Techniques for Individual Counseling

Counseling falls into two basic categories: group and individual. Each category can be further divided by the theories of counseling and the needs of those counseled. Individual counseling has the advantage of privacy and intimacy, and is more likely to elicit honest self-evaluations from clients. Counselors rely on a variety of principles and techniques to facilitate greater self-understanding in the client, matching individual techniques with the needs of a particular client.

Empathizing, Not Identifying

• Empathy is the ability to vicariously identify the feelings and thoughts of another person. Counselors must empathize with their clients without identifying with them because it can erode the professional detachment necessary to assist the client. A counselor working with a spouse abuser, for example, needs to understand the client's thoughts and feelings so the client can understand them and change them.

Intake Interview

• Every client who enters into a counseling relationship is different. Before determining counseling techniques, the counselor must establish goals with the client. The counselor asks the client what he expects to achieve, in addition to eliciting the client's ideas about what achieving the goal will mean in everyday life. The intake interview is also important for the counselor to gain an understanding of the client's personality, strengths and weaknesses, as well as establish rapport.

Counseling Approaches

• Individual counseling techniques fall into numerous counseling approach categories, depending on why the client is seeing a counselor. A client who feels compelled to repeat a behavior that is harmful or self-destructive might benefit from a cognitive behavioral approach that helps her identify previously unacknowledged thought patterns that lead to the harmful behavior. A client who feels emotionally disturbed without any apparent reason might benefit from a psychodynamic approach that helps her uncover repressed experiences from early childhood. Each approach is accompanied by clinical techniques.

Conversational Techniques

• Regardless of the approach, the counselor-client relationship almost always involves conversation. The client reveals much about his thinking with language. Clients reveal preconceptions, value judgments, likes and dislikes through conversations. The counselor's responsibility is to accurately identify these thought patterns to assist the client with her problem. The counselor must ensure that she is understanding the client correctly. Techniques that prevent misunderstanding and reassure the client include active listening, paraphrasing and summarizing, non-judgmental facial expressions and body language, and copious note-taking.