TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

77 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 Skills From a microskills perspective, counselor educators can remind students of the necessity of relationship building with clients as a foundation for therapeutic engagement. Rogers (1951) asserts that the counseling relationship is a key component for client growth and should be attained before interventions are begun. Young (2012) asserts that students should begin by establishing liking, respect and trust, which leads to client commu- nication and openness. As reinforcement, RCT encourages practitioners to engage in authenticity with clients to create deeper engagement and to demonstrate positive connections that can be repeated outside of counseling (Jordan, 2008). Through the development of the relationship, clients and counselors work to decrease the hier- archical nature of the relationship. Counselor educators use microskills training to teach counselors-in-training to use empathy as a method for connecting to clients and to understand issues from the client’s frame of refer- ence (Ivey & Ivey, 2003). RCT goes a step further with its emphasis on mutual empathy, a technique to allow the client to see, hear and feel that their story has affected the counselor (Jordan, 2001). Mutual empathy has many similarities to the widely accepted definition of empathy; however, a few key dif- ferences exist. Mutual empathy requires that the counselor allow themselves to be affected by the client because detachment may interfere with therapeutic healing (Duffey & Somody, 2011). Mutual empathy is demonstrated by continually checking in with the client through empathic exchange, enabling the counselor to better under- stand the client’s worldviews and inviting the client to react to the mutual exchange. Allowing the client to react to the exchange constitutes the difference between mutual empathy and empathy, with the counselor inviting the client to engage in empathic exchange instead of the counselor simply making empathic statements. Counselor educators can reinforce this behavior in the classroom by teaching students to request client reactions to certain empathic statements. The act of mutual empathy can create a more meaningful relationship by encouraging both client and counselor to fully participate in the exchange and feel the impact that each participant has on the other (Freedburg, 2007). For example, after making an empathic statement, trainees can be requested to respond based on the empathic statement from the client in order to demonstrate mutual empathy. In conclusion, infusing central tenets of RCT in multicultural pedagogy through the use of microskills may be an effective way to prepare counselor trainees to meet the demands of working with clients from all back- grounds. RCT’s synthesis of multicultural knowledge and focus on obtaining skills provides trainees with uni- versal tools for developing strong multicultural competence at every stage of the counseling process. By focus- ing on the relational aspects of counseling through the use of microskills, trainees will be able to demonstrate culturally sensitive counseling. We provide a brief case illustration to highlight core tenets of RCT in practice. Case Illustration James (pseudonym) is a 22-year-old college student at a large university and has entered counseling with feelings of “constant anger” and “frustration” toward his family, friends and professors. James states that his actions are pushing others away, resulting in feelings of isolation. He describes spending much time in his bed- room in order to avoid conflict and reports feeling increasingly depressed. When he does engage with others, he finds that conflict often arises, causing him to either minimize the importance of the issue or withdraw from the offending individual in an effort to refrain from lashing out. James reports that while there are important things he would like to say during these moments, he relents because he does not want to heighten conflict. Through the course of counseling, James describes varying degrees of emotional connection to his fam- ily and friends. He currently lives with his older sister and another roommate in a home owned by his parents. James is of Colombian descent and moved back and forth between his home country and Miami between the ages of 9 and 16. His parents are married, although his mother lives in Miami while his father lives in Colom-