Starting initial sessions
Meeting, greeting and seating
- The initial session starts at the moment of first contact with clients.
Skilled counsellors and trainees possess good meeting, greeting and seating skills .
Poor Skills
Good Skills
Opening statements
Opening statements can have various functions: greeting the client again, indicating the length of the counselling
session, checking ‘where the client is at’, and, where necessary, obtaining permission to record the session.
Opening statements, openers or permissions to talk, are brief remarks indicating that they are prepared to listen and
be informed.
Trainees start initial sessions with statements that build rapport and encourage clients to say why they have come.
Trainees can leave until later explanations of how they work.
Opening statements are ‘door openers’ that give clients the message ‘I’m interested and prepared to listen.
Trainees should remember that when making opening statements, their vocal and bodily communication is very
important in indicating that they are comfortable and trustworthy persons with whom to talk. They should speak
clearly and relatively slowly, be comfortably seated and look at the client. They should avoid crossing their knees or
arms. However, they can still sit with an open posture if they are crossing their ankles.
Good vocal and bodily communication can also make it easier to record sessions.
• The opening remark gives clients the opportunity to talk either about a problem they bring to counselling or about how
they feel here-and-now in the interview.
• On occasion they may sense that clients want to talk but have difficulty doing so. In such instances, if they follow up their
opening remark with another, this may make it easier for clients to talk .
• Examples of ‘lubricating’ comments include:
‘It’s pretty hard to get started.’ ‘
Take your time.’
‘When you’re ready.’
• Some counselling trainees have contact with clients outside formal interviews: for instance: correctional officers in
facilities for delinquents, residential staff in half-way houses for former drug addicts, or nurses in hospitals.
• Opening statements for use in informal counselling include:
The relating stage ‘Is there something on your mind?’
‘You seem tense today.’
‘I’m available if you want to talk.’
STRUCTURING SKILLS
• ‘Structuring’ is a term used to describe how counsellors and trainees let clients know their respective roles at different stages of
counselling.
• structuring refers to an interactional process between counsellors and clients in which they arrive at similar perceptions of the role of
the counsellor, an understanding of what occurs in counselling, and an agreement on which outcome goals will be achieved .Cormier
and Nurius (2002)
• Effective structuring leads to positive outcomes as well as preventing or minimizing the chances of negative outcomes.
• The functions of structuring in initial sessions include:
reducing anxiety by clarifying roles,
explaining the purpose of the initial session,
establishing the expectancy that clients will work on rather than just talk about problems
providing an introductory rationale for working within the lifeskills counselling model,
establishing the possibility of change,
And, if necessary, communicating limitations concerning the counselling relationship such as any restrictions on confidentiality.
• Trainees can establish cooperative alliances with clients as partners in developing their skills rather than doing things either to or for
them
Too much and too little structure
• Counsellors and trainees can provide both too much and also too little structure.
• Too little structuring also has dangers. Clients may feel anxious and confused. Trainees too may be anxious
and confused
• If trainees talk too much at the beginning of sessions, not only do they make it difficult for clients to talk, but
they may structure the counselling process in too intellectual a way
Some structuring skills:
