Basic skills and personality traits needed to become a counsellor
Most people in one point of their lives will find themselves in a position of counselling other without having grasped the concept of being a counsellor. There is a great difference between professionally trained counsellors and a person who possesses some skills that are useful in counselling. Professional counsellors are trained and are able to apply different counselling approaches when handling their clients/patients. To be effective counsellors there are some personal traits and skills that they should possess.
Basic skills
Communication skills
This is the most important as they have to create a rapport with their clients for them to trust them so they are able to resolve the issues at hand.
Evaluation skills
They should be able to evaluate whether the counselling approaches they are using are effective and what they can do to make the counselling sessions more productive.
Listening skills
With enough practice, they can develop and acquire active listening skills. Active listening is demonstrated by eye contact, mirroring expressions of the client, no fidgeting and good posture. A counsellor who listens actively demonstrates this through questions, reflection, remembering what was said, clarification and summarisation of the situation at hand.
Leadership skills
A counsellor needs to have these skills to help them think strategically. It is about them having visions of what they want to achieve as counsellors. This also helps in solving problems that are presented to them. Having positive attitudes can help counsellors take problems as opportunities which can help them gain knowledge that can be used to solve future problems.
Organisational skills
This is on a personal level where counsellors need to be able to manage their time so they can have enough time to counsel their patients without feeling pressured due to other pending tasks.
People skills
This is another crucial part for counsellors. They need to have skills on how to handle patients on one to one basis or group sessions and have the right tools to deal with their situations.
Personal traits
Friendly
As counsellors, they should be approachable. When they are open, their clients will trust them more this helps the clients to let go of their burdens as they have someone to listen to their problems.
Authoritative
When the situation calls for this, counsellors should be able to move from being friendly to being professional and take the proper actions to ensure their clients situations is resolved.
Coordination
They should be able to negotiate a number of tasks at any given time ensuring that everything runs smoothly even though on the outside everything looks chaotic.
Appreciate diversity
Clients that need counselling come from different backgrounds and being able to embrace and accept this diversity will help make them better counsellors. Counsellors need to help their clients accept who they are and embrace where they have come from.
Assessment
They need to be able to assess the needs of their patients and see what they can do to prepare them for the future. It is an important part of counselling to understand the desires of your patients and see how they can be helped to achieve their goals by helping them overcome their problems first so they do not fail in what they pursue.
It takes many skills and traits for a counsellor to be effective and it is important that they take the time to evaluate themselves and see what they need to do to be more effective as counsellors. They need to be able to see things from different angles even with a sense of humour as it goes a long way in making their days brighter.
Now prestigious institutions such as NCC Home Learning give you an opportunity to get your name enrolled for a counselling course that usually covers all the aspects related to become an expert counsellor.
Category: Health
