In this weeks episode of the Counselling Tutor podcast Rory and Ken give some counselling assignment tips. In Theory with Rory you will learn about Conditions of Worth and in Counselling Skills with Ken we explore the skill of focusing. The episode ends with a look at ways we can measure our own self development as a student counsellor during our training.

Counselling Assignment Tips

Rory has been lecturing and training counsellors for over an decade and in that time he has seen what the most common mistakes are that cause assignments to be referred.

Rory shares his top tips to give you the best chance of getting through the assignments stress free.

Rory has written a number of counselling assignment help guides that have helped student counsellors through the world and in todays episode he gives away a book that is part of his assignment help guide.

 

The book Getting Your Assignment in Order - Top Tips to improve your counselling assignment is packed full of helpful information for anyone on a counselling course.

 

Conditions of Worth

In Counselling Theory with Rory, Rory looks at Carl Rogers’ Conditions of Worth and gives us some real life examples.

 

Conditions of worth are the messages we take on board about what we have to do to be valued. Conditions of worth are, and can be very subtle. 

Nevertheless, this subtlety is all the more powerful

Rogers Stated   

“The need for self-regard or approval is enormous. Children are influenced by their parents and society and strive for approval by doing things to please them which make them feel more loved or valued 

. However, if their behaviour does not meet with their approval they feel less loved. They may then experience incongruence between self and experience and this may lead to psychological maladjustment hindering personal growth towards self-actualisation (Rogers)”

The process of clients moving away from operating on conditions of worth and toward their true self

And includes moving 

¥ Away from facades

¥ Away from “oughts”

¥ Away from pleasing others

Moving towards 

¥ self-direction

¥ openness to experience

¥ A greater trust in self. 

¥ A greater respect for and understanding of others,

 

The Skill of Focusing

In Counselling Skills with Ken, Ken focuses on the skill of focusing. Firstly it is worth mentioning that Focusing, in counselling at least, is sometimes misunderstood. Focusing is not concentrating more deeply of paying closer attention. Focusing is inviting the client to look more deeply at a pice of material that they have brought.

You will hear live examples of the skill of focusing used in a simulated skills session and you will get to see the effect this has within the session.

 

“Measuring personal development during your counselling training” is the topic covered in Ask Ken and Rory.

Personal development is by its very nature personal. This means it will vary from person to person and there is no template or graph to measure your own development. That said, you can always look to our own experience as an indicator of how you perceive you have grown or developed. Some learners report having “lightbulb moments” during their counselling training, moments when they feel a shift has taken place within self. Other students experience small moments of movements that, when added together, may be seen as growth.

In this podcast episode you will hear some personal development ideas as Ken and Rory debate the topic.