Counselling Skills

This unit offers students the opportunity to develop their core counselling skills, along with the core conditions for effectively managing the counselling process. It provides the foundation for subsequent specialisation and aims to develop the identity of the student as a counsellor.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate, analyse, and evaluate the application and integration of core counselling theory and skills
• Conduct both an initial and subsequent counselling session
• Establish counselling goals and action plans with clients
• Identify and manage the complexities of the counselling process
• Determine an appropriate approach to referral
• Explore the complex social, legal, and ethical issues associated with counselling
• Evaluate personal values and analyse how these may impact upon the counselling process
• Demonstrate self-awareness and integrate the capacity to be reflexive
• Undertake and reflect upon clinical supervision

Content Areas

• Counselling in Context
• The Therapeutic Frame
• The Therapeutic Dialogue and Partnership
• Empathising through Listening and Responding
• Factors that Assist the Therapeutic Process
• Moving from Helping Clients Explore Options to Specific Goal-Setting
• Developing Possibilities
• Working as a Professional
• Ethical Competence for Counsellors
• Moving Beyond Initial Sessions
• Connecting Past to Present and Future
• Termination and Review

Unit Duration and Workload

This unit involves a total of 36 hours of face to face delivery or self-directed study including educator contact in flexible delivery modes, generating a further 120 hours of self-study per unit including research and related study activities, including assessment. This translates as 13 hours per week for the module.