Introduction To Helping Relationships
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Listening Skills
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Attending: (there may be cultural variations to all of these) eye
contact, distance between helper and helpee, attentive posture,
body movements, gestures and verbal behavior.
Paraphrasing: Restating the helpee’s message in your own words
to indicate understanding.
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Listening Skills
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Clarifying: To sharpen the understanding of a helpee’s intent or
message when the helper is confused about the meaning of the
message.
Perception Checking: Giving and receiving feedback on the
accuracy of the communication received.
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Leading Skills
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Questioning: Used sparingly, open questions are effective in
expanding meaning, checking perceptions and obtaining
information.
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Indirect Leading: Lets the helpee take direction with the session
(e.g. “What would you like to talk about.”)
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Leading Skills
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Focusing: Used when the client is unfocused and rambling. (e.g.
“Please be more specific on how you feel about your mother”).
Direct Leading: Helps focus the topic more specifically (e.g. “Tell
me more about how your father’s death affected you.”)
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Reflecting Skills
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Reflecting feelings: Stating in your own words the helpee’s
essential feelings being expressed.
Reflecting experience: Descriptive feedback of the helpee’s
nonverbal communication as cues to the helpee’s feelings (e.g. you
say your not angry but when you say that your jaw clenches).
Reflecting Content: Clarifies content and feelings and is similar to
paraphrasing.
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Challenging Skills
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Helpers recognizing their own feelings: Recognizing feelings in
oneself helps identify reactions to what the helpee is saying and it
might be useful to the helpee to share them.
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Describing and Sharing Feelings: Sharing personal feelings about
the helpee.
“Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004”
Helping Skills And Techniques
Challenging Skills
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Feedback and Opinion: Information given in the form of opinions
and reactions.
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Self-Challenging: Guiding the helpee in questioning himself or
herself regarding values and beliefs.
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Helping Skills And Techniques
Interpreting Skills
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Interpretive Questions: “Do you think your fear of death is due to
the your father’s traumatic murder?” Helps focus meaning and
brings into consciousness things that are subliminal.
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Fantasy and Metaphor: Using a pictured image or metaphor to
describe the helpee’s actions in a way that enables him or her to
perceive himself or herself in a new way.
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Levels of Interpretation: Moves from reflecting the level of meaning
directly expressed
to reflecting deeper content that may or
may not be directly expressed.
“Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004”
Helping Skills And Techniques
Informing Skills
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Giving Information: Sharing expertise, test results, or other factual
information.
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Advice: Telling the helpee what he or she should do. This is
controversial and dependent upon the type of helping you are dong.
“Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004”
Helping Skills And Techniques
Summarizing Skills
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Tying together into one statement all the different threads the
helpee has expressed.
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Summary focuses on themes, and key ideas, of content and
feelings.
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Summary helps give movement and awareness to the session.
.
“Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004”
Introduction to Helping Relationships
Presentation Resources
Brammer, L. M. & MacDonald, G. (1999). The helping relationship:
Process and skills, 7th ed. Needham Heights, MA.: Allyn & Bacon.
Kottler, J. A. (2000). Nuts and bolts of helping, 1st ed. Needham Heights,
MA: Allyn & Bacon.
“Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004”