In order to practise my counselling skills in a counselling type environment, I organised two sessions with a family friend who agreed to take on the role of the client. As it was my first attempt at using these techniques, I decided to use the Egan Model of therapy, possibly a more structured, ‘scientific’ framework of counselling, sometimes classed as a ‘problem-management model’ because of its logical, methodical approach. (Egan, 1998) It consists of three stages and is useful as a skeleton for helping people solve and identify opportunities.
Its primary goals are to; ”to help people manage their problems in living more effectively and develop unused opportunities more fully, and to help people become better at helping themselves in their everyday lives. ” (Egan, 1998) It is also useful as a guideline for mentoring and can be used flexibly, whilst complemented by the usage of Roger’s three core conditions and combined with solid active listening skills. (Moore, 2002) To ensure that I followed this structure accurately, I prepared a chart reflecting each point that I needed to follow.
(See appendice 1) This was to enable me to steer the sessions in search of a particular valued outcome and to remind myself in case of mental blocks, of where I was at during the process. I decided to use this chart to also make myself notes on the session, trying to annotate key points and to observe body language at potentially critical or turning points in the story. My subject was a white male aged 37 living within the locality. He had recently experienced the breakdown of a long term relationship and was now struggling to cope with the sale of his property and at the same time, commit to a new relationship.
Also he appeared to be having problems controlling anxiety issues, coupled with a sudden loss of direction, possibly intensified by his current circumstances. Before the first session I decided to use my kitchen area as the setting for the counselling process, finding it was the quietest room in the house and the one with the least immovable distractions. I rearranged the room slightly, putting many day to day implements out of sight, leaving wide open spaces all around to create the illusion of openness. I did not conduct