Lecture 7 Module 2 Part 1: Tasks of the Counsellor in Interviewing

Module 2 Basic interview skills
Part 1: Tasks of the Counsellor in Interviewing
Contrary to popular belief, to achieve an effective and positive outcome for the client, the
councillor's functions extend far beyond counselling. However, counselling is not simply
giving advice, having a conversation or interrogating a client.
Instead, it is a focused and goal-directed interaction between councillor and client that
facilitates exploring, understanding and action from the client.
The crux of counselling is identifying and defining a specific goal for the client to endeavour to
achieve, such as behaviour change, decision-making and relief of feelings in order to resolve
a problem or concern.
Therefore, the councillor ensures that their interaction is trusting, issue-cantered and goaldirected by applying a structured process to explore, evaluate, discover, clarify and
understand feelings and beliefs that underlie the client's problems.
These are achieved by the interviewing process. The councillor emanates respect, empathy,
genuineness, attentiveness and accessibility to establish a positive rapport.
He or she also manages external conditions to support comfort and trust, such as a quiet and
relaxed physical environment, appropriate seating arrangement and informed consent,
making sure that the client understands conditions of privacy and confidentiality.
Three main stages of the counselling process
1. Beginning stage
There are three main stages of the counselling process that requires different focus, tasks
and skills of the councillor. These are one, the beginning stage where relationship building,
information gathering and exploration are the main focal points.
2. Middle stage
Two, the middle stage where discovering and understanding are the goals.
3. End stage
The end stage where action and resolution are realised. It is important to understand that the
skills and strategies of the councillor should meet the client's needs at each of these stages
in the counselling process.
Johari Window- Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram
A helpful tool to guide the councillor throughout the process is the Johari Window. The Johari
Window is divided into four quadrants,
Open Area
namely the open area, information that is known by both the client and councillor, all readily
shared,
Hidden Area
the hidden area, information that is known by the client but not the councillor.
Blind Area
The blind area, Information that is known by observation or another source by the councillor
but not by the client.
Unknown Area
And the unknown area. Information is not known to either the client or councillor and has to be
discovered through mutual interaction.
The essence of counselling is to reduce the blind hidden and unknown areas by discovery
and disclosure to facilitate understanding and eventual action to resolve the client's
problem.
The Johari window is a conceptual tool that illustrates how clients typically enter the
counselling relationship with a lack of self-awareness that is instrumental in their
problems.
The counselling process extends the dimensions of understanding while shrinking the areas
of ignorance to implement changes that are focused on the client's problems through
influencing his or her emotions, thoughts and behaviours.