The Skilled Helper (11th edition) Chapter 3

Empathy as a Radical Commitment - Three Different Ways

1. Commitment to work at understanding each client from their point of view. 2. Commitment to understand individuals in and through the context of their lives. 3. Commitment to understand the dissonance between the client's point of view and reality.

3 parts of working alliance

1. Helping is a collaborative process 2. The relationship provides a forum for relearning 3. The successful helping relationship demands flexibility.

Three ways to get off to a good start

1. Positive expectations 2. A basic understanding of the helping process 3. Emphasize life-enhancing outcomes.

3 Different ways of characterizing the helping relationship

1. The importance of the Relationship Itself (unconditional positive regard, accurate empathy, and genuineness) 2. The relationship as means to an end (don't over stress it - goal is to help clients manage problems better) 3. The relationship as a working alliance (collaboration based on agreement of goals)

Empathy as a Primary Orientation Value

Accepting, confirming and understanding... empathy provides those with whom we are interacting "psychological air" that helps them breathe more freely, it is at the heart of emotional intelligence - "social radar" where she senses others' feelings/perspectives and takes active interest in concerns

Guiding Principles for Alliance Behavior

Alliances emerge - don't try to build it. Track evolving needs/wants by continually seeking feedback from client. Focus on resources and help clients identify strengths. Anticipate different review of relationship. Don't be surprised by ups and downs. Expect and deal with client negativity.

Prize Respect as Foundation value

Avoid behaviors showing disrespect (do no harm, do not rush to judgment), engage in behaviors that show respect (competent and committed, genuine, you are there for the client, assume client's goodwill, keep client's agenda in focus)

Proactive appreciation of diversity (2 of 3)

Be aware of your own personal culture and biases and similarities with any client. Understand client values, beliefs, and world views. Be aware of sociopolitical influences (oppression, marginalization, discrimination, etc). affecting clients of any culture. Learn family structure and gender role basics of clients.

Helping is a Two Way Street

Both helpers and clients are people with defects. Give and take. Equal status to initiate helping process, define relationship terms, originate actions, and evaluate outcomes. They change one another - in best cases, both positively.

How id the helping relationship a forum for relearning

Effective helpers model attitudes and behaviors that help clients challenge and change their own attitudes and behaviors. Clients can experiment with different behaviors during sessions. They can transfer what they are learning to other social settings.

Helpers and Clients as Entrepreneurs

Innovators and change agents (take risks, see opportunities in problems/crises, live by possibilities, work alone or collab., show flexibility, vision, action, perseverance, and determination) Growth mindset, comfortable with uncertainty - welcome challenges, high internal locus fo control and autonomy, celebrate small successes, persuasive, change systems that cause bad behaviors, pursue impactful outcomes

The Collaborative Nature of Helping

It is a process that helpers and clients work through together. They are both invested in the problem-management and opportunity-development stages and tasks, and both have responsibilities related to outcomes. Collaboration is active, mutual, and therapist-dependent.

Influence Clients to Embrace Self-Responsibility

Realize that helping is a social influence process we can help clients without robbing them of self-responsibility, continuum of help is in between extremes, there is a tension between client rights to self-determination and therapist obligation to help them live more effectively.

Proactive appreciation of diversity (3 of 3)

Understand how different cultures and individuals approach illness (including mental illness and help seeking behavior). Western practices may need adapting for some cultures. Establish rapport and show empathy in culturally sensitive ways. Distinguish between culture-specific and universal human experiences. Develop and practice cultural humility.

Proactive appreciation of diversity (1 of 3)

Values are central to culture, but culture is more than values. Culture is the form of diversity receiving most attention. Culture - shared beliefs and assumptions interact with shared values and produce shared norms that drive shared patterns of behavior. Personal culture - does not develop in vacuum. Effective helpers come to understand both the cultural background and personal culture of each client.

Empathy is a Two-Way Street

relationship oriented, depends on how both parties to a conversation communicate, cultural similarities and differences influence counseling relationships, helpers need to be less focused on individuals and more focused on relationships

Promote Self-Responsibility by Helping clients develop and use self-efficacy

starts with the premise that clients can change if they choose, do not see clients as victims, do not see clients as overly fragile, and do not be fooled by appearances. Help them use sessions as work sessions. Become a coach/consultant. Focus on learning and doing instead of helping. Be aware of cultural differences. Some sufficiently motivated and determined clients can initiate action for great constructive change with occasional counselor help.

Develop a Bias toward action as an outcome focused value

understand the nature of self-efficacy (belief in one's ability to manage situations or accomplish specific tasks) Clients tend to take action when two conditions are fulfilled - they believe their actions will likely enhance their lives and they believe they have what they need to achieve the outcomes

Key Values that drive working alliance

values are tools of the trade, respect as foundational value, empathy as primary orientation value, proactive appreciation of diversity as a sense-of-the-world value, bias toward action as outcome-focused value, influence clients to embrace self-responsibility