Authentic Counselling and Training

[Under development 22 November 1998]

My counselling and training-related activities are divided into two categories:

Authentic Counselling and Training

Counselling

As a person-centred counsellor (in independent practice), I believe that it is the relationship between the client and me which has the potential to be therapeutic. If, as a counsellor, I can create and maintain the right personal environment for the relationship to develop and flourish, then, according to Carl Rogers, therapeutic movement will almost inevitably occur. The principal features of this personal environment are an empathic understanding of the world of the client with whom I am working (i.e. phenomenologically unique to that person, and determined neither by theory nor by my own experience); my own genuineness (congruence coupled with immediacy); and an unconditional positive regard for the person. Carl Rogers referred to these three features as the core conditions, which if satisfied will permit the person to discover more themselves more fully, and connect with their innate potential for growth.

I also make much use of imagery of various kinds, including:

  • the tactile and visual use of stones and pebbles,
  • modelling with clay and coloured play-dough,
  • making images with paints and crayons,
  • bursting balloons;
  • the verbal use of clean language (familiar to people who know neuro-linguistic programming, and/or the work of David Grove) and the development of (mutative) metaphors;
  • some techniques common in psychosynthesis, such as the development and transformation of differentiated subpersonalities.

I counsel individuals, couples, and occasionally work with families. My specialisms include

I enjoy counselling, and usually have space available to take on more.

Counselling Supervision

I am also a counselling supervisor (in independent practice), which means that I help counsellors (experienced as well as those in training) to be as effective as possible with their clients. The model of supervision I use is close to that put forward by Brigid Proctor and Francesca Inskipp: a deeply supportive and challenging, humanistic model which I see as compatible with a person-centred approach to counselling. The key words are affirmative: recognition that the counsellor/supervisee probably did the best they were able at the time; normative: identifying good/best practice; formative: helping the counsellor/supervisee to learn/improve their practice, often through practice with me; restorative: helping the counsellor/supervisee to feel okay about themselves, and in sufficiently good a place to continue working with clients. I enjoy supervising, and usually have space available to take on more.

Counselling Training

I am also a counselling trainer / counselling skills trainer, which means that, at the introductory end of professional training, I train people (largely those with existing professional caring roles, such as doctors, nurses, health visitors, social workers, teachers, police and clergy) to listen attentively, respond purposively, and maintain appropriate ethical boundaries. I teach up to the level of the 450 hours training required by the British Association for Counselling (BAC) for a trainee to have satisfied the training requirement to apply for BAC Counsellor Accreditation. As a result of inspection by the BAC during the academic year 1996/1997 of university courses on which I teach, I have, along with other members of staff, Accredited Trainer status.

In addition to teaching in the university, I teach independently, in hospitals, clinics, education centres and in the training centres of commercial organisations. I enjoy counselling training, and usually have space available to take on more.

Groupwork Training

I have been training people in groupwork since the mid-1980s. Initially, I taught as part of my social commitment to a better world, in particular with the Quakers and with CND-affiliated organisations. I am now also interested in the development of better management for employees, better healthcare for patients, and better youth work with young people, each of which can improve with groupwork training. During the first quarter of 1998, I have prepared modules for, and been teaching groupwork in or through the University of Durham:

  • Certificate in Residential Social Work to residential social workers who work at a centres for young people who have been taken into care;
  • Certificate in Higher Education [failed to recruit];
  • BA in Community and Youthwork to second and third student year youth and community workers;
  • MA in Higher Education;

I enjoy groupwork training, and usually have space available to take on more.

 

Stress Management and Relaxation Training

I have been training people in stress management and relaxation since the late-1980s. I have developed my own programme of self-awareness and self-help exercises, as well as my own methods of helping people to learn to relax. I use these techniques in the contexts both of working with individual clients, and of working in groups. I enjoy stress management and relaxation training, and usually have space available to take on more.

 

p.g.h@btinternet.com