Department of Counseling & Student Affairs
Clinical Mental Health / Marriage, Couple, & Family
Practicum Counseling Skills Scale
Student’s Name
Term & Year
Faculty Supervisor
Dates of Evaluation
Directions: Please rate the student on the following skills and abilities according to the following scale:
(1) Continue practice: not helpful or well-timed, or no skill existent when it should be
(2) Developing skills: somewhat helpful, missed many opportunities
(3) Well developed: helpful and well-timed when performed, but not consistently smooth
(4) Highly developed: helpful, well-timed, and consistently well-performed
(NA) Insufficient contact to judge
Attending
Body Language & Appearance. Maintains open, relaxed, attentive,
confident posture. Leans forward when talking as appropriate. Wears
professional attire.
Eye Contact. Maintains appropriate eye contact.
Vocal Tone. Uses vocal tone that communicates caring and connection
with the client.
Minimal Encouragers. Uses verbal (e.g., uh huh, okay, right, yes) and
nonverbal (e.g., nods and body gestures) to let the client know s/he is
heard. Uses silence helpfully to encourage client to talk.
Verbal Tracking. Stays on topic that client presents. Repeats key words or
phrases.
Selective Attending. Selectively attends to key aspects of client’s
communication.
Focusing. Stays with topic as long as productive.
Observation Skills. Notices nonverbal language and gestures.
Basic Listening
Directions and Encouraging Client to Talk. Uses statements (e.g.,
describe… tell me more about…, say more about…, etc.) that direct the
client to talk about the specific aspects of his/her communication.
Reflection – Basic Empathy. Uses statements to selectively attend to
expressed emotions.
Reflection – Advanced Empathy. Uses statements to identify emotion
implied in client’s statements; demonstrates empathy to generate
reflections.
Paraphrasing (Reflection of Content). Engages in brief, accurate, & clear
rephrasing of content expressed by client.
Summarizing. Makes statements at key moments in the session that
capture the overall sense of what the client has been expressing (includes
both content and affect discussed over time).
1
2
3
4
NA
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Deepening the Session
Immediacy. Makes statements describing here-and-now feelings and
experiences of the client and/or the counselor.
Challenging/Pointing out Discrepancies. Expresses observations of
discrepancies between non verbals and verbals, verbals, plans and
behavior, desires and actions, etc.
Observing Themes and Patterns. Identifies more overarching patterns of
client acting, thinking, or behaving that may be related to the problem (“In
______ situations, you regularly do _____ [or think______ or feel _____]
which seems to lead to _____________ which causes you problems.")
Exploring Meaning and Values. Uses questions to explore meanings;
uses statements to highlight key meaning and value words of the client;
Utilizes Counseling Theory. Clearly demonstrates the application of a
counseling theory; uses skills and conceptualizations consistent with that
theory.
Recommended Grade
Faculty Supervisor Signature
A
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B
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4
NA
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F
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Incomplete
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Date
My signature indicates that I have read the above report and have discussed the content with my faculty supervisor.
It does not necessarily indicate that I agree with the report in part or in whole.
Student Counselor Signature
Practicum Counseling Skills Scale
Date
Revised 5/12/2015