C] Behavioural Counseling
A general definition of behavioural counseling is that it ‘consists of whatever ethical activities a counselor undertakes in an effort to help the client engage in those types of behavior which will lead to a resolution of the client's problems’ (Koumboltz, 1965). This definition is perhaps too general to portray fully the character and colour of behavioural counseling, but it highlights two important facts: (1) there is no end to the variety of methods, used in behavioural counseling, and (2) the goals of counseling - to resolve the client's problems - can be stated in behavioural terms.
The methods and procedures of behavioural counseling are based on social-learning theories - theories about how people learn and change their behaviour. Forms of learning, such as operant conditioning, classical conditioning, modeling, and cognitive processes, are used to help persons counseled change unwanted behaviour, and/or develop new, productive behaviour. Some methods and techniques of behavioural counseling can be grouped into these categories:
Changing and controlling the antecedents of behaviour.
Changing and controlling the reinforcement of behaviour.
Using models to recognize unwanted behaviour and to learn desirable behaviour.
Using imagery to extinguish and/or practice behaviour.
Learning social skills.
Stages of Behavioural Counseling
The counselor helps the clients to explore their concerns, and a behavioural analysis assessment is conducted through questions and, perhaps, a questionnaire or survey instrument.
The two parties set mutually-acceptable goals, stated in behavioural terms.
Developing and implementing goal-oriented strategies on learning theory principles (i.e., any set of ethical procedures that helps clients to engage in behaviour that resolves their concerns).
Accountability, when client feedback indicates that the strategy was effective in promoting target behaviour and problem resolution.
Case Example
Use the same case example of A Phiri …
Excerpt from Third Session
A Phiri:
Our second session helped me see that I can handle a professional interaction with Dad and that I can control my anger, but it's not easy.
Counselor:
Yes, it's difficult to change attitudes and feelings that have been a part of you for so long. This kind of change takes time and a lot of work. Can you keep working at it?
A Phiri:
Yes, I'll keep working at it. But - this may sound silly - I am still unsure about how to present this partnership idea, or what to say to him at those times when he is unfairly bossy.
Counselor:
You're not accustomed to doing that, so it's not surprising that you are unsure. Would it help us to develop some basic assertive methods to get you started?
A Phiri:
Yes, just some things I could say, so I'm not lost for words.
Counselor:
After this session I'll recommend some reading that will give you a lot of assertive techniques but, for now, what is one situation we could work on?
A Phiri:
Asking Dad about entering the business as a foreman.
Counselor:
OK, let's decide on what you want to say to him, and then we can practice through role playing.
Later in the session.
Counselor:
A Phiri, I'll play you and you play your father. So, here we go. ‘Dad, I've been doing some thinking about my future in carpentry, and I'd like to explore an idea with you.’
A Phiri:
What kind of idea?
Counselor:
Well, I really enjoy interior carpentry, particularly finishing work, and I'd like to stay in it. But I'd also like more responsibility, such as a supervisor's job. I think I could handle a job like that…
A Phiri:
Yes, yes, but what you really ought to do is go into building as an owner or partner. There is more future in that than being a supervisor.
Counselor:
I can see why you say that - builders make more money than supervisors, and I suppose there's financial security in owning your own business - but I'm too good at interior carpentry and I want to stay with it - at least for now. I just don't enjoy the management and paper work of a contractor.
A Phiri:
But don't you see how much better off you'd be?
Counselor:
Financially better off but unhappy, and maybe not doing a good job. But I don't want to argue. What I want Dad, is to ask if your company has a supervisor's job I could apply for.
A Phiri:
(Breaking the role-playing.) I'll never remember to say those things.
Counselor:
I wasn't outlining a speech for you, A Phiri, just expressing the motives and desires you've said you want to express. When we try role-playing again, why don't you play yourself and try a few assertive statements? Just be spontaneous, and gradually build up how to say what you want to say.
A Phiri:
I see, I'm just not in the habit of saying what I want or how I see things. I need to work on this.
For the rest of this third counseling session, A Phiri continued to learn and practice some assertive techniques - the behaviour of standing up for his rights, expressing his desires, stating differences of opinion, making requests, resolving conflicts, and so on. As this new behaviour was developed, A Phiri also assessed his attitudes and emotions, working through obstacles to assertion. With readings in assertive techniques, practice, and effective counseling, A Phiri could reach his goal of improving the interaction with his father, and securing a financially desirable job.
Application to the Case Example The excerpt from session three of the example is behavioural counseling. A Phiri wanted to improve his communication with his father. He wanted to express himself assuredly and not be ‘lost for words.’ His behavioural goal was to ask his father for the type of job he wanted. The strategy for reaching this goal was assertion training - that is, learning to communicate assertively with his father. Role-playing was the primary training method because it contains multiple means of learning. The person counseled can play the father's role and gain empathy for his position. He can observe and model the counselor's assertion techniques, criticize the roleplaying and make it realistic, perform assertive techniques in a life-like situation, receive constructive feedback and reinforcement from the counselor, and practice assertive behavior until it is proficient and comfortable.
Activity 5: Group work - Theories of Counseling
Which counselor sounded like the type of counselor you want to be? Why? What did you value in that counselor's performance?
Which counselor would you choose to help you with a problem? What is there in that approach that you want when you have a problem?
What was the ‘real concern’ of the person counseled?
What was the outcome of each approach? Which one was most effective?
How would an RET or behavioural counselor have handled the first session
Video
Activity 6: Group Discussion on Video After viewing the video discuss …
In what ways did the counselor try to coach the patient scenario?
Identify specific ways he tried to apply the Behavioural theory.
Do you think he was effective?
Three Stages of the Helping Model Clara Hill’s (2004) three-stage model of helping skills encourages counselors to emphasize skills from different theories during different stages of helping. Hill’s model might be considered a combination of theoretical integration and technical eclecticism. Hill's model is called the Three Stage Model. The first stage is the exploration stage. This is based on client-centered therapy. The second stage is entitled insight. Interventions used in this stage are based on psychoanalytic therapy. The last stage, the action stage, is based on behavioral therapy.
The Present Scenario a) Help clients to tell their stories.
In telling the story, clients reveal and discuss their problems and missed opportunities.
Some clients are articulate while others may be mute. Some will be reluctant to reveal everything that is bothering them, while others do so easily. The story needs to be told either at the beginning of the helping process, or in bits and pieces. For this to happen, counselors need to develop an effective helpful relationship with clients. They need to assess rather than judge their clients. They need to assess such things as the nature and severity of the problem, other problems that are not discussed, and the impact of the clients' environment on problems, the personal and interpersonal resources available to clients.
b) Help clients become aware of, and overcome their blind spots and develop new perspectives about themselves and their problems.
Many people fail to deal with problems, or fail to exploit opportunities because they do not see them from new perspectives. They lock themselves in self-defeating patterns of thinking and behaviour. Using imagination and brainstorming as a means of problem management and opportunity development is one way in which counselors can empower clients. Challenging blind spots is not the same as telling them that what they are doing is wrong. It is helping them to see themselves, others, and the world around them in a more creative way.
c) Help clients search for leverage.
Clients should be helped to identify and work on problems, issues, concerns or opportunities that make a difference. Leverage includes three related activities. First, the cost of the problem has to be considered in terms of the effort and time spent on it. Secondly, if clients, when telling stories, reveal a number of problems at the same time or if the problem is complex, then criteria are needed to determine which concern is to be dealt with first. Lastly, the problem, issue, and concerns, need to be clarified in terms of specific experiences, behaviour and affects (feelings, emotions).
The Preferred Scenario a) Help clients develop a range of future possibilities.
If a client's state of affairs is problematic and unacceptable, then he/she needs to be helped to imagine, conceptualize, or picture, a new state of affairs that is more acceptable. Ask future-oriented questions like:
‘What would this problem look like if I managed it better?’
‘What changes in my present life style would make sense?’
‘What would it look like if it were better?’
Clients should be helped to find appropriate and realistic models. Another way could be to review better times or become involved in new experiences. The use of writing fantasy and guided imagery has also proved beneficial for many client
b) Help clients to translate possibilities into viable agendas
The variety of possibilities constitutes the possible desired outcomes of the helping process. The client is helped to choose the possibilities that make the most sense, and turn them into an agenda, i.e. a set of goals that need to be accomplished.
c) Help clients identify the kinds of incentives that enable them to commit themselves to the agendas they prepare.
Ideally the agendas a client chooses are appealing. If not, then the incentives for commitment need to be discovered. The goals that are set in the agenda need to be accepted and appeal to the client. It is better if they are chosen from among a number of options. The focus should be on those that reduce crisis or pain. Challenging goals should not be avoided. The counselor can help clients see ways of managing the obstacles that stand in the way of goal attainment. Contracts can help clients to commit themselves to choices, and the client needs to be helped to identify strategies for accomplishing goals.
Strategies (Getting There) a) Help clients brainstorm various strategies for implementing their agenda.
Clients are helped to ask themselves questions like, ‘How can I get where I want to go?’ Strategies tend to be more effective when chosen from among a number of possibilities.
A strategy is the action needed to achieve a goal.
If the strategy is complex, then it needs to be divided into a number of interrelated outcomes or accomplishments. Each of these sub-goals then has its own set of strategies. This divide and conquer process can lead to the achievement of what once seemed impossible. One reason why people fail to achieve goals is that they do not explore the different ways by which a goal can be reached. Brain storming plays a role by suspending judgment, producing as many ideas as possible, using one idea leading to others, removing constraints to thinking, and producing more ideas by clarifying items on the list.
b) Help clients choose a set of strategies that best fits their environment and resources.
‘Best’ here means one strategy, or a combination of strategies, that best fits the clients' needs, preferences, and resources, and that is least likely to be blocked by the factors present in the client's environment. They should be clear and specific, tied to the desired goal, realistic, effective, accepted by the client, and in keeping with his or her values.
c) Help clients formulate a plan, a step-by-step procedure for reaching each goal.
A plan has strategies for reaching goals, divides them into workable bits, puts the bits in order, and prepares a time-table. Formulating plans helps clients find useful ways of reaching goals, that is, even better strategies. Plans provide an opportunity to evaluate the realism and adequacy of goals. They tell clients something about their strategies. Clients are also helped to discover obstacles to the reaching of goals.
Summary Though similar to helpful conversation and psychotherapy, counseling has its own identity. It helps individuals with developmental, career, and personal adjustment problems, and where there are no problems, counseling can foster healthy human development by increasing self-awareness and resourcefulness.
How is counseling done? Through many different approaches, methods and techniques.
The three approaches reviewed focused on the affective domain (client-centered), the cognitive or ideational realm (RET), and the behaviour (the behavioural approach) of the person counseled. There are numerous other approaches and methods that influence these three realms of human functioning, and aspiring counselors have many to choose from. Ultimately, one's ‘how’ in counseling consists of a unique and idiosyncratic manner of helping others, combined with the skill and knowledge acquired from approaches such as the three reviewed. Having learnt the importance of counseling, let us now turn to the qualities of a good counselor.