Polymath

Self improvement · Full roadmap · ~85 min read · 26 steps

🫂Counselling skills

Learn to listen well and help people feel heard in any conversation

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Unit 1

1

Start here

Course overview

2

What counselling is, and what it is not

Counselling defined

3

Helping skills are not a licence to practise

Scope and limits

4

The ethical frame, in plain words

Why ethics come first

5

Confidentiality and its limits

Privacy with limits

Unit 2

Boundaries

Holding the edges

When to refer, and duty of care

Knowing your limits

Carl Rogers and the core conditions

The three conditions

Empathy up close

Feeling with, not for

Unconditional positive regard

Acceptance without conditions

Unit 3

Congruence

Being genuine

Attending, the skill before words

Showing up with your body

Open questions and minimal encouragers

Opening the door

Paraphrasing

Reflecting back the content

Reflecting feeling

Naming the emotion

Unit 4

Summarising and silence

Two quieter skills

Empathy versus sympathy versus advice

Three different responses

Rapport and the working alliance

The relationship that does the work

The major approaches at a glance

Five schools of therapy

A closer look at motivational interviewing

OARS and rolling with resistance

Unit 5

The stages of a helping conversation

Egan's three stages

Working with strong emotions and crisis basics

Staying steady, knowing the line

Cultural humility

Not assuming you know

Self-care and supervision

You cannot pour from empty

Common beginner mistakes

What to stop doing

Unit 6

Where to go next

Where to go next

Start unit 1