Summary
Counseling is a professional relationship where different individuals, families, and groups meet with a professional trainer to talk about how to achieve goals concerning their career, mental health, and education, among others. In individual counseling, the counselor should establish a relationship with the client that involves respect, compassion, and genuineness. To gain this counseling competency, the counselor should have the proper knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
The counselor should be familiar with the theories, research, and evidence-based literature in terms of knowledge. The counselor should be knowledgeable about methodologies that focus more on the client and have been effective in handling disorders resulting from substance abuse. Counselors ought to understand their role in the counseling process and be knowledgeable about empathy and respect.
- Skills. The counselor should use power and authority to support the client’s treatment goals. They should adopt communication methods that convey respect, authenticity, and warmth in an ethnically proper manner. Counselors should be authenticating and show empathetic understanding. The counselor should be an active listener that can paraphrase, reflect and summarize.
- Attitudes. The counselor should show respect to the client and acknowledge the significance of cooperating and collaborating with the client. The counselor should also practice professional impartiality.
In Group Counseling, the counselor should be competent to facilitate group growth within the set ground rules and movement towards the goals of both the individuals and the group through methods in line with the type of group involved in the process.
The counselor should identify leadership and counseling methods suitable for every type of group and applicable in a therapeutic setting. They should also understand the type and use of power in the group process. Group counseling takes place in various stages. Therefore, the counselor should know the appropriate methods for every phase.
- Skills. Counselors should be skilled in recognizing when and how to use power properly. The counselor should also apply counseling methods that result in assessable progress toward the groups and persons’ goals and results. Further, counselors should be skilled in documenting quantifiable progress.
- Attitudes. Counselors should appreciate the duties and responsibilities of the group facilitator. They should also appreciate the role and power of different members of the group in the group process. The counselor should also recognize the value of incorporating diverse methods and styles of facilitating the counseling process.
Counselors of families, couples, and significant others should be competent to understand the individualities and changing aspects of families, couples, and significant others affected by the abuse of substances.
- Knowledge. Counselors should understand dynamics related to the use of drugs, drug abuse, and the dependence and recovery of families and couples. They should also be knowledgeable on how patterns of interaction influence substance use behaviors. They should also understand the cultural factors linked to the impact of substance use disorders on families and married people. They should be able to identify signs and patterns of domestic violence and how the use of substances affects patterns of interaction among the clients.
- Skills. Counselors should be experienced in understanding how systemic interactions affect the recovery process of clients. Counselors should be skilled in recognizing the roles of marriage partners and significant others in the client’s social system.
- Attitudes. Counselors should acknowledge the role of frequent interactions in substance behavior. They should also appreciate diverse cultural factors that influence characteristics and changing aspects of families. Counselors should also recognize how no constructive family behaviors can be termed as systemic issues.