Foundations

2.4 Assignment. Engagement Interview. Therapeutic Alliance with Divorcee

Getting Started

No matter what field or specialization you plan to pursue or who your clients will be, as a psychologist, you need to develop some basic skills when working with clients from all realms. In Workshop One, you were introduced to the series of interviews that you will conduct for this course: role plays where you will do your best to practice and demonstrate various skills. For this first role play, you will demonstrate basic engagement and attending skills to create what is generally termed a “therapeutic alliance.” While you will not be engaging in therapy per se, the skills you will be learning and practicing still apply when consulting with clients, whether as a life coach, I/O psychologist, or in any number of other areas.

Upon successful completion of the course material, you will be able to:

· Practice using engagement and therapeutic alliance techniques.

Resources

· Textbook:  Evidence-Based Practices for Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy

· Video: Basic Attending Skills

· Video: Coaching and Counseling

· File: Using Kaltura CaptureSpace (Word)

· Video: Installing Kaltura CaptureSpace

· Video: Creating and Editing a Video with Kaltura

· Video: Submitting a Video in My Media 

Background Information

The Obama administration called for health coaching as central to a positive approach to physical and mental health. Coaching skills are now part of every counselor and therapist's work.

In the following videos, Allen demonstrates the basic coaching model with a white female client. The issues focus on life goals, and a five-step model of counseling/coaching is demonstrated. This model can be generalized for use in multiple situations. You will also find that the word “coaching” is more acceptable to some clients who may shy away from counseling and therapy. In this activity, you are a life coach helping a divorcee set career, relationship, and/or next steps or goals for his or her life.

In this activity, you will use strength-based perspectives to demonstrate how you would engage and create a therapeutic alliance with the divorcee. When communicating with the person who has agreed to role play the client for this assignment, reassure them that they do not have to be visible in the video if they don’t want to, and that they can use a fictitious name.

Instructions

1. In your textbook,  Evidence-Based Practices for Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy, read:

a. Chapter 2, “Evidence-Based Relationship and Therapist Factors in Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy”

b. Chapter 3, “Lay Christian Counseling for General Psychological Problems”

2. Watch the following videos: (Please note if you are not already logged in to the Jackson Library, you will be prompted to log in when you click a video link.)

a. “ Basic Attending Skills ” (23:24 minutes). https://video.alexanderstreet.com/p/OgXMk8AWB

b. “ Coaching and Counseling ” (18 minutes). https://video.alexanderstreet.com/p/Y7YWkXBwp

3. You will be using the course tool Kaltura CaptureSpace to complete this video assignment. Read the  Using Kaltura CaptureSpace (Word)  document for more information on installation and recording and submitting a video to Dropbox. You can also watch the following videos:

a. “ Installing Kaltura CaptureSpace ”

b. “ Creating and Editing a Video with Kaltura ”

c. “ Adding a Video in My Media to a Dropbox ”

4. Review the information found in Workshop One on planning for interviews.

5. An essential component of this engagement activity is creating a  script of your planned conversation with the client. Your  script should be a text document that represents the words you plan to say during your practice interview.

a. By creating a script, you will have a plan for your conversation and an approximate time frame for your video because you can plan on about 1 minute per double-spaced page. Double-spacing your text allows for ease of reading while you are recording the video.

b. After you have your script finalized, you are ready to record your video! You are also required to submit your script in order to receive full credit for this assignment.

6. You are a life coach and you are helping a divorcee set career, relationship and/or next steps and life goals for his or her life. Create a five- to seven-minute video where you practice engagement and therapeutic alliance techniques with your client.

a. Use strength-based perspectives to demonstrate how you would engage and create a therapeutic alliance with the divorcee.

b. In the video, demonstrate engagement and attending skills as best you can. How will you introduce yourself and engage with your client? How do you demonstrate to your client that you are attentive and actively listening? Ensure that you are visible in the video; being seen on the video is optional for your client. Some may not want to be visible. Practice and replay your practice recording to ensure that both you and your client can be heard and that you (at a minimum) can be seen.

7. When you have completed your role-play recording to your satisfaction, upload your video  and the script by using the Activities button with the instructions provided.