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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Universities (2nd .ed). Enugu: Academic Publishing

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Carver Publishers.

Gordon, Thomas. (1977). Leader Effectiveness Training. New York:

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Adyudo Press.

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