BASIC COUNSELING RESPONSES FOR BACHELOR’S LEVEL CLINICAL ROLES

This chapter highlights differences in scope of practice between counseling and therapy work, and how rehabilitation and human services technicians in undergraduate programs of study can utilize foundational theories and employ basic interviewing and counseling skills to facilitate clinical conversations. Person-centered, strengths-based, and Rogerian approaches to treatment provide frameworks for human services work. From the beginning of the helping relationship through termination, practitioners can employ skills such as active listening, empathizing, reframing, noting discrepancies, and paraphrasing to elicit information from clients, and build rapport and trust. The nuances of asking questions and the differences between open and closed questions will be addressed. Lastly, students will be introduced to client group dynamics and basic tenets of navigating counseling conversations and psychoeducational classes.