As part of our CPCAB Level 2 Counselling Skills online course, we explore skills and tools that enable students to achieve their potential. We also examine the theory that underpins those skills. A significant element of that is called the Core Conditions.
The Core Conditions
Carl Rogers proposed that for a client to experience therapeutic change the counsellor or therapist was required to show 6 core conditions. On the level 2 course, we explore 3 of those core conditions. One of which is congruence.
Rogers’ hypothesis was that if we are too professional, we are then distant from our real self. We are less authentic and this restricts our ability as counsellors to be attentive, and ultimately impact the relational quality between the client and counsellor.
Congruence
Congruence then is about removing the façade, about genuineness, and allowing you as the counsellor to be present to your feelings and responses. so that you can be with your feelings as a councillor. You might like to consider it as matching your gut reaction with what the client is sharing. And it is that gut reaction, that initial, opinion-free, response that we may choose to bring into the therapy session.
What to Avoid
A word of warning: this is not an approach that legitimises a trainee counsellor to tell a client what to do or give them advice. It’s about recognising what comes up for you on a consistence basis that may deepen the therapeutic relationship. Often students first starting on their CPCAB counselling skills course can arrive with the idea that giving advice or techniques is a central part of counselling. Students can be surprised or even disappointed by this. However, through the course of the lessons, we work with students to release them from these expectations and invite them to consider more therapeutic ways to support a client.
Avoid these hazards to stay with the client’s frame of reference:
Imposing your values
Telling them what you think the problem is
Telling them what they are feeling
Giving advice
Asking for more information
Asking leading questions
Identifying with them
Being over-reassuring
Being uncomfortable with silence
Blocking emotions
Talking about others
Being analytical
Congruence is in many ways about the client meeting the real person, the real counsellor, the real you. They have an experience of genuineness and authenticity.
Developing Congruence
For students to achieve congruence requires developing self-awareness. Not only tune into our responses but to explore whether they are fuelled by our judgement or bias, or whether they are authentic and genuine. To achieve this requires time and exploration on behalf of the level 2 student. It can be challenging, confrontational at times, yet revolutionary once embraced as it not only impacts the students work, but it also ripples into all their relationships beyond the course.
Congruence is developed through self-awareness. Removing opinions or our own agenda, is central to students achieving this core counselling skill. Once students can determine that there is a persistent reaction, and they feel the client may benefit, it’s something they may consider offering as a response to the client.
Congruent responses are about staying with the client. Remaining in their frame of reference, their world view, their map that they exist in and crucially not giving our opinion. Much of what students learn on the level 2 counselling skills course is how to figure that out.
Mastering Congruency
The most important thing from this is about practising self-awareness so that you can connect with that initial emotion, separating it from the opinion. And, if you feel it's a consistent or persistent kind of reaction, consider whether it’s beneficial to share with your client. As we explore on the CPCAB level 2 counselling skills course, being congruent enables the client to reflect on what they felt and experienced. It may even open a new path of thinking, or simply deepen the therapeutic relationship.
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