Wendy Lewis 3

CNL-515 Topic 3: Challenging Practice Exercise

Challenging is a tricky counseling skill for a beginner to do well. Challenging that is too early, too challenging, or too far ahead of the client can backfire and make the client feel misunderstood and unsafe. This is also an area where it is very easy for the counselor’s agenda to intrude on the counseling process. Counselors are often impatient with clients for the pace of change. They forget that clients have gotten where they are over a long period of time. Starting with the assumption that clients are doing the best they can with the resources they have can help you to be less judgmental of the ways that clients are “stuck.” One of the observations discovered in motivational interviewing is that the denial and defensiveness of substance abuse clients was in large part a reaction to the confrontational style of substance abuse counselors. When clients feel judged and attacked, they deny and become defensive. What motivational interviewing offers is a way to challenge and confront in a gentle, nonattacking way that is congruent with the client’s own value system. Clients will choose to change when they are able to see that change will get them something they want. A motivational interviewing counselor has to be deeply empathic and really understand the client’s value system in order to help the client to choose change.

As the textbook outlines, there are a number of times when a counselor may challenge a client:

1. When there is a discrepancy between what a client says and what she/he does

2. When there is a discrepancy between two things a client says

3. When a client is engaging in self-destructive behavior

4. When a client is caught in dysfunctional beliefs

5. When a client is being too hard on his or her self

6. When a client has distorted expectations of self, others, or the world

7. When the client does not recognize his or her own strengths and resources

8. When the client has significant blind spots

(Egan, 2014, pp. 162-176)

There is a special skill that can be useful for challenging what is happening in the process of the session. To give an example, imagine you are engaging in an open dialogue with a client, and, suddenly, the client withdraws. This technique is termed “calling the process.” It has two parts: an observation: “I notice that you became very quiet and seemed to shut down when we started talking about your family,” followed by a question: “What’s happening?” or “I’m wondering if this is kind of a touchy subject?” For this to be successful, the second part needs to be tentative or posed as a question, not a statement. For example, it would probably not be productive to say, “I notice you became really quiet when we started talking about your family; obviously you are defensive about your family.” The attitude that is sometimes useful in working with clients is “naïve curiosity.” “Help me to understand what’s so challenging about your current job.” “I’m curious what it means to you when you say, ‘I just don’t care what anyone thinks.’”

It is critical when you are challenging clients to watch their body language. A challenge that is too confronting or too early may lead to defensive behavior or a shutdown in communication. At that point, you may be able to recover the connection by “calling the process” and exploring what is happening between you and the client.

PRACTICE EXERCISE:

In this exercise you are going to challenge yourself. Think of a belief or a behavior that might interfere with your effectiveness as a counselor. To give an example, a student had a strong tendency to want to “fix” things. The result of this message was that she tended to move too quickly to giving advice or trying to get the client to solve the problem. It was hard for her to be patient and develop empathy first.

Think of a belief or a behavior that could become a challenge for you as a counselor. What is that belief or behavior? How could it interfere with you as a counselor? What might you need to do to work with that challenge to become a more effective counselor?

Reference

Egan, G. (2014). The skilled helper: A problem management and opportunity development approach to helping. Belmont, CA: Brooks Cole.

© 2018. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

© 2018. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.