Work at different stages of psychological counseling

Psychological counseling is one of the types of psychological assistance provided by a professional to clients in situations of various life difficulties and psychological crises. The method originates from psychotherapy, but consultation differs from it in the focus and intensity of the impact.

What is psychological counseling?

Psychotherapy is possible for people with various mental conditions, including borderline disorders, and as an auxiliary method for helping mentally ill patients. Psychological counseling is an option for mentally healthy people with a relatively high level of self-awareness and responsibility, who are willing to take responsibility for the decisions made in the session and work intensively on themselves.

The areas of psychological counseling can be different - it can be assistance to people who find themselves in difficult life situations, as well as recommendations on personal growth, self-development and finding a path in life.

In simple terms, psychological counseling is necessary in two situations:

when a person is faced with new circumstances, but does not know how to behave in them;
when a person is in a familiar environment, but wants to change it.

Going through the stages of psychological counseling, a person changes his attitude towards the world around him, towards himself, and learns new ways of behavior.

Basics of psychological counseling

Psychological counseling is based on a set of measures aimed at improving a person’s mental well-being and harmonizing relationships - within the family, team and other groups. In the process of psychological influence, the client changes the form of his behavior, attitude towards himself and the world, receives recommendations and support from the psychologist.

The main areas of consulting are:

stimulating the individual to make informed decisions;
learning new forms of behavior;
development of the client’s personality and expansion of his horizons.

The central education of counseling is conscious interaction, where special emphasis is placed on the responsibility of the client, in other words, counseling emphasizes the independence of the client as an individual, his ability to make independent decisions and work to change his own personality.

The goals of psychological counseling are determined in each case individually, depending on which psychological school the professional adheres to and what request the client came to him with. However, we can highlight the main areas in which psychologists-consultants work:

transformation and improvement of behavioral reactions. Changing the client’s habitual forms of behavior helps to increase productivity in the client’s life, harmonization of relationships, and a satisfied attitude towards the quality of one’s own life, even in the absence of changes in the financial situation;
developing coping skills when faced with everyday challenges and changing world conditions;
training in balanced and effective decision-making that is important for the client;
facilitating personal growth and self-realization;
improvement of interpersonal relationships.

Despite the differences in approaches to the counseling process itself, all psychological schools agree on a single scheme of the counseling process. It consists of several successive stages, replacing each other, the meaning of each of which follows from the content of the previous one. The following stages are distinguished in counseling:

Establishing mutual trusting contact. Research of the client's problem area.
Definition of a specific problem situation. At the same time, the problem is studied in two planes - in the cognitive and emotional spheres.
Search for alternatives. Establishing possible ways to solve the problem.
Planning. Development of a step-by-step plan for each of the options for solving a problem situation.
Consistent implementation of the developed plan.
Evaluation of the work done. Feedback from client to consultant. Checking satisfaction with the achieved result.

In practice, not everything happens as sequentially as described in this diagram. For example, difficulties may arise in identifying the problem, or the client may refuse to contact the psychologist. As the plan progresses, there may be difficulties with its implementation and it may be necessary to return to previous stages of the consultation process. At the last stage, the client may remain dissatisfied with the changes that have occurred, and then the process will have to start from the first stages. Thus, the counseling process is much more complicated than described in the diagram - it all depends on the client’s problem situation and his readiness to work on himself.

Types of psychological counseling

There are several types of psychological counseling, depending on the problem situations and the characteristics of the people who turned to a professional. A psychologist's clients may differ in age, marital status, personality traits, religion and culture - all this requires different approaches from the psychologist. The following types of psychological counseling are distinguished:

according to the form of implementation - individual, group, family;
by focus - psychological and pedagogical, business, multicultural;
by age - consultation for children and adults.

These are not all possible types of psychological counseling - they are created by various scientific schools, and practical applications require more and more new options for psychological services.

Individual counseling is practically the most common type of psychological counseling. During this process, the client is left alone with the consultant. This form of consultation is suitable for those people who want to solve a problem in their own minds - get rid of fears, grow personally, become more successful, etc. Psychological counseling is widespread as a method of reducing anxiety and aggressiveness among school-age children.

Group counseling involves several clients and one consultant. Consultation is carried out on common problems that unite clients, for example, counseling teams at work about unity, or counseling different married couples.

Family counseling involves members of the same family as clients in order to resolve their interpersonal conflicts or prepare for an important event, such as the birth of a child. This form of consultation is the most difficult from the organizational position, since it is especially difficult to gather people separated by conflicts for a common cause.

Psychological and pedagogical counseling is aimed at teaching people how to interact with children and older students. Issues of optimizing training programs, applying methods, educational innovations, etc. are covered.

Business psychological consulting can be characterized in various ways, depending on the organization or field of activity in which it is applied. In addition to focusing on professional activities, the goals of business psychological consulting are to unite employees, increase work efficiency, advise managers on more effective management, etc.

Scheme for collecting psychological history

There are three main blocks of information about the client: 1. Demographic information : client’s age; Family status; profession; education. 2. Current problems and disorders : occurrence, development and duration of difficulties; events in life caused by the emergence, exacerbation and resolution of problems; age at which problems arose; changes in personal relationships (especially towards significant people), changes in interests, deterioration in physical condition (sleep, appetite) caused by the emergence of problems; the immediate reason for the client’s request; previous attempts to resolve problems (on your own or with the help of other specialists) and results; medication use; family history (especially mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide). 3. Psychosocial history (significant interpersonal relationships): early childhood (circumstances and birth order, main educators, family relationships); preschool period (birth of brothers and sisters, other significant events in the family, first memories); junior school age (successes and failures in studies, problems with teachers and peers at school, family relationships); adolescence and youth (relationships with peers, people of the opposite sex, parents, successes and failures at school, ideals and aspirations); adulthood (social relationships, job satisfaction, marriage, family relationships, sex life, economic living conditions, loss of loved ones, age-related changes, alcohol and drug use, psychological and existential crises, plans for the future).

Consulting children with a psychologist

Age-related psychological counseling, or psychological counseling for children, is one of the types of individual consultation. It is aimed at education on issues of mental development in different age periods. At such consultations, parents are given recommendations regarding the characteristics of their child’s mental development, optimal upbringing and principles of education. These consultations are dedicated not only to parents, but also to employees of various institutions who have direct contact with children.

In addition, such consultations can be aimed at the children themselves - they are designed to resolve issues of difficulties in academic performance, in interaction with the team, teachers, parents, and peers. For teenagers of high school age, consultations are held on career guidance - choosing a future profession based on identified aptitudes.

This type of psychological counseling is aimed at monitoring the normal development of the child’s mental functions, identifying developmental delays, and correcting abnormal personality development. Simply put, the need for age-related psychological counseling lies in the desire of parents to raise a harmonious, successful personality, ready to make independent decisions and choose their own path in life.

The personality and situation of psychological counseling for children is fundamentally different from a similar process carried out with an adult. While it is still possible to convince a teenager of responsibility for his decisions and get him to act independently, this is fundamentally impossible with young children. Therefore, in such consultations, the active subjects are adult members of the family in which the child is being raised.

Upbringing and the influence that parents have on a child are the main shaping factors for his worldview and behavior. Therefore, while the child is within the family, the main work of the psychologist is focused on his parents.

We list the basic rules that a specialist must adhere to during consultations with children:

Confidentiality. The psychologist acts as a safe figure for the child, who can (and must) be entrusted with information that cannot be told to parents, teachers and friends. All information received from the child must be kept confidential and used solely in the interests of the client.
Honesty on both sides. The psychologist must be honest with the client if he wants to obtain truthful information from him.
Non-judgmental acceptance. Psychological counseling assumes that the consultant unconditionally accepts the client’s position, regardless of his internal consent. The client must feel that he is understood and accepted for who he is - otherwise it will not be possible to establish trusting contact.

The main task of the consultant is to overcome the barrier between him and his little patient. When children go to a psychologist, they turn out to be unmotivated; they do not understand why they need sessions and what is required of them - after all, going to a specialist is encouraged by their parents.

In addition, young children with psychological problems often have low self-esteem and negative experiences with adults - with parents or teachers. The psychologist, as an adult figure, also automatically causes a negative reaction, which he needs to overcome in the course of establishing contact with the client.

Teenagers, unlike younger children, turn out to be more straightforward and capable of displaying aggression. They deny that they have any problems, react emotionally to indications that they are wrong, and resist the psychologist’s recommendations.

Psychological counseling techniques

Techniques of psychological counseling are inextricably linked with its stages. Let's look at the stages of counseling in psychology and the techniques used during each of them.

The first stage of psychological counseling is a meeting between the client and the psychologist. During the first session the following techniques are used:

Greetings. When greeting, the consultant uses standard phrases that indicate his location and openness: “Glad to see you,” “Nice to meet you,” etc.
Guide the client to the location. The consultant leads the visitor, showing him the way and inviting him to the office in front of him.
Establishing a positive attitude. In psychological counseling, both active and passive methods are used for this. Passive methods include the pleasant appearance of the consultant, office, friendly facial expression, adherence to etiquette and communication areas. Active methods mean directly encouraging or otherwise positively influencing the client through words or actions.
Liberation from psychological barriers. It is quite natural for a client to feel nervousness before the first visit to a psychologist, and the client’s true thoughts and feelings cannot always pass through this anxiety. It may take more than one session to remove psychological barriers. However, this process can be facilitated with the help of free conversation, inviting music and other techniques.

The second stage is devoted to collecting information about the client and his problem. It includes the following methods of psychological counseling:

Diagnosis of a client’s personality consists of a combination of observation, conversation and interview. Observation occurs in passive mode throughout the entire communication session. The consultant notes the characteristics of the client’s behavior, gestures, and conversation. The conversation flows freely and allows the client to “speak”, to freely express his thoughts. An interview differs from a conversation in that the consultant practically does not take an active position in it, but only asks questions. In addition, unlike a free-flowing conversation, interview questions are purposefully designed and should lead the conversation to a specific point.
Clarification of the essence of the problem is carried out using two techniques - dialogue and active listening. During the dialogue, the consultant actively leads the client to reveal his deepest experiences. If the client is already mentally prepared and talks about what worries him, the active listening technique is used. During this process, the psychologist listens to the client without interrupting, showing him that he is included in the conversation, nodding, paraphrasing and asking clarifying questions.

The third stage is drawing up a strategy to overcome the client’s difficulties. It can be divided into three stages, each of which involves the use of special techniques:

Determining possible ways out of a problem situation. For this purpose, techniques such as advice, information, persuasion and clarification are used. It should be understood conditionally - the client should not take the recommendation given by the psychologist on faith. It should be discussed in detail during a joint discussion, as a result of which the client must put forward his own solution to the situation.
Coordinating the action plan. At this stage, the client, together with the psychologist, will have to develop a plan for implementing the option that was selected at the previous stage. This is done using techniques for finding multiple solutions, specifying expectations, stimulating questions, and establishing a sequence of solutions.

Thus, in the course of resolving the client’s psychological difficulties, various techniques are used. There is no universal scheme that will help any client cope with the problem - the skill of a consultant lies in mastering a wide range of psychological tools and masterfully selecting the necessary equipment in each specific situation.

STEPS OF CONDUCTING AN ADVISORY CONVERSATION

Stages of conducting a consultative conversation

The word “Stage” denotes a separate moment, a stage in the development of something. The ideas of various authors about the stages of psychological counseling have a lot in common, however, there are also some differences associated mainly with the detail, logic, and completeness of the presentation. Excessive completeness, however, is not always a virtue, since it obscures the main idea and logic of the author. The stages of psychological counseling were described and analyzed by Aleshina Yu.E. (1999, 1993), Abramova G.S. (2001), Ermine P.P. and Vaskovskaya S.V. (1995), Kociunas R.-A. B. (1999) and many others. From our point of view, the most optimal presentation can be found in the works of Aleshina Yu.E. In our description of the stages of psychological counseling, we took as a basis the model of Yu.E. Aleshina, modifying and expanding it, making it more logical and understandable. In addition to this model, we invite students to familiarize themselves with the others listed above. It should be noted that in real psychological counseling it is rarely possible to fully and consistently fulfill the requirements of any one model. Life is too diverse. But it is necessary to focus on some model of the sequence of steps, since this increases the degree of reflexivity of the consultant’s attitude towards the advisory process.

The process of a consultative conversation can be divided into four stages:

Stage 1. Meeting the client and starting a conversation.

The duration of this stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of one advisory conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. During this stage, the consultant psychologist performs the following actions:

a) You can stand up to meet the client or meet him at the door of the office, which will be perceived by the client as a demonstration of goodwill and interest.
b) It is advisable to encourage the client with words like “Please come in”, “Make yourself comfortable.”
c) After the first minutes of contact with the client, it is recommended to give him a pause of 45 - 60 seconds so that the client can collect his thoughts and look around.
d) After a pause, it is advisable to begin the actual acquaintance. You can tell the client: “Let's get to know each other. What should I call you? After this, you need to introduce yourself to the client. It is best to introduce yourself the way the client introduced himself. You can discuss whether the client would be comfortable being called this way.
e)As Kociunas R.-A. writes. B. (1999), the client must decide to enter into the counseling process quite consciously, therefore, before the start of the counseling process, the consulting psychologist is obliged to provide the client with maximum information about the counseling process, namely: about the main goals of counseling, about his qualifications, about payment for consultation, about the approximate duration of consultation, about the advisability of consultation in a given situation, about the risk of a temporary deterioration in the client’s condition during the consultation process, about the limits of confidentiality. Some of this information is provided upon the client's request, so as not to frighten the client before the start of the consultation with the flow of information. But it is advisable to raise some questions, for example, the question of payment, to the consultant psychologist himself. You should not instill in the client hope for help that the psychologist is unable to provide. The result of this part of the conversation should be a conscious decision by the client to enter into the counseling process. This is usually clearly visible on both verbal and non-verbal levels.
f) It is important to agree in advance with the client on the possibilities of audio and video recording, observation through a one-way mirror, and the presence of other persons (trainees, students) at the consultation. This is excluded without the client's consent.
g) It is important not to allow the client to use the consultant for his own purposes other than counseling. You should not agree to call somewhere at the client’s request, write letters, invite you to a consultation, that is, do not do anything that could be designated as interference by a consulting psychologist at the client’s request in the private lives of other people.
h) After solving all the above issues, you can proceed to questioning the client, which will mark the beginning of the second stage of psychological counseling. It is important to have a pre-prepared phrase that would allow you to make this transition, so as not to suddenly get confused under the impressions of your first meeting with a client, and not to get into a situation where you don’t know where to start. An example of such a standard phrase: “What brought you to me?” Saying this phrase marks the beginning of the next stage of psychological counseling.

Stage 2. Questioning the client, forming and testing advisory hypotheses

The duration of this stage is 25 - 35 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. This stage can be roughly divided into two substages:

•1. Formation of advisory hypotheses.

•2. Testing advisory hypotheses.

Activities of a consulting psychologist at the first substage “Formation of advisory hypotheses”:

a) Empathic listening. Usually, when they talk about empathy in psychology, they mean the ability to sensitively perceive the inner world of another person with all its semantic and emotional nuances. The development of empathy is traditionally associated with the deployment of the imagination process during communication (Shabalina, 1998, pp. 8-10). The ability to empathize develops as the consultant's experience develops. It is enough for a novice consultant to at least simply desire and outwardly demonstrate his desire to sensitively perceive the inner world of another person. This corresponds to the consultant’s active response to what the client is telling, frequent utterance of words like “Of course,” “Uh-huh,” “Yes, yes.”
b) Acceptance of the client's concept at the inquiry stage. This means that we should not enter into arguments with the client at this stage, denounce, or incriminate him, so as not to provoke a defensive response.
c) Structuring the conversation. The first technique is when asking a question or changing the topic of discussion, the consultant should explain to the client why he is doing this, what caused this, so that the client retains at least some semblance of the logic of all transitions in the conversation. For example: “You talk a lot about your father, but since we are dealing with a family situation, I would like you to say a few words about your mother.” The second technique is to briefly comment on what the client says, regularly summarizing what was said. This helps the client to be more consistent and concise in his speech, and not repeat the same thing several times. In addition, the client gets the opportunity to listen to himself, hear himself, understand himself. For example: “So, from your point of view, your former work colleagues play a big role in this conflict.” The client receives an incentive to check himself again, to think about whether this is really so.
d) Understanding what the client is saying. This comprehension aims to formulate one or more advisory hypotheses. The word “ Hypothesis ” comes from the Greek word hypothesis - basis, assumption. A hypothesis is a presumptive judgment about the natural (causal) relationship of phenomena. In experimental psychology, it is customary to distinguish two components of a hypothesis - a dependent variable (being influenced) and an independent variable (influencing the dependent variable). The dependent variable, it would seem, is always clearly presented in psychological counseling - these are the difficulties that the client has encountered, the events that concern him, which led him to psychological counseling. However, the consulting psychologist needs to identify the essence of these difficulties, formulating them as a psychological problem . In this case, we understand the phrase “Psychological problem” as A.F. understands the meaning of this conceptual unit. Anufriev (1995, p. 112). The formulation of a psychological problem consists of translating the client’s request into psychological language based on studying all the information about the client and his situation. For example, in a situation where a woman complains to a consultant that her seventeen-year-old daughter is “completely out of control,” the psychological problem can be formulated as deviant (deviating from generally accepted norms of socialization) behavior of this woman’s daughter. The client’s request, framed in the form of a psychological problem, will act as a dependent variable of the future advisory hypothesis. After this, the consulting psychologist needs to find an independent variable - something that determines events undesirable for the client. To do this, he uses all his psychological knowledge, for example, about deviant behavior. Each hypothesis is an attempt by the consultant to understand the client’s situation, and it suggests options for more constructive positions in the situation, probable ways to reorient the client in his attitude towards his problems. The more hypotheses a consultant has when faced with a situation, the more professionally equipped he is, the easier it is for him to work. The hypothesis expressed verbally by the consultant is an interpretation. Here is an example of a consultative hypothesis: “The basis of a young man’s deviant behavior is the unsettled marital relationship of his parents.” This can happen when a mother, feeling annoyed with her father but not being able to express it to him openly, from early childhood attributes negative traits to the child in order to conflict with him instead of the father. The young man simply demonstrates with his deviant behavior what is expected of him in the family, thus saving his parents from a frank conversation and divorce. Those who choose the “Psychological Counseling” specialization will also study these issues in detail in the “Family Psychology and Family Counseling” course. For now, let’s just focus on the fact that the deviant behavior of a young man here is a dependent variable (being influenced), and the unsettled marital relations of his parents is an independent variable (having an influence). This hypothesis may not be confirmed during testing. Then you can test an alternative hypothesis - “The basis of a young man’s deviant behavior is the active functioning of the sources of desocialization in the environment in which he lives.” Deviant behavior here refers to behavior that deviates from the socially normative - refusal to work, study, hooligan behavior, and so on.

At the first substage of the second stage, the consulting psychologist tries to take a predominantly passive position, encouraging the client to an active and rather spontaneous (spontaneous, without the participation of the will of the psychologist and the client) story. At the same time, he tries to comprehend the situation and formulate advisory hypotheses. When he forms several similar hypotheses, there is a natural desire to take a more active position - to begin asking specific questions aimed at testing advisory hypotheses, or to take some other action to test them. This, as a rule, corresponds to the client’s desire to hear something from the consultant - he has already expressed everything he could and wanted. The transition of the consulting psychologist from a passive state to an active one, associated with the verification of the advisory hypotheses that have arisen in him, marks the transition of the advisory conversation to the second substage of the second stage of the advisory conversation.

Activities of a consulting psychologist at the second substage “Testing advisory hypotheses”:

To test his advisory hypotheses, a consulting psychologist can choose two algorithms:

a) Start asking the client questions aimed at clarifying the consultant’s ideas.
b) Present your hypothesis (interpretation) to the client and ask him what he thinks about it. It is rare for a client to immediately accept and agree with a hypothesis. Usually, a dialogue ensues, as a result of which the hypothesis is corrected and acquires many significant and characteristic facts and experiences for a given situation, that is, it is maximally individualized.

But in both cases, in order for the consultant’s hypothesis to be confirmed or refuted, it is necessary to discuss two or three specific situations, which should be:

a)closely related to the content of the client’s main complaints;
b) typical for the client’s life;
c) it is desirable that the situations be detailed, describing the negative, positive and neutral characteristics of the relationship.

Working with specific situations is important because the more detailed a person speaks, the less imprints of subjectivity and one-sidedness in his story, the more opportunities there are for the consultant to understand those aspects of reality that are not noticed by the narrator.

Throughout the second stage of the counseling conversation, it is necessary to encourage the client to describe his own feelings and the feelings of other people. Feelings reflect reality more deeply; they speak more about poorly realized, often hidden for the client, desires and conflicts that lie at the heart of the problems.

After the psychological consultant has tested his hypotheses and, possibly, found the reason underlying the client’s problem, it is logical to move on to providing influence. The transition to influencing marks the beginning of the next, third stage of the consultative conversation.

This

p 3. Exerting influence

The duration of this stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. This stage can be divided into two substages:

•1. Correction of client settings.

•2. Correction of client behavior.

Activities of a consultant psychologist at the first substage “Correction of client attitudes”

The task of the consulting psychologist at this substage will be completed if the following chain of events is built in the client’s mind: The client’s feeling or experience, which has existed for a long time or periodically arises in connection with the logic of the development of relationships, pushing him to achieve his goals and satisfy his needs (for love, power, understanding, a sense of value of the life lived, and so on) ® Inadequate means chosen to achieve these goals, leading to difficulties in relationships ® Negative reaction of the partner, which often aggravates the client’s problems.

For example, a woman wants to help her daughter find a decent place in life. She is worried that her daughter's fate may turn out sad. She wants her daughter to spend more time at home, take a more meaningful approach to her life, start studying seriously, and leave the group of friends with deviant behavior. These are the feelings of this woman, her needs, her goals. Perhaps she is not aware of them or is not fully aware of them. Sometimes she just wants to take revenge on her daughter for her suffering, and she forgets about the deeper emotional background of her behavior and her suffering, forgets about her goals. She is often simply carried away by the process of “domestic war.” It happens that parents in such a situation are so excited and tense that they constantly, for several years, perform the same repetitive actions, which not only do not lead to the desired results, but even, on the contrary, lead the process of socialization of the child in the opposite direction. They are poorly aware of their goals, the meaning of their actions, and their consequences for themselves and others. And so, the first stage of helping these people will be to reconstruct in their minds the elements of the chain presented above. The first element of the chain of ideas that we must recreate in the client's mind in this case will be her emotions, her anxiety, her goals, her needs. We must help her realize that her actions are caused by anxiety for the fate of her daughter, that her goal is the normal fate of her daughter - her health, her education, her successful socialization in society, a high level of development of her personality, a normal family in the future, and so on. This will be the first element of the chain.

Let us now move on to the second element of the chain, recreated in the client’s mind - the means that she uses to help her daughter. Every evening this woman looks for her daughter in nightclubs and brings her home with a scandal, where the scandal continues. If the daughter stays at home late, this woman looks into her daughter’s room every 15 minutes - what is the daughter doing? She regularly checks her pockets, calls her friends, and attempts to keep her daughter in the house, which have never been successful. I took my daughter to a psychic and tried to register her with the police. It is advisable to collect the most complete list of means by which a parent is trying or tried to save his child. It is necessary to collect this, first of all, so that the parent realizes what he, in fact, has been doing over the past few months or several years. That is, following the goals and the underlying emotional experiences, the client needs to become aware of his real actions and relate them to his goals. These real actions will be the second element of the chain.

And finally, the third element of the chain being built is results. Has mom achieved what she wanted over the past few years? Has your daughter's behavior improved? - No, it even got worse. There is so much activity, but this activity did not lead to the desired, on the contrary, it pushed it even further away. The daughter reacted to her mother’s activity by increasing deviant behavior, which only worsened the problems of her mother and our client. Before coming to the consultation, the mother may not have realized this, she was completely captivated by current tasks - what to do to prevent her daughter from leaving home tonight, where it is most likely to find her tonight, where to get money for a taxi, finally, to find her daughter to tell her all her resentment, and most importantly - how bad her daughter’s life will turn out now. We confront the client with this fact - this is what he wants, desires, this is what he does, and this is what it really leads to.

Why are we doing this? Why are we building this chain of events in his mind? — In order for the client’s attitudes towards ineffective behavior to change, so that he realizes its ineffectiveness, so that he begins to look for more effective behavior in relation to his situation. This is the essence of correcting the client’s attitudes.

In order to successfully build the chain of events discussed above in the client’s mind, a psychologist-consultant can use various means and techniques. Let's list some of them:

•1. Accentuating the contradictions in the client’s story, that is, emphasizing them, making them noticeable, conscious, and analyzed.

•2. Reformulating and restructuring the reality surrounding the client using comments - interpreting the client's situation based on personal experience or theoretical knowledge.

•3. Putting the client in a reflective position, that is, inviting the client to look at what is happening from the position of other participants in the situation and evaluate their own behavior through their eyes.

•4. Open confrontation with the client and his destructive actions, if nothing else can break through his numerous psychological defenses, and his behavior harms others.

•5. Placing the client in a situation that would help him gain new meaningful experiences designed to change his destructive behavioral attitudes. Homework that would allow the client to realize the destructiveness of his actions.

•6. Retelling to the client the main realities of his story, frequent summaries (repetition in a condensed form of the main facts appearing in the client’s story and the feelings associated with them.). The goal is to create conditions for the client to think for himself

over my situation, plunged deeper into it and was able to draw the necessary conclusions myself.

•7. Analysis of the emotional background of what is happening, interpretation and discussion of the realities of the client’s emotional life.

•8. Self-disclosure by a psychologist-consultant, which involves telling the client about his feelings about his difficulties, talking about his own or known and personally significant experience in overcoming such problems.

We will look in more detail at these and other techniques for conducting an advisory conversation later in the courses “Concepts and Methods of Psychological Assistance” and “Family Psychology and Family Counseling”, when we study the theoretical and social context in which they arose.

Thus, the result of the work of a psychologist-consultant at the first substage of the third stage of psychological counseling will be, to one degree or another, a pronounced non-acceptance of previous ways of behavior in problem situations, an attitude towards searching for new, more constructive ways of behavior that meet the realities of the situation that has arisen. The transition to behavior correction itself marks the beginning of the second substage of the third stage of the advisory conversation.

Activities of a psychologist-consultant at the second substage “Correction of client behavior”

At this substage, the psychological consultant must help the client formulate possible alternatives to habitual behavior, and then, carefully analyzing and critically evaluating them, choose the option that is most suitable for the client. Yu.E. Aleshina (1993) pays special attention to ensuring that the result of work at this substage is a detailed plan for the client’s positive response.

The client himself can find constructive alternatives to his behavior by observing the actions of friends and loved ones, analyzing works of culture and art, what he can be directed towards. We once published material in which we outlined our experience of using the analysis of the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” in psychological counseling of parents for the prevention of destructive parent-youth conflicts (Elizarov, 1996). The consulting psychologist must strive to ensure that the client finds alternatives to his behavior himself, so that these are exactly his alternatives, so that they grow organically from his life experience. But in some cases, it is permissible for a psychologist-consultant to offer possible behavioral alternatives to the client.

Developing a plan for a specific positive response from the client assumes that in psychological consultation the psychologist and the client will plan in detail where and when, in what place and at what time, in what form new constructive behavior will take place. All pitfalls and possible obstacles to this behavior will be discussed. Otherwise, positive behavior may be delayed for a very long time, or even not take place at all.

Stage 4. Completion of the advisory conversation.

The duration of the stage is 5 - 10 minutes, with the average duration of a consultative conversation being 45 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes. At this stage, the consultant psychologist usually performs the following actions:

•1. Summing up the conversation (a brief summary of everything that happened during the reception). This is due to the fact that what is repeated at the end of the conversation is remembered better.

•2. Discussion of issues related to the client’s future relationship with the consultant or other necessary specialists. The address of other specialists (for example, a narcologist) and appointment time are given. It is formulated what tasks will be solved during subsequent meetings and how many specific meetings may be needed for this. It is better to pre-arrange the next meeting than to leave this issue uncertain. It is better that the place and time of the appointment be constant. The issue of redirecting the client to another consultant is decided if there is reason to believe that he will be more competent in this situation, or if the consulting psychologist is forced to leave somewhere in the near future. The issue of homework for the client is discussed.

•3. Consultant farewell to client. The client should be escorted at least to the door and a few kind words said goodbye. It is advisable to mention the client by name several times. It is undesirable for the next one to immediately enter after one client. This can alienate those who need a trusting relationship. The consultant must be ready to acknowledge possible limitations of his competence and not enter into unnecessary disputes.

Kapustin S.A. (1993) believes that after good work with a psychological consultant, the client finds himself in a situation of inconsistency of choice, uncertainty of choice - to start solving the problem or to live as before. Both are painful. This is due to the fact that there are serious circumstances that impede the client’s will and desire to begin solving his problems:

•1. The client needs to renounce everything that gave him a feeling of a certain meaningfulness of his existence - the previous goal orientation, the previous ideals, the way of life.

•2. Starting to solve his problems objectively, the client is forced to admit his guilt for those, perhaps, very tragic events and conflicts that happened to him and people close to him, and to lose his former self-respect.

•3. When starting to solve his problems, the client takes on the burden of responsibility for solving them and is forced to spend effort and time on this.

This situation of inconsistency and uncertainty of choice lasts from several seconds to several days and indicates that it was possible to expand the client’s understanding of himself and his own situation, and to create a basis for change. This is a state of severe mental shock, which may look outwardly as confusion, guilt, aggression, remorse, wounded pride, despair, hope. Speech may become slurred. At the same time, this is a state of thoughtfulness, thinking about a problem. This is also often a state of internal confrontation with the consultant, which may manifest itself in attempts to discredit him.

According to Kapustin S.A. (1993) achieving a state of choice uncertainty is in itself an indicator of the quality of the psychologist’s work

-consultant. The client is given a chance. In consultation or at home, over time, he can develop a realistic solution that corresponds to his personal resources. The psychologist here is limited by the presence or absence of counter activity from the client. The outcome of counseling ultimately depends on the will and desire of the client.

It should be noted that, despite the weight of the above arguments, most psychologists-consultants prefer that the client leaves them with a bright and joyful expression on his face. This is what their activity is aimed at at the final stage of the consultative conversation.

This concludes our consideration of the stages of a consultative conversation, as well as a presentation of the basics of the course. Students are encouraged to look for more detailed information about psychological counseling in the literature cited in this manual, in the literature recommended for seminar classes, in subsequent courses reflecting various theoretical and applied aspects of psychological counseling.

Elizarov A.N.

Conditions for the effectiveness of consultations with a psychologist

Psychological counseling is successful only when several factors are combined:

The client is motivated to make positive changes in life and work on consciousness and behavior. The consultation is conducted by a psychologist, but the results depend on whether the person himself wants to influence his life, since during consultations the specialist only helps to come to conclusions, but does not do the work for the client.
The process and stages of psychological counseling are selected individually, taking into account the personality characteristics of the person applying and his problem situation. It is impossible to advise everyone using the same scheme. A professional always shows flexibility in the selection of certain techniques and their options in order to convey to a person the essence of his internal problems.
The client attends all necessary sessions scheduled by the consultant. In addition to the fact that during psychological counseling a person comes to the conclusion that changes are necessary, he needs to learn to behave in a certain way and consolidate the achieved result. Many clients give up visiting a psychologist and, as a result, cannot resolve the situation, because after some changes others occur, for which the person is also not ready. As a result, the problem returns again without finding an adequate solution.
During consultations, a mutual trusting relationship is established between the client and the professional. This is important, because otherwise the consultant will not be able to obtain reliable information or influence the person needed for productive work.
The consultant is not focused on temporary effects. Even if a strategy for solving a certain situation has been developed jointly with the client, the person, having overcome the problem, may at any moment encounter a new problem. Therefore, it is important that the professional does not direct all his attention to temporary relief of the situation, but works on the underlying cause of the current situation - the lack of necessary forms of behavior or the presence of an internal unresolved conflict.

Thus, the effectiveness of psychological counseling depends not only on the personality and professionalism of the consultant, but also (to a greater extent) on the work that a person does on himself. If you are looking for a professional, we recommend contacting psychologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin, who has been helping to get rid of various anxiety disorders for many years.