Post on 16-Jan-2023
INTRODUCTION:
Human existence is beset of many problems and challenges
that human beings encounter every day right from birth to
death. Sometimes these problems become overwhelming that
it can put us out of balance or equilibrium in our day to
day existence with self or with others. Even when we as
humans feel rosy and cheerful with life there must be a
mechanism with which to cope with the good and bad, in
order to help us adapt and adjust to live a fruitful and
productive life that is satisfactory. Then I must ask,
what is this mechanism that can help us cope and adjust
properly to function in the society and keep us internally
balanced without psychological distress?
This is where Guidance and Counselling comes in. So what
then is Guidance? What is Counselling? According to the
layman guidance simply means to give advice, direction or
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play a leadership role in the life of someone. Shertzer
and Stone (1981) defined guidance as a process of helping
individuals to understand themselves and their world.
According to Rev. Father Bruno (class lecture 21st Jan,
2014) Counselling as a concept denotes a point of view in
order to help an individual. And Guidance as an
educational construct can be defined as the provision of
experiences that help individuals achieve certain
educational and personal goals.
Counselling is a professional service given by a well-
trained and competent person known as the counsellor to
an individual known as the client seeking help and, or
ways to improve on different areas of life be it
educational, vocational or personal social. Wikipedia
(2014) defined counselling “ as a psychological specialty
that encompasses research and applied work in several
broad domains, counselling processes, outcome, supervision
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and training, career development and counselling and
prevention and health”.
Akinade (2010) in his Dictionary of Guidance and
Counselling quoting the American Counselling Association
(1997) defined counselling as the application of mental
health, psychological or human development principles
through cognitive, affective, behavioural or systemic
intervention strategies that addresses wellness, personal
growth or career development as well as pathology.
Furthermore, quoting Makinde (1983) in Anagbogu (1998)
“Counselling as a service is designed to help an
individual analyze himself by relating his capabilities,
achievements, interests and mode of adjustment to
decisions he has made. From the above insight on what
guidance and counselling is, we can see that guidance and
counselling is a service that uses a well-oiled mechanism
of psychological processes to help individuals adapt, cope
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and adjust to day to day living as well as making good
future plans in all areas of life.
For any mechanism to operate efficiently and effectively
to achieve its aims and objectives there must be
principles or guidelines that guide it. That brings us to
the principles of guidance and counselling.
Principles of guidance and counselling are simply the
framework within which counselling goals are organized and
developed. It is said to be the fundamental laws,
doctrines, and code of conduct that serves as a guide to
the practices of guidance and counselling. These
principles assist the counsellor in relating with the
client well so as to help the client reach right
decisions.
In relationship to principles of guidance and counselling,
techniques of guidance and counselling must be mentioned
because principles and techniques work together.
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Principles can jokingly be seen as the car (framework)
while technique is the engine that makes the car move.
Techniques of guidance and counselling can be described as
the methods or ways of doing something efficiently. It is
simply the methods, approach, manner or procedure in which
the counsellor uses certain tools or skills in helping the
client to gain understanding of self and others, assist in
realistically making the client be responsible and helping
the client see the true picture of the situation. The
counsellor uses a whole lot of varied techniques to assist
or help the client in discovering and reaching decisions
that can enhance the client’s quality of life. Such
techniques include but not limited to; confrontation,
interpretation, restatement, clarification, silence,
questioning, exploration, probing, responding, catharsis,
empathy, assurance, homework, immediacy, encouragement,
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concretization, reflection, self-disclosure, summarizing
and LISTENING. This is my topic of presentation.
LISTENING AS A TECHNIQUE IN GUIDANCE AND COUSELLING
In our everyday relationship with people we come across
people talk about listening. We hear people say things
like “listen to me, “are you listening”? But a lot of
people use this word without really understanding the
meaning and importance of the word listening? What then is
listening?
Listening can be described as the foundation of an
effective and working guidance and counselling session. It
is a very crucial technique in the counselling
relationship between the counsellor and the client.
Ordinarily, listening means trying to or making effort to
hear something or what someone is saying but in relation
to counselling listening is much more than that. Listening
as a technique involves being Active. Active in the sense
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that, as a counsellor you must be in tune with the verbal
and non -verbal communication of the client, and all the
messages he/ she is trying to get across to you. The
counsellor does not only listen with his ears but listen
with her eyes, voice, hands to all the client is saying
both verbally or the use of non- verbal language such as
signs, eye contact, tone, body language sent out by the
client.
Body language takes into account our facial expression,
angle of our body, proximity of our self to another,
placement of hands and legs and much more. For example,
notice how much can be expressed by raising and lowering
your eyebrows. Furthermore, in listening we have to
observe the tone of how the client expresses what he/she
is saying. Also as counsellor we must always watch the
tone in which we respond to the client’s verbal and non-
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verbal communication. The counsellor must not just listen
but ACTIVELY LISTENING.
WHAT IS ACTIVE LISTENING?
Active listening is a communication technique used in
counselling that requires the listener to feed back what
they hear to the speaker, to confirm what they have heard
and moreover to confirm the understanding of both parties.
Active listening is a structured way of listening and
responding to others, focusing attention on the function
of communicating objectively by interpreting both the
words and the non- verbal language of the client.
According to the Counsellor’s Guide, “Active Listening and
responding are appropriately two of the key skills a
counsellor must apply during the counselling session with
a client “, (www.ehow.com, 2014).
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Okobia (1992) stresses that, the listening skill is highly
important in the counselling relationship and must be
properly implemented if the counsellor wants to understand
the client. Ekwe and Nwamuo (2008) noted that for the
counsellor to grasp what the client is communicating must
be patient. The counsellor must concentrate on what the
client is saying, thinking, doing (i.e. body language).
That is, the counsellor must listen for the total meaning
of what the client is trying to convey.
Thus, the essence of active listening is as simple as it
is effective. There is no room for assumptions. It is
functional, mechanical and leaves little doubt as to what
is ‘meant’ by what is ‘said’. Gordon Thomas (1977, pg 57)
was the first person to coin the term “ active listening”
and he noted that there are three key elements of active
listening; Comprehending , Retaining, Responding.
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1. COMPREHENDING: This is the first step in the listening
process. Determining the context and meaning of each word
is essential to comprehending what the client is saying.
The counsellor must be able to fully understand the words
and its meanings and also be able to discern the body
language of the client to be sure she gets the message the
client is trying to convey. As the client is talking, the
counsellor must ask herself questions like, “is the client
presenting accurate facts on the issue? “,
“Is the client saying the whole story or keeping a part
hidden? “. Total meaning of what the client is
communicating can be achieved by focusing attention on the
important issues of the client’s discussion and ignore
distractions.
2. RETAINING: This is the second step in the listening
process. The counsellor must make an effort in ensuring
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that apart from trying to understanding what the client is
saying must also put into memory and be able to remember
all the client has said. Remembering all the client has
said enables the counsellor to recall what the client said
in case she needs clarification or need to confront the
client on a discrepancy observed. It also aids the
counsellor to respond appropriately.
3. RESPONDING: As earlier discussed, listening is an
interaction between speaker and listener. It adds action
to a normally passive process. The speaker looks for
verbal and non-verbal responses from the listener to see
if the message is being listened to. This means that, the
client also watches out to see if the counsellor is paying
attention to what she is being told. That is why it is
necessary for the counsellor to concentrate her thoughts
on what the client is saying. Shertzer and Stone (1981)
suggested that in showing interest and responding
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appropriately, the counsellor can use the following
reassuring and responding words with a facial expression
characterized by smiling and nodding of the head. “Yes, go
ahead I understand”, “go on, I am following what you’re
saying,” “I see”, “Mm-hu”, “that explains it”, “could you
go on”, “tell me more”, “I’d be interested in your point
of view”.
Thomas Gordon in his book Leader Effectiveness Training
states that “active listening is certainly not complex.
Listeners’ needs only to restate in their own language,
their impressions of the expressions of the sender…………
Still, learning to do active listening well is rather a
difficult task” (Page 6).
So how then can the counsellor develop efficient and
effective listening skills? Umuzulike and Eneasator (2010)
quoting Uba (1990) outlined the following ways a
counsellor develops listening skills.
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1.The counsellor must have a reason to listen.
2.The counsellor must suspend judgment.
3.The counsellor must focus on the client and the
content.
4.Recalling the expression while listening for common
themes.
Umuzulike and Eneasator (2010) identified three levels of
listening that often take place, these are; listening at,
listening to and listening with.
Listening at: this means that two people can engage in a
degree of hearing, yet little listening is done. Listening
at a person means that there is a form of pretence of
effort to listen.
Listening to: in listening to the client, the counsellor
focuses upon the content initially so as to be sure the
client’s entire experience is heard. The counsellor
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focuses on the content by asking self the 5WH Basic
interrogatives namely, Who? What? Why? When? and How?
Listening with: what this means is that the counsellor
listens with alertness to non-verbal clues. Here the
counsellor listens with empathy. It also means the
counsellor is sensitive to the needs of the client
So what are some of the barriers of active listening?
SOME BARRIERS TO ACTIVE LISTENING.
All elements of communication such as listening may be
affected by barriers that impede the effective flow of
conversation, such barriers may include, psychological
i.e. emotions, or physical i.e. noise and visual
distractions, listener’s personal interpretation,
attitudes, biases and prejudices, inability to expend
mental effort, shift response and many more too numerous
to mention.
Let’s briefly take a look at the listed above.
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(i) Emotions: The counsellor is human and also has
emotional behaviour. Sometimes the client may meet the
counsellor when she may be experiencing some emotional
challenges and that impedes the counsellor listening
attentively to all the client may be saying.
(ii)Noise and Visual Distraction/Attractions: The
counsellor must ensure that the counselling session takes
places in a conducive and quiet environment. The
Counsellor’s office must not be in a busy area such as
near major streets, stadium, or any other place that has a
lot of noise. Also even when there is a TV in the
Counsellor’s office, the counsellor should ensure the TV
is off during a session to avoid the client and herself
being easily being distracted by the programs showing.
Also the counsellor must not make any outrageous hair
style or dress that can attract the clients’ attention
unnecessarily.
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(iii) Cultural Differences: Sometimes a counsellor may
come in contact with a client that is from a different
background and this difference may manifest in the
speakers’ accents, vocabulary and misunderstanding due
to cultural assumptions. For example, a Nigerian
counsellor may encounter a client that is from India, and
normally we know that Indians have a funny way of talking
that is not easily understood and they shake their head a
lot when talking, so this may be a barrier for the
counsellor to interpret or discern meaning on both the
verbal and non-verbal expressions of the client.
(iv)Premature dismissal of Client: When a client is trying
to express self the counsellor must not interrupt the
client’s communication or get distracted by a call because
valuable information may be lost when this is done as
the client may not recall or be able to express again
what he/she was trying to say.
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(v) Personal Interpretation, attitudes, biases and
prejudices: The counsellor must not fall into the trap of
trying to put into the clients mouth words that she
assumes she heard the client trying to say. The counsellor
must never make assumptions. Also the client must not
allow a feeling of having a negative attitude or bias
or prejudice against the client. The counsellor must be
non-judgmental and have unconditional positive regard and
respect for the client despite where from, who is, or
what the client is saying and have an accepting and
willing attitude to help the client reach a solution
to his/her problem.
(vi) The Inability to expend mental effort: There are
situations when what the client is saying becomes
difficult and confusing to the counsellor. The counsellor
will require mental effort to listen attentively in such a
situation. But if the counsellor is the type that does not
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listen actively, she will mentally tune out what the
client is saying rather than use up mental energy to
comprehend what the client is communicating.
(vii) Shift response: This can be described as the
general tendency in a conversation to affix the
attention to you. This is a type of conversational
narcissism in which listeners turn the topic of
conversation to themselves without showing sustained
interest in what the other person is saying. What this
means is that the counsellor should avoid turning the
conversations with the client to themselves. For
example, a client may be telling a counsellor an issue
related to a marital problem he/she may be having and
instead of the counsellor to listen attentively to what
the client is saying suddenly starts narrating to the
client what she the counsellor is also experiencing in
life. And continues talking that it seems the counsellor
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is now the client, and the client the counsellor. That
will indeed be funny and a great barrier to a counselling
session.
(viii) Inability of counsellor to give appropriate
response: A counsellor that is unable to respond at the
right time to the client finds it difficult to help the
client. This also makes the client feel that the
counsellor is not genuinely interested in helping him/her
find a solution to the problem.
(ix) Thinking: sometimes the counsellor may be
carried away by what the client is saying by the
strangeness or weirdness of the facts the client is
presenting. This impedes the counsellor to concentrate and
actively listen to what the client is saying. Another
impediment is when the counsellor instead of listening to
what the client is talking about at present starts
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thinking about the previous knowledge she has about the
client.
HOW THEN CAN WE OVERCOME SOME OF THESE BARRIERS?
(1) To use active listening technique the counsellor must
put personal emotions aside during the counselling
sessions, ask questions and paraphrase to clarify
understanding.
(2) The counsellor should also try to overcome all types
of environmental distractions. As Ekwe and Nwamuo (2008,
pg 58) succinctly put it, “The counsellor must remove
distractions which he can control and should learn to live
and work with those sources of distractions he cannot
control.
(3) The counsellor should also consider the client’s
background both cultural and personal to benefit as much
as possible from the communication process. The counsellor
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must be non- judgmental, patient, accepting, open-minded
and respectful towards the client.
(4) The counsellor can also with the permission of the
client take notes that can aid retention so that in
case there is any distraction that is beyond the
counsellors control, she will be able to remember what is
being said and also guide the client back on track to the
discussion.
(5) The counsellor must never hold any previous
knowledge she has about the client over him/her. The
counsellor must be like a tabula rasa each time the client
consults her, even when the client has been consulting her
for years.
The counsellor should at all times try to avoid and
overcome these barriers so as to allow the client benefit
immensely from the counselling session as the most
important objective or goal is to help the client out of
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his/her predicament. What are some of the benefits of
active listening in a counsellor/client relationship?
BENEFITS OF ACTIVE LISTENING
Some of the benefits of listening are listed and discussed
below:
(1) Listening helps the counsellor to attain the goal of
solving the client’s problems. It is used to gather
information that the counselor can use in helping the
client reach a solution.
(2) Also, listening assures the client that the counsellor
is interested in helping him/her solve a problem. When the
client knows that the counsellor is listening to her/him
the client’s general sense of loneliness is alleviated,
sources of uncertainty and confusion are uncovered, client
self-understanding is promoted and the client is motivated
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to make plans, take decisions and implement the plans”
(Ekwe and Nwamuo 2008, pg 88).
(3) As the client discovers that the counsellor is
attentive and empathic towards what he/she is saying, the
client develops confidence and trust in the counsellor and
will always come to the counsellor when he/she has a
problem. But the counsellor should also exercise caution
so that the client does not use her as a shield or someone
he/she can turn to for solutions to everyday problems. The
counsellor must work towards making the client independent
by helping him/her develop skills to solve his/her
problems.
(4) Listening is an open non-judgmental manner
facilitates honesty between the counsellor and client,
which creates an atmosphere of mutual trust, healing and
growth. Listening makes the client more apt to be honest
and talk openly about the issues that brought him/her.
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(5) During listening counsellors gain insight to help
clients solve their problems. As the more a counsellor is
able to decipher the verbal and non- verbal language of
the client she is handed clues on how best to help the
client.
There are some basic misconceptions as to what listening
is or is not, and it will be briefly discussed here. The
most basic misconception about listening is that listening
and hearing is the same thing, which is quite wrong. We
have no control over what we hear the sound we hear have
no meaning until we give them meaning in a context.
Listening on the other hand, is an active process that
constructs meaning from both verbal and non-verbal
messages.
(6) Listening gives the counsellor the feeling of
satisfaction that she has been able to help another person
because just listening to someone can lift a heavy burden.
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And as the popular saying goes “a problem shared is half
solved”. And it also makes the client have a feeling of
welfare, that is, he/she is taken care of.
The above diagram clearly shows the benefits of active
listening.
THEORETICAL APPLICATION OF LISTENING TO COUNSELLING
Listening as a technique in counselling can be applied to
all the theories of counselling known to man because
without listening there will be no basis for the
counselling relationship because the client has to tell
the counsellor his/her problems before the counsellor can
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assist him/her to reach meaningful and far reaching
decisions. Never the less, Sigmund Freud’s’ method of
treating clients was also known as the first of the ‘talk
therapies’. Talk therapy, more formally called
'psychotherapy,' refers to a range of treatments that
involve discussing mental or emotional issues with a
mental health practitioner, such as a psychiatrist,
guidance counsellor or psychologist. People who undergo
this therapy talk through their emotions, moods, thoughts
and behaviors, and they learn about their mental health
conditions as well as how to cope with those conditions.
Different types of talk therapy include humanist
therapy, group counselling and motivational counselling;
however, the two most common examples of talk therapy are
psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Psychoanalysis is the brainchild of neurologist Sigmund
Freud, who developed this approach to psychology through26
individual case studies in the late 19th century.
Psychoanalysis is based on the notion that our behaviors
and symptoms are the results of our unconscious thoughts
or motivations, and that our development as a person is
directly affected by past experiences - particularly
childhood experiences. Freud believed that our egos
develop defense mechanisms that protect us from difficult
emotions, thoughts and experiences by keeping them away
from our conscious minds.
According to psychoanalysis, to be cured we need to
understand and release these repressed emotions, thoughts
and experiences (bring them to the conscious mind). An
instance of such relief is called catharsis. Techniques
include free association, dream analysis, transference…
these techniques will be discussed briefly below.
Free association- this is a technique whereby the
psychoanalyst or counsellor allows the client to say
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whatever that comes to mind no matter how unrelated the
talk may be to the issue at hand- not only what comes to
mind as words or though forms but also images. The client
is instructed not to omit anything, not to censor anything
that might be embarrassing, and not to worry about trying
to express everything in complete sentences. The
counsellor or therapist listens for links and themes that
might tie the client’s fragmentary remarks together. From
the above, we can see that the counsellor must actively
listen to all the client says while using the technique of
free association in other to be able to catch ‘the gist’
of whatever the client is trying to convey. In using free
association the counsellor must listen to both the verbal
and non -verbal messages of the client so as to interpret
properly all the client is saying.
Transference – transference is a technique in which the
client transfers to the counsellor or therapist what
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he/she feels about a significant other onto the counsellor
or therapist. For example, a woman with marital issues may
talk to the counsellor as if he/she is the husband and may
transfer whatever feelings felt towards the husband to the
counsellor or therapist. While this is going on the
counsellor also listens for all the cues on both verbal
and non-verbal that can give an insight into the clients’
problems.
Dream analysis- Therapist uses the “royal road to the
unconscious” that is the dreams of the client to bring
unconscious material to light. The counsellor listens to
both the
Latent content and Manifest content which Kalat (1992)
described as the hidden and surface content or meaning of
the dream the client is telling the counsellor.
From the above, we can see that the psychoanalytical
theory of counselling and psychotherapy engages the
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counsellor in doing a lot of active listening in order to
the able to interpret effectively both the verbal and non-
verbal communication the client is passing across in order
to assist the client gain insight to the issues or
challenges that has brought him/her for counselling.
Counsellors are active in interpreting what the client
says, that is, they explain the underlying meaning after
listening to the client.
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapeutic
treatment that helps clients understands the thoughts and
feelings that influence behaviors. Cognitive behavior
therapy is generally short-term and focused on helping
clients deal with a very specific problem. During the
course of treatment, people learn how to identify and
change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that
have a negative influence on behaviour. The underlying
concept behind CBT is that our thoughts and feelings play30
a fundamental role in our behavior. For example, a person
who spends a lot of time thinking about plane crashes,
runway accidents, and other air disasters may find
themselves avoiding air travel. According to
(psychology.com 2014), the goal of cognitive behavior
therapy is to teach patients that while they cannot
control every aspect of the world around them, they can
take control of how they interpret and deal with things in
their environment. In helping the client change such
negative thoughts or behaviour the counsellor listens to
the client express them and guides and assists the client
into changing such negative thought patterns. The
counsellor must be an expert in listening so as to help
the client change such thoughts and maladaptive
behaviours. Like earlier mentioned listening is a skill
that is part and parcel of all counselling and
psychotherapy theories that the counsellor can use to
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assist the client gain a better understanding of self and
the world around them and the counsellor must be an adept
in applying this skill.
CONCLUSION
When clients and counsellors both engage in active
listening during the counselling session there are
positive consequences for both. When a client works with a
counsellor who is open to listening and learning and
skilled in all the techniques of counselling, the lessons
learnt through counselling can last a lifetime, bringing a
new quality of life and more meaning to the client’s
relationship with self and others. Thus, enabling the
client live a well-balanced, adjusted and productive life.
Also from the above discuss we have seen that listening is
indeed the foundation stone of the counselling
relationship. It is a technique upon which other
techniques build upon for without it the other techniques32
become inept. I end my discussion with this quote from
Rumi “there is a voice that doesn’t use words…. Listen!
Thank you!
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Gordon, Thomas. (1977). Leader Effectiveness Training. New York:
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