Caption: Reflection
in Car Mirror
URL: https://pixabay.com/en/mirror-car-vehicle-street-road-1285170/
In order to
be an effective counselor, a person must learn reflecting skills to integrate
into therapy. There are several reasons
as to why reflecting skills are crucial to counseling. The use of reflection allows counselors to
mirror their clients and demonstrate they are listening and understanding what
the client is saying in a nonjudgmental and nonevaluative manner (Young, 2017). Reflecting the content, thoughts, feelings,
and meaning a client expresses helps them feel validated. Through reflecting, counselors show empathy
to their clients through their communication.
Reflection gives clients the opportunity to clarify their points if
there have been any misinterpretations.
This skill also creates an environment for the client to further explore
their experiences. Sometimes reflecting
brings important factors to the surface that otherwise might have remained
hidden (2017).
Bennet-Levy
(2006) discussed different skills that are imperative for counselors to learn
during their education process. One of
the skills that he emphasized was reflecting.
Bennet-Levy (2006) classified reflecting as a central component to a
counselor’s skills development.
Velsor
(2004) composed an article examining the basic skills that are necessary in
counseling children. She refers to
reflecting as one of the skills used in counseling in order to help clinicians
facilitate purposeful communication with their clients. Children have different levels of cognitive
reasoning and understanding; therefore, counselors must take this into
account. The use of reflecting is one
way counselors can show they are actively listening and tracking with what the
client is saying. This is accomplished
through reiterating a client’s content, meaning, feeling, interpreting, and using
metaphors (Velsor, 2004). In addition,
when working with children, this article suggests implementing behavioral
tracking in order to reflect what the child is doing. This can be included in play therapy, because
sometimes children are more expressive through their actions (2004).
References
Bennett-Levy, J.
(2006). Therapist skills: A cognitive model of their acquisition and
refinement. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 34(1),
57–78. doi:10.1017/S1352465805002420
Velsor, P. V.
(2004). Revisiting basic counseling skills with children. Journal
of Counseling and Development, 82(3), 313-318.
Young, M. (2017).
Learning the art of helping, 6th
edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
It is definitely true that reflecting skills are critical to the counseling process. Without properly calling attention to specific feeling words or core beliefs, the client may have no conscious identification of those things. I can recall that classmates have mentioned that during their practice sessions that many times, they came to conclusions because of the use of keywords and reflections that the counselor utilized. I also agree that implementing reflecting portrays empathy to the client. It emphasizes the fact that the counselor was genuinely listening to what they were saying, not just taking it in passively. Regardless of the age of the client, reflecting skills are important for each person who comes to counseling.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest draw for me to counseling is that many times people desire to be heard. In a world that is so attached to screens and networking and connection, it is almost ironic that people can often feel disconnected and that no one is listening. Social media and the internet have made the world so much smaller, but I think there is now a flaw in today's society where people do not know how to interact face-to-face. Reflecting conveys that the counselor is listening as you have mentioned. It is encouraging for the person sharing to know that the listener is engaged in the conversation and in the present moment with the one who is talking. Simply by reflecting the speaker's words back, the speaker can feel heard and like someone is there with him and cares.
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