Contents
The article was created based on the materials of classes at the University of Practical Psychology, which were conducted by N.I. Kozlov.
For two years of study at the University, we had the good fortune to study with different, and, undoubtedly, the best teachers in Russia. Each of them gave us his vision, his experience, his wisdom in the most interesting science — counseling. In this work, I want to summarize the knowledge gained and formulate my understanding of the stages of counseling. The material can be used as a cheat sheet and for introspection consultation.
So you have a client. The first contact can be remote — by e-mail, by phone, or personal — at a training, at an event. The first contact (and possibly several subsequent ones) is
Preliminary stage of counseling
The consultant has two tasks at this stage. Task one: show yourself as a status, competent, respectable specialist. How to do it?
- Formulate thoughts briefly and clearly. Do not rush to give advice.
- Occasionally insert psychological terms if appropriate.
- Never ask a client “When would it be convenient for you to meet?” Suggest the time and place of the meeting yourself by consulting your diary. «I’m waiting for you tomorrow at 10 o’clock». If it’s inconvenient, the client will tell you, and you can look for other options.
- If this is a personal meeting, watch your posture, gestures, status and friendly intonations in speech.
- Questions about the cost of your services should be familiar and natural to you.
- Rehearse your answers in front of a mirror beforehand.
- If you know what topic the client contacted you about, you can give them to fill out a preliminary test, questionnaire, checklist, genogram, i.e. any diagnosis. This will not only show your competence, but also solve the second task of the preliminary stage — customer engagement.
The next stage of counseling — when the client came to the meeting (or joined via Skype) — is
Contact phase
At this stage, the consultant also faces two tasks. The first one is already familiar to you: to show yourself as a status, competent, respectable specialist. How does this manifest itself at this stage?
- Calmly and clearly agree on the format of the meeting, duration and rules (does the client undertake to go 3-5 times, does he undertake to do homework, send reports or SMS?). Think it over and rehearse it ahead of time. Make your own rules, you’re in charge here. Payment can be either hourly or for a one-time consultation, no matter how long it lasts. Some customers can be offered a monthly subscription with the possibility of phone calls.
- Speak guarantees of anonymity.
- Turn on the voice recorder — with it you can easily track the duration of the consultation, and the audio recording, of course, will come in handy for further introspection. How to explain this to the client: “This is for methodical work. If necessary, I can then send this record to you. If you want, you can turn on your voice recorder, it will be very useful, because there will be many important points during the consultation that you may not immediately remember.”
- Watch your speech — friendly and status intonations, pauses, no junk words. Sometimes it is useful to establish a position of superiority: positively evaluate the other («Yes, that’s right», «You quickly grasp what I’m telling you»).
- Use obedience procedures. The more the client listens to you in detail, the easier it will be for him to obey your recommendations. «Come in, sit down.» “Take a piece of paper and write it down, it will be more convenient for us.” “Do you have a tape recorder to record everything? Put it on record.» «Repeat what I said?»
The second most important task of this stage is adjusting and setting the client to work. What is needed for this:
- Start a conversation in a human way — ask about the road, the weather, the convenience of parking, etc. Show the room, a place where you can sit, a toilet. Offer tea or water. This will help the client to get comfortable, in his own tone: how we arrived, how the weather is. 5 minutes of cheerful conversation about nothing — and the client has already rebuilt.
- The magic phrase «Sit back» — give this permission to the client, it immediately brings them together.
- If the client from the very beginning is in a strong negative, in tears, then before starting the consultation, set him to a business format. In a cheerful, energetic tone, talk about the weather, travel, whatever. Five minutes of cheerful conversation about nothing — and the client has already rebuilt. If this is not enough, then start talking about money — this will definitely help a person come to his senses.
- Start your consultation with a phrase “What issue would you like to resolve during our consultation today?” This will help to move the client from the “complain” state to the “set a task” state.
The next step in counseling is
Clarification of the situation and request
At this stage, the client tells his situation, and the consultant asks clarifying questions. At the same time, the consultant faces four different tasks.
The first task, of course, is maintaining the status of a competent specialist. At this stage, the client will tell a lot of different things, mixing everything together. The consultant must carefully choose which cues to respond to and which ones to pass by. Which questions should be answered in detail, and which should be succinctly answered. Each phrase of the consultant should be thought out — how will the client react? Will pass by the ears? Think about it? Will it go into unnecessary emotions? Extra words, extra reactions lower the status of a consultant.
The second task of this stage is rebuilding the client out of longing and negativity. In what ways can this be done?
- Conversations about feelings and about everything internal should be translated into conversations about behavior. “How do you behave, what do you do when you are in such a mood?” There may be a conversation about internal behavior — the internal decisions of a person or his way of thinking. “Why do you think so? Don’t think like that again! Think so!”
- Offer something to eat (for example, sweets for tea). The process of chewing is not compatible with hysteria.
- Talk about something smart, where you need to think directly or indirectly related to the topic of the client (calculate some numbers: money, time, amount of resources, etc., build the logic of actions: first this, then that, etc.). P.)
- Relax the client with pleasant talk or NLP techniques.
- Rebuild the client with your intonations — businesslike, positive, friendly.
- Talk about how you, as a consultant, deal with negative emotions and how you get out of them. During the consultation, share with the client what is going on with me. Demonstrate to the client how I deal with this condition. The client understands that since the consultant can talk about it, then I can. Here’s how it turns out you can deal with it — you can talk about it.
The third task of this stage is customer engagement. For this you can:
- Ask clarifying questions. The more the client tells, the more he is involved in the consultation process. At the same time, you need to understand that with each question you direct the conversation in one direction or another. Choose your direction wisely!
- Show questions wider. Help the client to see his situation from different angles, from different positions of perception. A new vision may be the most valuable for him.
- Use your Listening Skill. Verbal and non-verbal listening cues will help establish rapport and encourage the client to be open.
- Offer the client a test, a questionnaire — any diagnostics. When a client performs tests, he invests his time and effort. For him, the value of consultation and involvement increases.
- Carry out any ritual, shamanism — from constellations and metaphors to bipolar visualization techniques.
- Give very easy homework. When a client puts his energy into homework, he feels sorry for the work done, and he works on.
The fourth, and perhaps the main task of this stage — request wording. The specific actions of the consultant will depend on the context of the situation, the characteristics of the client and the topic of the request. However, there are a few general points that you should pay attention to.
- Choose from the many problems voiced by the client the one with which you will work first. Someday it will be possible to do this with a simple question: “What is the most important thing for you?”. Sometime it may be necessary to make a list of voiced tasks and make them ranked. With clueless clients, it’s up to the consultant to decide what to work with. At the same time, you need to focus on 2 main criteria: obvious results and the feasibility of recommendations for a given client.
- Get the specifics out of the client’s vague, vague wording. To do this, you can jokingly give a deliberately wrong understanding. “When you eat and you have a fear of spilling a spoonful of soup on a new blouse, is this an emotionally significant situation for you?” You can also clarify how often a problem situation arises, is it really worth resolving it?
- Determine who in this consultation formulates the request.
An intelligent client will formulate a request himself, and the consultant will only clarify and confirm it.
A diligent client needs help to translate the request from a problematic one into a conscious one, and then into a developing one.
To a stupid client — the consultant selects the request himself, translating it into the language of the client’s delusions, so that the task is understandable and close to the client. At the same time, the consultant does not have the task of dissuading, opening his eyes to the truth, etc. On occasion, you can talk about some research or refer to relevant articles, showing your competence.
The next step in the consultation is
Search Solutions
The main task of this stage, search for a solution, perform both — and the consultant and the client. The mistake of novice consultants is to look for a solution on their own, without involving the client in the work. (In contrast to counseling, in coaching the client himself is looking for a solution, the coach only helps him in this). The consultant, for his part, can use the following tips to find a solution:
- Refer to your own experience and practice.
- Consider personal relationships from the standpoint of business interaction, and business relationships from the standpoint of personal ones.
- Use the Synton-map of personal diagnostics.
- Do not rush to engage in subtle and deep psychology, when you can change the worldly alignment of forces. “Girl, surround yourself with guys, choose from many, and then this one will agree to everything for you!”
- To form your concept is a mechanism that explains what is happening in the life of a client.
- When offering a solution to a client, the consultant does not insist, but “sells”, at the end specifying: “Is this recommendation suitable for you?”
Task customer engagement at this stage is also very important. How can a consultant help a client get started?
- Use the Repeat-Agree-Add technique.
- Pretend to be dull, force the client to explain the details.
- Play roles. If the client perceives the counselor as a Strict Father or Protective Mother, it may be difficult for the client to think for himself. By moving to the position of a Business Partner or Sincere Friend, a consultant can significantly influence the client’s activity. Intervention — change your behavior and see how this changes the behavior of the client. When a client comes with his request, he is a master in this request, he has been doing this all his life. Our task is to see where he will draw us into his game.
- To draw the client’s attention to his behavior here and now, during the consultation, to find analogies with his behavior in life. Everything that the client does in life, he does in the consultation. The consultant’s tool is to show the client that his patterns of behavior and communication in life are also manifested at the current moment, during the consultation in communication with the consultant.
At the stage of finding a solution, the position of the Victim of the client is especially clearly manifested. One of the tasks of a consultant is bring the client to the position of the Author. Sacrifice can manifest itself in many ways, here are a few examples:
- The questions “I can’t do anything about it”, “it is determined by the circumstances” are translated into the questions “What depends on me here?”
- «Why is this happening?» translate into «What do I want?» and «How to get it?»
- Requests «Help me understand», requests about feelings — we do not consider requests. «I’m sick, help me! I don’t know, it’s just awful! I have such problems … What should I do? Let’s get specific:
“You want me to do something for you—what exactly? What will be the real result of our consultation for you?”
“What do you think, in what and how could I help you?”
«Do you want to be terrified with me?»
«Do you want to talk about it?» (with humor)
«And what would you like from me?»
«What do you want?» —
- To Durik’s reaction «Well… I don’t know….» We give an energetic answer:
Think. Give me three options! Now think or at home? I’m sure that you will succeed, (you can have fun, you can sensibly serve it).
Okay, you don’t know about yourself. Imagine that another person has the same problem. What do you recommend?
If it was really necessary? Will you solve the problem or not? What if it was a child? How fast can you decide?
- To a confusing answer or avoiding an answer: “Now I will play a stupid one, and you explain it to me so that even I understand. Please explain to me, and then I will more easily agree with you.
- If the client started the game «Yes, but» (2 objections in a row) — you rushed to give cheap advice, throwing them into unprepared soil. Do not rush to give advice, hurry to start thinking with the client! The thoughtless objections of the client are caused by the thoughtless behavior of the consultant, thoughtless eyes and thoughtless intonations. Correct yourself, remember «Repeat, agree, add.» If the contact with the client is very good, then you can say with a slight smile: “I heard that you already said yes a few times. Let’s think together if you really need it … »
The next stage is allocated conditionally, because. can often be combined with the stage of finding a solution.
Work with the client
We single out two main tasks of this stage — creating a resource state for the client, and solving the client’s difficulties with the help of techniques and methods that the consultant owns.
What ways do we have to solve these two problems?
- Drawing up a clear action plan, ORM.
- Desensitization and all NLP techniques.
- Practicing behavior, intonation, facial expressions.
- Coaching techniques for setting goals, choosing paths, etc.
The final stage
The final stage gives the consultation a logical and emotional completeness. It involves three tasks:
- Creating an intention in the client. Questions «What will you do?» or “How will you think / feel about the situation now?” help the client to formulate their intention. By speaking their intentions out loud, the client increases the chances that the intentions will be realized. If after that you talk with the client about the nuances (how exactly he will do what he is going to do, when exactly he will do it, in what place, under what circumstances, etc.) and ask the client to send a report on the implementation, then the chances of realizing the intention will increase even more .
At the next consultation, it is imperative to ask the client about the fulfillment of his intention. Joint analysis of the results will help to move forward more efficiently. Of course, it is inappropriate to punish a client for failure to fulfill obligations. But you can arrange an additional conversation out of this.
“Well, you didn’t send me a text message, but what did you do in order not to send a text message, and how does this happen in your life? How did you manage to not text me for 2 nights in a row? How many times a day do you think about it? Did you remember last night? At each memory, did you have some kind of internal decision or resistance, or something else? You seemed to be…”
- Maintain respect and status. The first mistake of novice consultants is when the main work is done, relax and get out of the role of a consultant, crumple the end of the session. The second mistake is the desire to ask the client for feedback on their work. Instead, you need to ask the question: “What will you take for yourself from today’s consultation?” Thus, the client evaluates not the consultant, but his own thoughts.
- Involvement in self-development. A competent consultant at the end of the consultation will definitely make a broach for the next meeting — he will show the client what else he should work on in the future.
These are the marginal notes I got thanks to the Counseling Lab. I would be glad if they are useful to other students.