maintain social interactions, express one’s thoughts and feelings to others, and accurately comprehend the expression of others.
Communication skills training forms the core of person-centered approach to counseling. Carl Rogers also stressed the counselor’s attitudinal qualities lest the whole approach be reduced to a mechanistic skill. Thus, person-centered counselors identifi ed attitudes, such as empathy, nonpossessive warmth, genuineness, congruence, and respect.
Communication is the most important component of counseling. Apart from theories regarding human nature and behavior, counseling involves the skills of effective communication. A counselor can be effective only when he/she is an effective communicator. Let us see how these communication skills can be instilled and improved.
Why communications skills are so important?
Clarity and unambiguity in getting the message across to others defi ne the purpose of communication. This involves effort from both the sender of the message and the receiver. And it’s a process that could be fraught with error. Messages can often be misinterpreted by the recipient causing tremendous confusion, wasted effort, and perhaps missed opportunity.
When the receiver understands the information sent just as it was meant to be understood, then, and only then is it successful communication. There is no error or misunderstanding. By successfully getting a message across, thoughts and ideas can be conveyed effectively. When communication is not successful, the thoughts and ideas that one sends do not necessarily refl ect one’s own feelings, causing a communication breakdown.
Effective communication, though stressed upon in all walks of life, especially in the helping professions, many continue to struggle. Progress in any relationship is achieved by getting the message across the way it was meant. In order to do this one needs to understand what their message is, have the knowledge of the target audience, and how it will be perceived. Situational and cultural context surrounding the communications should also be taken into serious consideration.
To understand the process of communication clearly it needs to be broken down into different components. These are:
1. Sender: The sender needs to be clear about the what and why of the particular communication. Also, she/he needs to be assured that information is useful and accurate.
2. Receiver: The receiver is the audience. When communicating, the receiver’s actions and reactions need to be objectively anticipated. The cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses of the receiver upon receiving the information needs to be considered before communicating, and should be acted upon accordingly.
3. Channel: The channels are many––verbal face-to-face meetings, telephone and videoconferencing; and written channels including letters, emails, memos and reports. Different channels have different strengths and weaknesses.
4. Message: The message is the information that one wants to communicate.
5. Feedback: The best and most honest feedback about our skills are those that are provided by the client: verbal and nonverbal reactions to the processes provide an important insight on how the process is being received.
Depending on the feedback the counselor can continue doing the same or change his/her communication methodology.
6. Context: It is the situation (surrounding environment or broader culture) in which counseling takes place. The counselor would do well to recognize the sensitivities and sensibilities surrounding the client issues.
The process takes place as follows:
Msg
Encoding Channel Decoding Receiver
Context Feedback
Source
Msg Msg Msg
Source: (http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/CommunicationIntro.htm) Encoding: This is the skill of changing the information into a form that can be sent and correctly decoded. The success of this process depends on how accurately the sender has perceived the reception by the receiver, personally as well as contextually.
Decoding: depends a lot on the receiver’s readiness to receive the information, knowledge of the information, mental state (pre occupations, etc).
It then is quite obvious that problems can arise at every stage of the process and have the potential to create misunderstandings and confusion. To be an effective communicator one’s goal should be to lessen the frequency of these problems at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications (www.mindtools.com).
Making a great first impression
This is very important in the counseling process. It ensures the client’s commitment to the process. Or in other words, it decides whether the client is going to be back or not. It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you
when you meet for the fi rst time. In this short time, the other person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanor, your mannerisms, and how you are dressed. With every new encounter, you are evaluated and yet another person’s impression of you is formed. These fi rst impressions can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo, making those fi rst encounters extremely important, for they set the tone for the all the relationships that follow (mindtools.
com).
1. Be on time
2. Be yourself, be at ease 3. Present yourself appropriately
4. Total conformity or losing one’s individuality is not at all necessary.
5. A winning smile
6. Show openness and confi dence through body language 7. Be courteous and attentive
Communication in a group setting
Counselors are not only trained to deal with individual clients but also group counseling. The Johari window is a very good concept for the counselors to be trained in, in order to start handling a group.
The Johari Window
Creating better understanding between individuals and groups The Johari Window is a communication model used to help people to understand their interpersonal communications and relationships better. This is a cognitive psychological tool developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram in the US in 1955.
The Johari Window can be used as a heuristic exercise to improve understanding between individuals within a team or in a group setting. Using the Johari model, each person is represented by his or her own four-quadrant, or four-pane window.
Each of these contains and represents personal information––feelings, motivation—
about the person, and shows whether the information is known or not known by themselves or other people.
The four quadrants are as follows:
Quadrant 1: Open Area
What is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by others.
Quadrant 2: Blind Area, or “Blind Spot”
What is unknown by the person about him/herself but which others know.
This can be simple information, or can involve deep issues (for example, feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, unworthiness, rejection) which are diffi cult for individuals to face directly, and yet can be seen by others.
Quadrant 3: Hidden or Avoided Area
What the person knows about him/her that others do not.
Quadrant 4: Unknown Area
What is unknown by the person about him/herself and is also unknown by others.
SELF Solicits Feedback
Things I know Things I Don’t know
ARENA BLIND SPOT
FACADE UNKNOWN
UNCONSCIOUS Things
They Know
Things They Don’t Know GROUP Self-Disclosure or Gives Feedback
INSIGHT
The Johari Window is a communication model that can be used to improve understanding between individuals. Individuals can build trust between themselves by disclosing information pertaining to them. It is also a tool for self-discovery.
They can learn about themselves and come to terms with personal issues with the help of feedback from others.
There are three main processes which are explored by the Johari Window:
1. Feedback 2. Self-disclosure 3. Insight
The Johari Window maintains that for a person to be very comfortable with himself or herself, when alone or in the company of others, the fi rst quadrant must be the biggest. And constant efforts must be directed towards this. For people to build up trust and form a deeper relationship they need to know more about each other. The diagram shows that in order to do that individuals need to make the
‘hidden’ quadrant smaller. This can be done by self-disclosure. And in order to gain more self knowledge the ‘blind’ quadrant needs to reduce in size. This can be done by soliciting feedback from others.
These processes are relatively simple compared to the process of reducing the
‘unknown’ quadrant. This consists of information unknown to both the self and others. Hence, neither soliciting feedback, nor self-disclosure will do any good.
Insight, interactions, introspection or contemplation during therapy are the only things that will help. This can neither be forced nor pushed. It has to happen on its own. And this is only possible if one constantly raises the bar on self-awareness; to catch that glimpse of sudden fractional information and convert it into full-fl edged knowledge.