying goodbye means letting go of the person
- usually accompanied by outburst of words
* This technique requires a deeper training
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
5. Play Therapy– use as psychotherapy for children to
bring about temporary attachment to the therapist
- given to cases of child abuse or trauma
- the therapist provide companionship not leadership
- therapist does not hurry the child and be just silent
beside the child
- requires in-depth training in psychoanalysis
6. Family Therapy– focus in on the interactional
process between and among members of the family
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
*3 Approaches to family therapy
a. Contextual approach – based on system theory with
an objective to establish trustworthiness and fairness
of the family and to correct object loss
b. Structural Approach– focuses on the interpersonal
communications
- the goal is to make a dysfunctional family structures to
make a dynamic family
c. Strategic Approach – therapist assess the power
structure of the family
- the therapist focus on specific problem of the family and
this approach involves 4 stages (social, problem,
interaction, goal setting)
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
7. Metaphor – use as an excellent way to deal with the
person’s way of resistance to convey communication
- has the ability to reach an effective component of one’s
personality to protect one’s own privacy
- used in recorded history and Bible through
parables, proverbs, anecdotes and stories which has
symbolic meanings (right brain)
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
8. Imagery – use to deal with client’s recurrent dreams
by giving meaning and interpretations
- focuses on the client’s frustrations, thoughts and
feelings and unsettled energies like anger, fears and
anxiety
- used as healing process of the psyche or mind
- Requires deeper training
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
9. Stress Care – focus on managing stress or taking
charge of one’s thoughts, emotions schedule,
environment and the way to deal with problems
-the goal is to achieved a balance life with time for
work, relationships, relaxation and fun – plus
resilience to hold on under pressure and meet
challenges head on
 SELECTED TECHNIQUES
- Helps client how to manage stress;
1. Identify sources of stress
2. Learn healthier ways to cope with stress
3. Avoid unnecessary stress
4. Alter the situation
5. Adapt to the stressor
6. Accept things you can’t change
7. Make time for fun and relaxation
8. Adopt a healthy life style
 “LET LOVE BE
OUR GREATEST AIM”
Reference List
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Huey, W. & Remley, T. (2002). An ethics quiz for school counselors.
Professional School Counseling, 6(1), 3-10.
Myrick, R. (2003). Accountability: Counselors count. Professional School
Counseling, 6(3), 174-180.
Schmidt, J. (2003). Counseling in schools: Essential services and
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Inc.
Texas Education Agency. (2004). A model comprehensive, developmental
guidance and counseling program for Texas public schools. A guide for
program development pre-k-12th grade (GE 350 01). Texas