Psychological counseling: stages, types, techniques

When making an appointment with a psychologist, most people want to immediately understand how the psychological consultation will take place, how many meetings there will be and when they will feel better. But, touching the inner world of other people, a psychologist cannot give answers to all these questions in advance. After all, it is unknown what the problem is connected with, how deeply it is rooted in the soul. Working with each person goes through certain stages of psychological counseling. You will now learn about each of them.

In this article:

Getting to know each other and establishing trust Defining the problem Clarifying the purpose and additional points Concluding a contract Consulting work Completion

What is psychological counseling

Among the common practices in the field of psychology are: training, therapy, correction, diagnosis, prevention, counseling.

Counseling was first discussed in 1951 at a conference in the USA. He was assigned the area of ​​psychological problems of people who do not have somatic and mental illnesses.

The goals and objectives of psychological counseling differ from psychotherapy and psychocorrection:

1. It is used more widely than clinical practices. With its help, issues of personality and family are resolved. Consulting techniques are used in industrial management and education.
2. Unlike psychotherapeutic methods based on influencing the deep levels of the unconscious, the psychologist mainly deals with situational problems that are solved consciously by the client.
3. The subject is in a position to take full responsibility for his or her life and the consultant works with him through dialogue. The specialist focuses on activating the individual’s internal resources, obtaining more variable behavior from him, contributing to the development of new approaches and skills.

The consultant is more free than the therapist in choosing professional models.

Basics of Counseling

Psychological consultation is based on the principles of humanistic philosophy and integral perception of personality.

Laws and rules, goals and values ​​of the client’s individual coordinate system, his beliefs and picture of the world are the material with which the consultant psychologist works.

The result confirming the truth of the chosen technique is considered to be: the absence of emotional symptoms of tension and discomfort, the disappearance of psychological difficulties in interpersonal relationships and the activities of the subject who asked for help.

Relationships with others, characteristics of a person’s behavior in the recent past and now, and her immediate mental state serve as sources of data for psychodiagnostics.

Working with a person, a psychologist:

• most often spends a short time with the client - 5-6 meetings;
• influences the subject’s behavior primarily through changing his attitudes toward other people, the nature and forms of relationships with them;
• the purpose of consultations is to eliminate harmful stereotypes of information processing, perception and response that have taken root in thinking;
• the client-consultant relationship represents a conscious interaction when the subject makes independent decisions to change his own personality;
• To carry out his functions of studying a person’s problem area, a psychologist requires an atmosphere of trust.

Types of counseling

Most often, once at the reception, a person has no idea of ​​the real reasons for his difficulties. A consulting psychologist helps him clarify the situation and understand the situation in all relationships.

Depending on the nature of the difficulties and characteristics of the client, counseling is possible in different forms:

1. Production. Aimed at motivating staff, increasing management efficiency, eliminating conflicts and improving interactions in the workforce.
2. Professional. Relates to career guidance issues. Assessments of a subject’s predisposition to one or another type of activity, and whether he or she has the necessary qualities.
3. Family. This includes issues of relationships during the premarital period, work with couples during their life together, and assistance in situations of divorce. Parents with problems with their children and spouses who have not found mutual understanding with their in-laws or in-laws can turn to a specialist.
4. Personal. Individual intimate issues - difficulties in interacting with others, interpersonal conflicts, increased anxiety, loss of meaning in life.

Based on other characteristics, the following types of counseling can be additionally distinguished:

• correspondence (remote) and contact (face-to-face);
• group and individual;
• psychological, pedagogical and business;
• problematic and crisis.

Stages of psychological counseling

During the interview, interpersonal interaction is divided into separate phases, depending on the mechanism and patterns of development of the dynamics of the dialogue.

Counseling psychology has developed several models for conducting a conversation between a specialist and a client, but the basic structure of communication in them remains the same.

Preparatory

Before starting work with a person, a psychologist studies the information available about him. Information is taken from the registration log, and the opinion of the person who accepted the application is taken into account.

In addition, there may be data on the client’s past visits to consultations, records of specialists who spoke with him earlier.

Some information can be gleaned from social networks, from mutual friends. If the meeting is held in an organization, then additional information is collected from management and work partners.

At the first stage, the specialist summarizes the available data and develops a conversation plan.

Tuning

Individual counseling is a process that requires the establishment of trusting, collaborative and mutually understanding relationships.

The specialist must be able to create an atmosphere in which the client feels safe. For this purpose, the psychologist introduces the subject to the general plan of the conversation and builds a rational basis for interaction.

The psychological mechanisms, structure and goals of counseling are explained to the person seeking help. This creates additional motivation for change and involves the subject in conscious work.

Diagnostic

Problems and conflicts that require resolution, psychological difficulties are often not limited to the questions that the client has posed to himself.

When choosing diagnostic directions, the consultant must be able to distinguish the subject’s projections from the facts that actually exist, but at the same time not introduce unfounded guesses into the situation.

At this stage, the structure of the individual’s difficulties is highlighted, problems that he can solve on his own are identified, as well as the most vulnerable aspects of the client’s inner world, which give rise to dramatic consequences for the person. Identifying connections of this kind is the main task of diagnostics.

The developers of the methodology identify 3 priority goals for the time allocated for diagnosis:

1. Create the right atmosphere and listen carefully to the person’s “confession.”
2. Identify the most important problem and help the client understand it.
3. Formulate a clear and precise task that the psychologist and the subject will solve during meetings.

A professional approach assumes that during the conversation, an often fuzzy and uncertain image of the desired future will be brought into the sphere of the subject’s consciousness, and the life goals and personal values ​​of the person being consulted will be clarified.

It is important that the assessments, views, life ideas and actual intentions of the person in need of help are comprehended and verbalized by him. The client must clearly understand what will happen when the problems are resolved.

Such restructuring of the subject’s internal space will be the first step towards improving the situation and will allow him to resolve many psychological difficulties on his own. The psychologist is required to stimulate the compensatory, adaptive and creative abilities of the individual, as well as provide emotional support.

Recommendation

Psychological consulting aims to search and develop, together with the client, alternative approaches to life's difficulties. Decisions that a person has always preferred over other behavior options may come to the fore.

When contacting a specialist, the subject is in a dead-end situation, in his opinion. A confidential conversation with a psychologist helps to change your point of view on problems, to deviate from rigidly defined patterns of thinking and perception.

After a visit to a consultant, people often change their attitude to what is happening and reconsider the range of acceptable ways to effectively and constructively interact with others.

When a person begins to be guided by more progressive attitudes, his behavior becomes more variable, plastic and flexible. He acquires the ability to use the most adequate methods of response in changing circumstances.

Studies of behavioral-cognitive psychology have shown that for socio-psychological adaptation in a modern European city, a person’s repertoire must contain about 600 patterns and algorithms of behavior.

People, in a rapidly changing reality with increasingly complex communication connections, are forced throughout their lives to develop new ways of coping with stress, forms of experience, response options and behavior.

The psychologist's recommendations should:

• contain a detailed plan for the client’s independent work;
• offer effective ways to destroy painful stereotypes of perception and thinking;
• involve the subject in activities to create a creative and flexible approach to relationships with the environment.

Control

The final stage of the consultant's work is to create feedback with the client in order to obtain reliable information about the results of the change process.

For this, the theory makes the following recommendations:

1. The psychologist must analyze the data received and evaluate how much his recommendations contributed to changing the life situation of the person seeking help.
2. Based on the information collected, a decision is made to correct the chosen methods of action, and additional instructions and advice are developed.
3. The consultant should motivate the client for independent activity, strengthen and stimulate it.
4. It is necessary to include the conclusions and knowledge that the subject received through joint activities with the psychologist into the permanent structure of everyday existence in order to consolidate the results and prevent their loss in the future.

Once the results of previous achievements have been consolidated, even simply planning the next step can be a great incentive for further positive transformation.



Getting to know each other and establishing trust

Photo by Alex Green: Pexels
The first stage of psychological counseling is aimed at establishing contact between the psychologist and the person in need of support or help. This contact should be confidential, such that it allows the client to relieve fears, tension, and open up to the psychologist.

Any consulting work begins with a request. You call or write to a consultant, introduce yourself, make an appointment, and perhaps briefly voice the problem. The way you were received at this stage, what impression was created, can already set you up for further cooperation or, conversely, force you to look for help elsewhere.

By the way, you are not the only one who worries before meeting with a psychologist. While waiting for you, he also spends a lot of time thinking about what the consultation will be like, whether he can help you.

Direct acquaintance occurs during the first meeting. You see a person's eyes, his smile, his behavior. You feel that now he is busy only with you, he has turned off calls, instant messengers, and computer. His gaze and body are directed at you. Perhaps he repeats some phrases after you, clarifies points, sometimes jokes or tries to make you relax.

And you really feel that they are listening to you and trying to understand you. This is the basic feeling that, like a key, opens the door to trust.

Nowadays, many consultations are carried out online. Because of this, communication may be poorer - some gestures and movements will disappear. However, thanks to the principles of active, empathic listening, and the behavior of the psychologist, you will still feel that you can trust him.

Counseling Methods

Individual personality theories and corresponding methodologies have developed their own approaches to working with clients. But there is a basic set of methods that includes: active and empathic listening, observation, interview and conversation.

When the client initiates the conversation, to make it easier for him to share his experiences, the psychologist can use empathic listening. It is characterized by the following features:

1. Absence of any assessments from a specialist. He does not allow himself to interpret out loud the hidden motives and intentions of his interlocutor, reproach him for mistakes or lead him astray.
2. The psychologist shows acceptance and understanding of the subject’s emotions and feelings, reflecting his experiences using special communication techniques.
3. The technique allows a professional to experience the same thoughts and feelings as the client, identify with him for a while, take his place, and understand the situation.
4. Techniques of adjusting to breathing, posture and movements, using the same representative systems as the interlocutor during a conversation, make it possible to create an atmosphere of trust and evoke additional sincerity of the subject.

To obtain more detailed information about a person's difficulties, listening may take a slightly different form. For example, the active listening technique involves the psychologist asking leading and clarifying questions in order to set the direction of the conversation or clarify details.

In addition, to listen actively, you need to:

• demonstrate with a friendly gaze, posture and gestures directed at the interlocutor your interest in what he is saying;
• when asking a question, repeat part of the interlocutor’s phrase in the same words, or slightly reformulate it;
• Constantly support the conversation with your reactions - confirming attentiveness with nods, words “yes, yes”, “I understand”, “this is interesting”, “continue”.

This listening technique is one of the most important working methods that a psychologist must master, no matter what specialization he adheres to - organizational issues, family relations or business consulting.

Observing the client's non-verbal behavior, knowledge of body language and postures can help the consultant obtain a lot of additional information. Observation is trained like other skills.

For a method to be useful, observation must be focused, systematic, and intentional.

Another method of collecting the necessary information is an interview. Depending on the situation it happens:

• free - when, within the framework of the general plan, questions vary regarding the characteristics of the client;
• partially standardized – clear strategy and flexible tactics;
• standardized - when the questions and procedure are clearly indicated.

All previous methods are auxiliary or are included as an element in the main method of consultation - conversation.

A conversation is necessary to establish contact with the client, collect and systematize information about him, and develop recommendations for changing the situation.

Dialogue with the subject itself performs therapeutic functions. As the conversation progresses, various methods of psychological influence are woven into it, the person’s condition is assessed, and the program of interactions is adjusted.

The conversation most often has a clear structure and includes a number of points:

1. A plan of questions with the help of which the available information is detailed and the individual is encouraged to further in-depth self-analysis.
2. Calming and encouraging techniques are needed to create a trusting atmosphere.
3. Generalizations and paraphrases help the client become more aware of their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.
4. Reflection of feelings - inform the subject that the consultant is interested in understanding his inner world.
5. Silent pauses help the person seeking help to dive deeper into himself, see his own problems from different points of view, evaluate his values, attitudes, feelings and reactions.
6. Communicating information and interpretations is necessary to improve the client’s understanding of the situation and provoke him to ask questions. They are required to bring into the subject’s consciousness all new details and levels of problems.
7. Sometimes a psychologist resorts to deliberate confrontation - in order to determine the client’s usual methods of psychological defense and demonstrate to him their positive and negative sides.

To show the subject the sincerity of his intentions and demonstrate new ways of behavior, the psychologist reveals himself to him, provides personal information, and gives examples from his own life.

STEPS OF CONDUCTING AN ADVISORY CONVERSATION

Stages of conducting a consultative conversation

The word “Stage” denotes a separate moment, a stage in the development of something. The ideas of various authors about the stages of psychological counseling have a lot in common, however, there are also some differences associated mainly with the detail, logic, and completeness of the presentation. Excessive completeness, however, is not always a virtue, since it obscures the main idea and logic of the author. The stages of psychological counseling were described and analyzed by Aleshina Yu.E. (1999, 1993), Abramova G.S. (2001), Ermine P.P. and Vaskovskaya S.V. (1995), Kociunas R.-A. B. (1999) and many others. From our point of view, the most optimal presentation can be found in the works of Aleshina Yu.E. In our description of the stages of psychological counseling, we took as a basis the model of Yu.E. Aleshina, modifying and expanding it, making it more logical and understandable. In addition to this model, we invite students to familiarize themselves with the others listed above. It should be noted that in real psychological counseling it is rarely possible to fully and consistently fulfill the requirements of any one model. Life is too diverse. But it is necessary to focus on some model of the sequence of steps, since this increases the degree of reflexivity of the consultant’s attitude towards the advisory process.

The process of a consultative conversation can be divided into four stages:

Stage 1. Meeting the client and starting a conversation.

The duration of this stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of one advisory conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. During this stage, the consultant psychologist performs the following actions:

• a) You can stand up to meet the client or meet him at the door of the office, which will be perceived by the client as a demonstration of goodwill and interest.
• b) It is advisable to encourage the client with words like “Please come in”, “Make yourself comfortable.”
• c) After the first minutes of contact with the client, it is recommended to give him a pause of 45 - 60 seconds so that the client can collect his thoughts and look around.
• d) After a pause, it is advisable to begin the actual acquaintance. You can tell the client: “Let's get to know each other. What should I call you? After this, you need to introduce yourself to the client. It is best to introduce yourself the way the client introduced himself. You can discuss whether the client would be comfortable being called this way.
• e)As Kociunas R.-A. writes. B. (1999), the client must decide to enter into the counseling process quite consciously, therefore, before the start of the counseling process, the consulting psychologist is obliged to provide the client with maximum information about the counseling process, namely: about the main goals of counseling, about his qualifications, about payment for consultation, about the approximate duration of consultation, about the advisability of consultation in a given situation, about the risk of a temporary deterioration in the client’s condition during the consultation process, about the limits of confidentiality. Some of this information is provided upon the client's request, so as not to frighten the client before the start of the consultation with the flow of information. But it is advisable to raise some questions, for example, the question of payment, to the consultant psychologist himself. You should not instill in the client hope for help that the psychologist is unable to provide. The result of this part of the conversation should be a conscious decision by the client to enter into the counseling process. This is usually clearly visible on both verbal and non-verbal levels.
• f) It is important to agree in advance with the client on the possibilities of audio and video recording, observation through a one-way mirror, and the presence of other persons (trainees, students) at the consultation. This is excluded without the client's consent.
• g) It is important not to allow the client to use the consultant for his own purposes other than counseling. You should not agree to call somewhere at the client’s request, write letters, invite you to a consultation, that is, do not do anything that could be designated as interference by a consulting psychologist at the client’s request in the private lives of other people.
• h) After solving all the above issues, you can proceed to questioning the client, which will mark the beginning of the second stage of psychological counseling. It is important to have a pre-prepared phrase that would allow you to make this transition, so as not to suddenly get confused under the impressions of your first meeting with a client, and not to get into a situation where you don’t know where to start. An example of such a standard phrase: “What brought you to me?” Saying this phrase marks the beginning of the next stage of psychological counseling.

Stage 2. Questioning the client, forming and testing advisory hypotheses

The duration of this stage is 25 - 35 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. This stage can be roughly divided into two substages:

•1. Formation of advisory hypotheses.

•2. Testing advisory hypotheses.

Activities of a consulting psychologist at the first substage “Formation of advisory hypotheses”:

• a) Empathic listening. Usually, when they talk about empathy in psychology, they mean the ability to sensitively perceive the inner world of another person with all its semantic and emotional nuances. The development of empathy is traditionally associated with the deployment of the imagination process during communication (Shabalina, 1998, pp. 8-10). The ability to empathize develops as the consultant's experience develops. It is enough for a novice consultant to at least simply desire and outwardly demonstrate his desire to sensitively perceive the inner world of another person. This corresponds to the consultant’s active response to what the client is telling, frequent utterance of words like “Of course,” “Uh-huh,” “Yes, yes.”
• b) Acceptance of the client's concept at the inquiry stage. This means that we should not enter into arguments with the client at this stage, denounce, or incriminate him, so as not to provoke a defensive response.
• c) Structuring the conversation. The first technique is when asking a question or changing the topic of discussion, the consultant should explain to the client why he is doing this, what caused this, so that the client retains at least some semblance of the logic of all transitions in the conversation. For example: “You talk a lot about your father, but since we are dealing with a family situation, I would like you to say a few words about your mother.” The second technique is to briefly comment on what the client says, regularly summarizing what was said. This helps the client to be more consistent and concise in his speech, and not repeat the same thing several times. In addition, the client gets the opportunity to listen to himself, hear himself, understand himself. For example: “So, from your point of view, your former work colleagues play a big role in this conflict.” The client receives an incentive to check himself again, to think about whether this is really so.
• d) Understanding what the client is saying. This comprehension aims to formulate one or more advisory hypotheses. The word “ Hypothesis ” comes from the Greek word hypothesis - basis, assumption. A hypothesis is a presumptive judgment about the natural (causal) relationship of phenomena. In experimental psychology, it is customary to distinguish two components of a hypothesis - a dependent variable (being influenced) and an independent variable (influencing the dependent variable). The dependent variable, it would seem, is always clearly presented in psychological counseling - these are the difficulties that the client has encountered, the events that concern him, which led him to psychological counseling. However, the consulting psychologist needs to identify the essence of these difficulties, formulating them as a psychological problem . In this case, we understand the phrase “Psychological problem” as A.F. understands the meaning of this conceptual unit. Anufriev (1995, p. 112). The formulation of a psychological problem consists of translating the client’s request into psychological language based on studying all the information about the client and his situation. For example, in a situation where a woman complains to a consultant that her seventeen-year-old daughter is “completely out of control,” the psychological problem can be formulated as deviant (deviating from generally accepted norms of socialization) behavior of this woman’s daughter. The client’s request, framed in the form of a psychological problem, will act as a dependent variable of the future advisory hypothesis. After this, the consulting psychologist needs to find an independent variable - something that determines events undesirable for the client. To do this, he uses all his psychological knowledge, for example, about deviant behavior. Each hypothesis is an attempt by the consultant to understand the client’s situation, and it suggests options for more constructive positions in the situation, probable ways to reorient the client in his attitude towards his problems. The more hypotheses a consultant has when faced with a situation, the more professionally equipped he is, the easier it is for him to work. The hypothesis expressed verbally by the consultant is an interpretation. Here is an example of a consultative hypothesis: “The basis of a young man’s deviant behavior is the unsettled marital relationship of his parents.” This can happen when a mother, feeling annoyed with her father but not being able to express it to him openly, from early childhood attributes negative traits to the child in order to conflict with him instead of the father. The young man simply demonstrates with his deviant behavior what is expected of him in the family, thus saving his parents from a frank conversation and divorce. Those who choose the “Psychological Counseling” specialization will also study these issues in detail in the “Family Psychology and Family Counseling” course. For now, let’s just focus on the fact that the deviant behavior of a young man here is a dependent variable (being influenced), and the unsettled marital relations of his parents is an independent variable (having an influence). This hypothesis may not be confirmed during testing. Then you can test an alternative hypothesis - “The basis of a young man’s deviant behavior is the active functioning of the sources of desocialization in the environment in which he lives.” Deviant behavior here refers to behavior that deviates from the socially normative - refusal to work, study, hooligan behavior, and so on.

At the first substage of the second stage, the consulting psychologist tries to take a predominantly passive position, encouraging the client to an active and rather spontaneous (spontaneous, without the participation of the will of the psychologist and the client) story. At the same time, he tries to comprehend the situation and formulate advisory hypotheses. When he forms several similar hypotheses, there is a natural desire to take a more active position - to begin asking specific questions aimed at testing advisory hypotheses, or to take some other action to test them. This, as a rule, corresponds to the client’s desire to hear something from the consultant - he has already expressed everything he could and wanted. The transition of the consulting psychologist from a passive state to an active one, associated with the verification of the advisory hypotheses that have arisen in him, marks the transition of the advisory conversation to the second substage of the second stage of the advisory conversation.

Activities of a consulting psychologist at the second substage “Testing advisory hypotheses”:

To test his advisory hypotheses, a consulting psychologist can choose two algorithms:

• a) Start asking the client questions aimed at clarifying the consultant’s ideas.
• b) Present your hypothesis (interpretation) to the client and ask him what he thinks about it. It is rare for a client to immediately accept and agree with a hypothesis. Usually, a dialogue ensues, as a result of which the hypothesis is corrected and acquires many significant and characteristic facts and experiences for a given situation, that is, it is maximally individualized.

But in both cases, in order for the consultant’s hypothesis to be confirmed or refuted, it is necessary to discuss two or three specific situations, which should be:

• a)closely related to the content of the client’s main complaints;
• b) typical for the client’s life;
• c) it is desirable that the situations be detailed, describing the negative, positive and neutral characteristics of the relationship.

Working with specific situations is important because the more detailed a person speaks, the less imprints of subjectivity and one-sidedness in his story, the more opportunities there are for the consultant to understand those aspects of reality that are not noticed by the narrator.

Throughout the second stage of the counseling conversation, it is necessary to encourage the client to describe his own feelings and the feelings of other people. Feelings reflect reality more deeply; they speak more about poorly realized, often hidden for the client, desires and conflicts that lie at the heart of the problems.

After the psychological consultant has tested his hypotheses and, possibly, found the reason underlying the client’s problem, it is logical to move on to providing influence. The transition to influencing marks the beginning of the next, third stage of the consultative conversation.

This

p 3. Exerting influence

The duration of this stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. This stage can be divided into two substages:

•1. Correction of client settings.

•2. Correction of client behavior.

Activities of a consultant psychologist at the first substage “Correction of client attitudes”

The task of the consulting psychologist at this substage will be completed if the following chain of events is built in the client’s mind: The client’s feeling or experience, which has existed for a long time or periodically arises in connection with the logic of the development of relationships, pushing him to achieve his goals and satisfy his needs (for love, power, understanding, a sense of value of the life lived, and so on) ® Inadequate means chosen to achieve these goals, leading to difficulties in relationships ® Negative reaction of the partner, which often aggravates the client’s problems.

For example, a woman wants to help her daughter find a decent place in life. She is worried that her daughter's fate may turn out sad. She wants her daughter to spend more time at home, take a more meaningful approach to her life, start studying seriously, and leave the group of friends with deviant behavior. These are the feelings of this woman, her needs, her goals. Perhaps she is not aware of them or is not fully aware of them. Sometimes she just wants to take revenge on her daughter for her suffering, and she forgets about the deeper emotional background of her behavior and her suffering, forgets about her goals. She is often simply carried away by the process of “domestic war.” It happens that parents in such a situation are so excited and tense that they constantly, for several years, perform the same repetitive actions, which not only do not lead to the desired results, but even, on the contrary, lead the process of socialization of the child in the opposite direction. They are poorly aware of their goals, the meaning of their actions, and their consequences for themselves and others. And so, the first stage of helping these people will be to reconstruct in their minds the elements of the chain presented above. The first element of the chain of ideas that we must recreate in the client's mind in this case will be her emotions, her anxiety, her goals, her needs. We must help her realize that her actions are caused by anxiety for the fate of her daughter, that her goal is the normal fate of her daughter - her health, her education, her successful socialization in society, a high level of development of her personality, a normal family in the future, and so on. This will be the first element of the chain.

Let us now move on to the second element of the chain, recreated in the client’s mind - the means that she uses to help her daughter. Every evening this woman looks for her daughter in nightclubs and brings her home with a scandal, where the scandal continues. If the daughter stays at home late, this woman looks into her daughter’s room every 15 minutes - what is the daughter doing? She regularly checks her pockets, calls her friends, and attempts to keep her daughter in the house, which have never been successful. I took my daughter to a psychic and tried to register her with the police. It is advisable to collect the most complete list of means by which a parent is trying or tried to save his child. It is necessary to collect this, first of all, so that the parent realizes what he, in fact, has been doing over the past few months or several years. That is, following the goals and the underlying emotional experiences, the client needs to become aware of his real actions and relate them to his goals. These real actions will be the second element of the chain.

And finally, the third element of the chain being built is results. Has mom achieved what she wanted over the past few years? Has your daughter's behavior improved? - No, it even got worse. There is so much activity, but this activity did not lead to the desired, on the contrary, it pushed it even further away. The daughter reacted to her mother’s activity by increasing deviant behavior, which only worsened the problems of her mother and our client. Before coming to the consultation, the mother may not have realized this, she was completely captivated by current tasks - what to do to prevent her daughter from leaving home tonight, where it is most likely to find her tonight, where to get money for a taxi, finally, to find her daughter to tell her all her resentment, and most importantly - how bad her daughter’s life will turn out now. We confront the client with this fact - this is what he wants, desires, this is what he does, and this is what it really leads to.

Why are we doing this? Why are we building this chain of events in his mind? — In order for the client’s attitudes towards ineffective behavior to change, so that he realizes its ineffectiveness, so that he begins to look for more effective behavior in relation to his situation. This is the essence of correcting the client’s attitudes.

In order to successfully build the chain of events discussed above in the client’s mind, a psychologist-consultant can use various means and techniques. Let's list some of them:

•1. Accentuating the contradictions in the client’s story, that is, emphasizing them, making them noticeable, conscious, and analyzed.

•2. Reformulating and restructuring the reality surrounding the client using comments - interpreting the client's situation based on personal experience or theoretical knowledge.

•3. Putting the client in a reflective position, that is, inviting the client to look at what is happening from the position of other participants in the situation and evaluate their own behavior through their eyes.

•4. Open confrontation with the client and his destructive actions, if nothing else can break through his numerous psychological defenses, and his behavior harms others.

•5. Placing the client in a situation that would help him gain new meaningful experiences designed to change his destructive behavioral attitudes. Homework that would allow the client to realize the destructiveness of his actions.

•6. Retelling to the client the main realities of his story, frequent summaries (repetition in a condensed form of the main facts appearing in the client’s story and the feelings associated with them.). The goal is to create conditions for the client to think for himself

over my situation, plunged deeper into it and was able to draw the necessary conclusions myself.

•7. Analysis of the emotional background of what is happening, interpretation and discussion of the realities of the client’s emotional life.

•8. Self-disclosure by a psychologist-consultant, which involves telling the client about his feelings about his difficulties, talking about his own or known and personally significant experience in overcoming such problems.

We will look in more detail at these and other techniques for conducting an advisory conversation later in the courses “Concepts and Methods of Psychological Assistance” and “Family Psychology and Family Counseling”, when we study the theoretical and social context in which they arose.

Thus, the result of the work of a psychologist-consultant at the first substage of the third stage of psychological counseling will be, to one degree or another, a pronounced non-acceptance of previous ways of behavior in problem situations, an attitude towards searching for new, more constructive ways of behavior that meet the realities of the situation that has arisen. The transition to behavior correction itself marks the beginning of the second substage of the third stage of the advisory conversation.

Activities of a psychologist-consultant at the second substage “Correction of client behavior”

At this substage, the psychological consultant must help the client formulate possible alternatives to habitual behavior, and then, carefully analyzing and critically evaluating them, choose the option that is most suitable for the client. Yu.E. Aleshina (1993) pays special attention to ensuring that the result of work at this substage is a detailed plan for the client’s positive response.

The client himself can find constructive alternatives to his behavior by observing the actions of friends and loved ones, analyzing works of culture and art, what he can be directed towards. We once published material in which we outlined our experience of using the analysis of the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” in psychological counseling of parents for the prevention of destructive parent-youth conflicts (Elizarov, 1996). The consulting psychologist must strive to ensure that the client finds alternatives to his behavior himself, so that these are exactly his alternatives, so that they grow organically from his life experience. But in some cases, it is permissible for a psychologist-consultant to offer possible behavioral alternatives to the client.

Developing a plan for a specific positive response from the client assumes that in psychological consultation the psychologist and the client will plan in detail where and when, in what place and at what time, in what form new constructive behavior will take place. All pitfalls and possible obstacles to this behavior will be discussed. Otherwise, positive behavior may be delayed for a very long time, or even not take place at all.

Stage 4. Completion of the advisory conversation.

The duration of the stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. At this stage, the consultant psychologist usually performs the following actions:

•1. Summing up the conversation (a brief summary of everything that happened during the reception). This is due to the fact that what is repeated at the end of the conversation is remembered better.

•2. Discussion of issues related to the client’s future relationship with the consultant or other necessary specialists. The address of other specialists (for example, a narcologist) and appointment time are given. It is formulated what tasks will be solved during subsequent meetings and how many specific meetings may be needed for this. It is better to pre-arrange the next meeting than to leave this issue uncertain. It is better that the place and time of the appointment be constant. The issue of redirecting the client to another consultant is decided if there is reason to believe that he will be more competent in this situation, or if the consulting psychologist is forced to leave somewhere in the near future. The issue of homework for the client is discussed.

•3. Consultant farewell to client. The client should be escorted at least to the door and a few kind words said goodbye. It is advisable to mention the client by name several times. It is undesirable for the next one to immediately enter after one client. This can alienate those who need a trusting relationship. The consultant must be ready to acknowledge possible limitations of his competence and not enter into unnecessary disputes.

Kapustin S.A. (1993) believes that after good work with a psychological consultant, the client finds himself in a situation of inconsistency of choice, uncertainty of choice - to start solving the problem or to live as before. Both are painful. This is due to the fact that there are serious circumstances that impede the client’s will and desire to begin solving his problems:

•1. The client needs to renounce everything that gave him a feeling of a certain meaningfulness of his existence - the previous goal orientation, the previous ideals, the way of life.

•2. Starting to solve his problems objectively, the client is forced to admit his guilt for those, perhaps, very tragic events and conflicts that happened to him and people close to him, and to lose his former self-respect.

•3. When starting to solve his problems, the client takes on the burden of responsibility for solving them and is forced to spend effort and time on this.

This situation of inconsistency and uncertainty of choice lasts from several seconds to several days and indicates that it was possible to expand the client’s understanding of himself and his own situation, and to create a basis for change. This is a state of severe mental shock, which may look outwardly as confusion, guilt, aggression, remorse, wounded pride, despair, hope. Speech may become slurred. At the same time, this is a state of thoughtfulness, thinking about a problem. This is also often a state of internal confrontation with the consultant, which may manifest itself in attempts to discredit him.

According to Kapustin S.A. (1993) achieving a state of choice uncertainty is in itself an indicator of the quality of the psychologist’s work

-consultant. The client is given a chance. In consultation or at home, over time, he can develop a realistic solution that corresponds to his personal resources. The psychologist here is limited by the presence or absence of counter activity from the client. The outcome of counseling ultimately depends on the will and desire of the client.

It should be noted that, despite the weight of the above arguments, most psychologists-consultants prefer that the client leaves them with a bright and joyful expression on his face. This is what their activity is aimed at at the final stage of the consultative conversation.

This concludes our consideration of the stages of a consultative conversation, as well as a presentation of the basics of the course. Students are encouraged to look for more detailed information about psychological counseling in the literature cited in this manual, in the literature recommended for seminar classes, in subsequent courses reflecting various theoretical and applied aspects of psychological counseling.

Elizarov A.N.

Psychological counseling techniques

There are suitable techniques for any stage of the relationship between a specialist and a subject in need of help. Seemingly minor variations in the consultant’s behavior contribute to the faster establishment of suitable connections:

1. When a professional leads a client to the designated place, he first follows in front, and in front of the door lets him through first.
2. To set a person up positively, a communicator establishes rapport - in a special way makes a favorable impression, using facial expression, posture, gestures, and managing the communication area.
3. Unobtrusive, calm music, the opportunity to be alone for a while and get used to the environment liberate clients and remove psychological barriers.
4. When formulating recommendations, the consultant tries not to use a directive manner of communication, replacing it with explanations, persuasion, providing the client with information and advice.

Features of counseling children with a psychologist

The tasks and goals of counseling adults and children are similar, but due to the immaturity and lack of independence of the younger generation, the methods need to be transformed.

Differences when working with children:

1. Deviations in development, which serve as the reason for contacting a psychologist, are noticed by teachers or parents, and not by the children themselves. The initiative to seek help, accordingly, also does not come from them.
2. The child's psyche changes quickly, so it is important that the corrective effect has a quick effect. Delay can lead to the accumulation of negative consequences.
3. Responsibility for the results cannot be placed on the subject, since his self-awareness and mental activity are not fully formed, and his immediate environment has a great influence.

Psychological methods for influencing children are behavioral in nature and based on gaming techniques. The consultant receives a large amount of information from the child’s parents, most often the mother.

Often, working with a child turns into family therapy, since the family plays a significant role in education and upbringing.

Conditions for the effectiveness of consultations with a psychologist

The specificity of psychological counseling is that it becomes effective if a number of factors are combined:

1. Specialists consider the problem comprehensively and do not focus on solving immediate problems, which most often have a temporary effect. A psychologist should focus on resolving deep internal conflicts.
2. The qualifications of consultants allow you to create an atmosphere of trust and establish relationships that allow you to obtain all the required information about the problems and inner world of the client, and use the methods of influence that are required to achieve the desired result.
3. A person who seeks help behaves prudently and disciplinedly: attends all meetings, performs independent work to the required extent, and provides reliable information about his conditions.
4. The methods of influence and the structure of the consultation are based on the individual characteristics of the client’s personality.
5. The psychologist is not able to do the work for the client. Therefore, the motivational part remains the most important for all consulting work.

Consulting work

As soon as all questions and conditions are determined and accepted, the consulting work begins. The methods and techniques used depend on the problem, its severity, and relevance:

• The process can use art therapy, drama therapy, and narrative practice. These methods are relevant for identifying underlying problems and their painless resolution.
• Conversation is used, discussing the positions of different parties in conflicts.
• When working with problem behavior and aggression, new ways of responding to difficult situations are developed.
• In case of fears, self-doubt, anxiety, it is important to understand the client’s past - what kind of relationship there was with parents, whether there were any difficulties with adaptation.
• If there are problems in relationships in the family, with peers, or colleagues, group trainings and family counseling can be used.
• Questions of the meaning of life can be effectively discussed from the perspective of existential therapy.

Ethics in psychological counseling

Individual and group psychological counseling is impossible without an atmosphere of goodwill and safety for the client.

The work experience of therapists and psychologists contains recommendations on the ethical side of the issue:

1. Separation of professional and personal. An undesirable phenomenon is considered to be an industrial, family or friendly relationship between a client and a consultant.
2. The specialist should not act instead of the client. Ready-made solutions in current situations, direct advice on what to do in each given case, go beyond the professional ethics of consultants.
3. A psychologist should not put social values ​​above the interests of the person who turned to him for help. Assessing a subject’s actions from the level of general morality will not allow him to be open and liberated.
4. Assessments from the specialist himself are also unacceptable. The ethics of the profession presupposes that the client is perceived as he is.
5. Strict confidentiality of meetings. No information should go beyond the relationship between the client and the psychologist.

Completion

The ideal outcome of psychological counseling is a completely happy client, free from problems and ready for a new life. To even get closer to this ideal, intermediate results must be formulated as part of the consultation process.

This approach allows you to make timely adjustments to the consulting process, identify current problems, clarify many issues, and change work tactics.

The stages of psychological consultation are steps by which a person, in collaboration with a psychologist, solves internal problems and comes to a feeling of well-being and success.

Is it possible to counsel friends and family?

Personal counseling by a specialist in the field of psychology of your friends, family and friends is not considered correct for a number of reasons:

1. Worrying about the state of people you know prevents the psychologist from perceiving the situation objectively; emotions are a bad adviser.
2. If the problem worsens, it is possible that the person who recklessly gave recommendations will be considered to blame for the outcome of the case. Moreover, this can happen regardless of whether the person being counseled followed the advice or not.
3. It is possible that the specialist will make a mistake. It will be difficult for him to accept the consequences professionally - to draw conclusions and continue to work.

The material issue cannot be ignored. A large amount of time will be spent on providing assistance, a considerable amount of information will be processed, but not everyone is able to demand payment from a loved one. In addition, people are not inclined to treat properly what they got for free. 

Ticket 13, 14. Psychology of grief

Grief reactions are a normal human reaction to any significant loss. The greatest losses, objectively and subjectively, for the individual are those associated with the awareness of one’s own mortality and the death of a loved one. The process of grief in literary sources (Vasilyuk, 2002) is often called the work of grief. This is, in fact, a lot of internal work, a huge mental labor of processing tragic events. So, grieving is a natural process necessary to let go of a loss or mourn a death. Conventionally, “normal” grief and “pathological” grief are distinguished.

Stages of “normal” grief:

1. Shock stage

. Tragic news causes horror, emotional stupor, detachment from everything that is happening, or, conversely, an internal explosion. The world may seem unreal: time in the perception of the grieving person may speed up or stop, space may narrow.

Typically, a complex of shock reactions is interpreted as a defensive denial of the fact or meaning of death, protecting the griever from confronting the loss in its entirety at once.

2. Denial stage

(search) is characterized by disbelief in the reality of the loss. A person convinces himself and others that “everything will change for the better,” that “the doctors were mistaken,” that “he will be back soon,” etc.

At this time, it can be difficult for a person to maintain his attention in the outside world; reality is perceived as if through a transparent veil, through which the sensations of the presence of the deceased often break through: a face in the crowd that looks like a loved one, a doorbell rings - the thought flashes: it’s him. Denial is a natural defense mechanism that maintains the illusion that the world will change according to our yes and no, or better yet, remain the same. But gradually the consciousness begins to accept the reality of the loss and its pain - as if the previously empty inner space begins to be filled with emotions.

3. Aggression stage

, which is expressed in the form of indignation, aggressiveness and hostility towards others, blaming oneself, relatives or friends, the treating doctor for the death of a loved one, etc.

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Being at this stage of a confrontation with death, a person can threaten the “guilty” or, conversely, engage in self-flagellation, feeling guilty about what happened.

The picture of experiences is significantly complemented by reactions from the clinical spectrum. Here are some of the possible experiences during this period: Changes in sleep. Panic fear. Changes in appetite accompanied by significant weight loss or gain. Periods of unexplained crying. Fatigue and general weakness. Muscle tremors. Sudden mood changes. Inability to concentrate and/or remember. Changes in sexual desire/activity. Lack of motivation. Physical symptoms of suffering. Increased need to talk about the deceased. Strong desire to be alone.

The range of emotions experienced at this time is also quite wide; the person experiences the loss acutely and has poor self-control. However, no matter how unbearable the feelings of guilt, feelings of injustice and the impossibility of further existence may be, all this is a natural process of experiencing loss. When anger finds its way out and the intensity of emotions decreases, the next stage begins.

4. Stage of depression (

suffering, disorganization) - melancholy, loneliness, withdrawal into oneself and deep immersion in the truth of loss.

It is at this stage that most of the work of grief occurs, because a person faced with death has the opportunity, through depression and pain, to look for the meaning of what happened, rethink the value of his own life, gradually let go of relationships with the deceased, forgive him and himself.

In the phase of acute grief, the mourner discovers that thousands and thousands of little things are connected in his life with the deceased (“he bought this book”, “he liked this view from the window”, “we watched this film together”) and each of them captivates his consciousness in “there-and-then”, into the depths of the stream of the past, and he has to go through pain in order to return to the surface (Vasilyuk, 2002).

Paradoxically, pain is caused by the grieving person himself: phenomenologically, in an attack of acute grief, it is not the deceased who leaves us, but we ourselves leave him, break away from him, or push him away from ourselves. And this self-made separation, this own departure, this expulsion of a loved one: “Go away, I want to get rid of you...” and watching how his image actually moves away, transforms and disappears, and actually causes mental pain. The pain of acute grief is not only the pain of decay, destruction and death, but also the pain of the birth of a new one. The formerly divided existence is united here by memory, the connection of times is restored, and pain gradually disappears (Vasilyuk, 2002).

The previous stages were associated with resistance to death, and the accompanying emotions were mainly destructive.

5. Stage of accepting what happened

. In literary sources (see J. Teitelbaum, F. Vasilyuk) this stage is divided into two:

5.1. Stage of residual shocks and reorganization.

At this phase, life returns to its groove, sleep, appetite, and professional activity are restored, and the deceased ceases to be the main focus of life.

This stage, as a rule, lasts for a year: during this time, almost all ordinary life events occur and then begin to repeat themselves. The anniversary of death is the last date in this series. Maybe this is why most cultures and religions set aside one year for mourning.

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5.2. "Completion" stage. The normal experience of grief that we are describing enters its final phase after about a year. Here, the griever sometimes has to overcome some cultural barriers that make the act of completion difficult (for example, the idea that the duration of grief is a measure of love for the deceased).

One of the biggest obstacles to the normal functioning of grief is the often unconscious desire of the griever to avoid the intense suffering associated with the experience of grief and to avoid expressing the emotions associated with it. In these cases, you get “stuck” at any of the stages and painful grief reactions may occur.

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