A Counseling Skills Primer

 Nina Spadaro, Tiffany Rush-Wilson, and Rives Thornton virtually bring counseling skills to life in this multi-media e-book. Integrating straight-forward written descriptions with clear video demonstrations of each skill greatly enhances the learning experience of the reader. The authors explain and demonstrate microskills, which are the building blocks of the helping professions and the core of all therapeutic relationships. In addition, the concept of mesoskills is introduced for the first time – a concept that incorporates how to assemble the microskills together to effectively conduct the different stages of the therapeutic relationship, from the initial meeting of clients to their final sessions. The mesoskills are artfully described as well as demonstrated on video for the reader to fully understand these crucial concepts that have so much positive impact in the counseling relationship. This book is essential for all individuals who want to be effective as a helping professional and is applicable with any theoretical orientation.

Contents
Preface
How This Primer Is Organized
Accessing Video Demonstrations
The Client Monologue Videos and the Microskills Worksheet
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Therapeutic Relationship
The Counselor is the Tool
Make Your Relationships Your Laboratory
The Language of Counseling
How to Learn Counseling Skills
The Client Monologues
Chapter 2: Microskills & Mesoskills
Why Study Microskills and Mesoskills?
Chapter 3: The Nonverbal Microskills
Attending Behaviors: SOLER
Tone of Voice and Pacing of Speech
Facial Expression
Minimal Verbal and Nonverbal Encouragers
Proxemics
Touch
Chapter 4: Listening Microskills
Reflection of Content
Summarization

Reflection of Feeling
Reflection of Meaning
Questions
Open Questions
Contract Questions
Consequence Questions
Closed Questions
Scaling Questions
Checkout Questions
Chapter 5: Influencing Microskills
Validation
Reference to the Nonverbal Communication of the Client
Interpretation
Reframing
Interruption
Redirection
Clarification
Confrontation of Contradictions
Silence
Sharing Information with Clients
Directives
Self-Disclosure
Here and Now Self-Disclosure
Feedback to Client Self-Disclosure
Personal Self-Disclosure
Professional Self-Disclosure
Client Reflection
Self-Generation of Homework

Chapter 6: Mesoskills—The Tasks of Counseling
Stages of Counseling
Why Study Mesoskills?
Managing Time During the Session
Greeting the Client
Orienting the New Client to Counseling
Opening a Session
Broaching Diversity Issues
Developing and Maintaining Rapport
Contracting for Change with the Client
Focusing the Session
Funneling the Session
Closing the Session
Calming Clients
Building Subsequent Sessions
Closing the Counseling Relationship
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Appendix A: Microskills Worksheet
Appendix B: The Emotion Wheel
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
References
Index of Video Demonstration Links