Counselor Self-Assessment

As a counselor, my aim was to encourage the client to feel free to speak and engage with me by telling her story and on any goals we set for her.  The questions I asked were a mix of both open and closed questions. The open questions were meant to encourage her to talk more about her schedule and especially in relation to how her career and parenthood activities affect her idea of being free. The closed questions were generally when I needed to clarify a point said.

I applied good listening skills and noted down some of the points she made to ensure that I was keen throughout the session. I was careful with my facial expressions and non-verbal cues so as to make the client comfortable while talking to me. It is important to show empathy to the client so that they are comfortable when giving their story. It also helped to complement the client on some of their traits to help them feel relaxed during the counseling session.

I felt we were able to set good short, medium and long term goals in a consultative way with the client. Once I mentioned an idea for a goal to the client, we discussed it in detail and evaluated how the client would implement it in a way that would be sustainable in her everyday life.

The one thing I would like to work on in the next session is narrowing the scope of the topic I will be discussing with the client. In this case we could have narrowed down the strain on the client either based on career or parenthood and not both problems at the same time. This will help to create clearer goals of action.