TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 120 The counselor’s job is not to make clients change; that is the client’s responsibility. Clients are the experts of their situations or issues, and it is up to them to determine what they are willing and capable to change. Before they can make decisions about change (Chg), they must first have insight (I) to understand that they have choices (see Figure 1). Before they develop insight (I), they initially must have an awareness (A) of what is creating their struggle. The counselor’s timing with active listening skills, appropriate confrontation and silence facilitates client awareness (A) and insight (I). Clients work on the second line (A à I = Change), but the second line is ultimately facilitated by the first line (C + F = M), which is similar to the five stages of change presented by Evans et al. (2011, p. 292). Therefore, this formula indicates that the counselor’s work focuses on the first line and the client’s work focuses on the second. The second line of the concept map formula also serves as a crosslink in one’s development from student to counselor. In making this transition in the professor–student relationship, the professor explores the student’s understanding by focusing on the first line of the formula, and the student struggles with personal and professional change in the second line of the formula. As student counselors map out their progress in a counseling session, they are simultaneously developing awareness (A) through the growth and practice of basic skills, which leads to insight (I) related to development of professional effectiveness in shaping the session. This process gives beginning counselors a sense of professional identity development and the ability to track progression at the top of the equation. Just as clients are ready for change when they develop awareness and insight, student counselors cannot include their theoretical orientation and techniques until they develop their own awareness in the therapy room and grasp the application of skills employed in the therapeutic session. Therefore, the client’s role in counseling also is the student’s role in professional development; and caution must be exercised not to initiate change too quickly with either the student or client, depending on how the formula is applied. Counseling students often have heard from family and friends that they are great listeners; however, their sense of homeostasis is challenged when they sit across from clients while trying to master basic skills. They are anxious to jump ahead and learn to use techniques that are appropriate for their counseling theory of choice. Because counseling students jump ahead, they tend to overlook the importance of mastering fundamental skills. Since students have not mastered basic skills, they struggle to understand how theory and techniques work together to help clients. This situation can lead to ineffective use of both theories and techniques. When the counselor moves too quickly, the client’s sense of balance is thrown off and resistance may occur because of low commitment or discomfort with change (Reiter, 2008; Wachtel, 1999). Resistance is the client’s attempt to return to a sense of homeostasis, even if homeostasis is not effectively meeting the client’s needs. MacCluskie (2010) posited that “the concept of homeostasis, borrowed from physiology, refers to the process by which an organism regulates its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition” (p. 212). According to the formula, when the counseling process focuses on the cognitive content, resistance surfaces through the initial “storytelling” that clients offer. Beginning counselors often jump from hearing clients’ stories (cognition) to problem solving or advice giving (change) and encounter polarity or the yes, but type of resistance. Clients may agree with their counselors’ reflections, but respond with multiple excuses for why the suggestions or advice will not work (MacCluskie, 2010; Reiter, 2008; Wachtel, 1999). However, resistance or excuse making is the clients’ means of protection or attempt to return to a state of homeostasis when the counseling process threatens to push them to abandon their familiar life patterns or concepts of themselves, or push them too quickly to embrace change (Omer, 2000; Patterson & Welfel, 2000).