Lesson Two

The Client-Counselor Alliance

​

Objectives

​

Comprehension Level:

To identify the essentiality of the client-counselor alliance

To review the mechanisms within multicultural competence

 

Analytical Level:

To differentiate productive mindfulness from unprofessional, unproductive communications

 

Lesson Two - Client-Counselor Alliance

​

            Of the many factors relevant for treatment adherence, therapeutic alliance is noted along with type of psychotherapy, professional experience, severity of diagnosis. An increasing amount of literature has emerged supporting positive associations between counselor mindfulness, improved relational skills, and therapeutic alliance. Mindfulness improves the delivery of counseling services by improving counselor overall wellness and increasing counselor self-awareness. Research has shown that mindful attunement could be an essential factor in the client-counselor alliance  As a core relational skill supporting the therapeutic process, mindfulness assessed by degrees is evidenced in purposeful, non-judgmental attentiveness. Attuned and interactive, a counselor senses the very nature of the client’s inner experiences.

            In a naturalistic pilot study, Jenkins and Nowlin, (2018) examined interpersonal decentering, a form of social cognitive maturity, where self and other are distinguished in a manner which sustains one’s identity with a balance of independence and respect for others. Decentering can be scored using the thematic apperception test (TAT) to indicate a personality variable that could possibly predict psychotherapy retention and client perceptions of the therapeutic process. At risk for resisting treatment, clients with immature decentering capacity may require different interventions. In an outpatient setting the lower (immature) thematic apperception test responses of new clients’ predicted attrition rates and therapy process perceptions which differentiated between psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT). Psychodynamic interventions may require more mature decentering than CBT therapies which is information that could be useful for making treatment recommendations.

 

Reflection for Quality Counseling Services

            A clearer definition and a better understanding of how self-reflection contributes to quality counseling service delivery through reflective practice may be achieved using qualitative research methods. Research that highlighted practitioner experiences with formal training that included a self-reflection component is important and illustrative as a structure built to sustain the development of counselor preparation and social justice. Art-based research activities, such as those included in the study, are in line with that counselor preparation objective.

​

Counselor Wellness

            As an indicator of a quality therapeutic alliance with a client, reaching a level of attunement may represent a key developmental target when working with emergent counselors. Therefore, facilitative mindfulness strategies and study activities can serve in an assistive capacity in counselor training. Mindfulness training has been effective in enhancing wellbeing, specifically, social connectedness, emotional intelligence, as well as self-efficacy. Foster (2010) explained an initiative called the wellness cube model. It was designed to make students cognizant of wellness as an academic intervention to support healthy minds and lifestyles in conjunction with a counseling program. It assisted all students with choices that benefit their professional and personal lives.

The challenge of transitioning from counseling student to counseling practitioner can produce self-doubt and anxiety. Self-compassion must be infused into the supervisory relationship. Modeled as self-kindness, mindfulness, and recognition of a shared experience, self-compassion can mitigate the negative effects, both cognitive and affective, of anxiety thereby improving student professional development. Self-compassion must be generated internally. There is increasing interest in self-generated thought among neurological researchers defined as mostly environmentally independent mental content. This type of thought is largely composed of emotional stimuli (Mahoney et al., 2018). Conscious efforts to train the mind to think and respond more positively, and thus productively, to internal and deliberate external stimuli is effective on self-generated thoughts. These positive and productive self-generated thoughts build momentum to experience more stable and positive moods. Image studies of specific regions of the brain have provided evidence that mindfulness training (as well as art therapy) can refocus thought tendencies to be less fearful and defensive against others and less adversely affected by distressing memories. This frame of mind enhances wellbeing and is more conducive to providing quality counseling, which is the goal of this course.

            Trauma impacts lives on a chemical and biological level. Human beings are not automatons moving through experiences unaffected and impenetrable. When clients revisit traumatic experiences, they feel some portion of the chemical and biological responses that have been written on and in their lives. Narrative research entails the revisiting of such trauma, just as revelations of conflicting values can evoke intense emotions for counseling students and counseling professionals. Supervisors must be capable of guiding CITs through the reckoning process in a manner that supports their professional development with self-compassion which can lead them into a commitment to adopt the social justice imperative. If this bridge is not established, then quality service is jeopardized.

Parker et al. (2004) studied a multicultural safe space entitled the mentoring lab, which allowed counseling students to contemplate and express emotional reactions to course material. To augment their multicultural course the mentoring lab facilitated self-reflection and improves social justice competence through self-expression. Mentors provided nonjudgmental encouragement for students to reach beyond surface level reactions to express their true apprehension about engaging clients from other cultures. Students appreciated the mentors’ candor, and compassion and felt empowered with expectations about the rapport they could achieve with their client. 

             A counselors’ caring, nonjudgmental understanding that allows clients to achieve deeper insight into their life issues, and circumstances is what Carl Rogers (1975) highlighted as the essence of the therapeutic process (Rogers, 1975). Imagination, motivation, and vulnerability have been linked to internal drives, instincts, and aptitudes that inspire individual empathic development. Empathy and emotional intelligence are positively correlated and reports that self-construals are not distinctly divergent along cultural lines as previously contended. Interdependence in eastern cultures did not appear to predict more empathy among counseling students. Furthermore, emotional intelligence has been correlated with counselor burnout. Counseling educators should be secure in their own level of multicultural competency so they can establish a safe environment for students to express the full range of inherent emotions within the complex phenomenon of social justice.

​

Lesson Two Review Questions

Please submit answers via email

​

One - Select factors that are relevant for treatment adherence (check all that apply).

1. therapeutic alliance

2. type of psychotherapy

3. professional experience

4. severity of diagnosis

5. cultural background

 

Two - Fill in the blank.                                                                                                                                              Counselor mindfulness improves the ______________________________ by improving counselor overall wellness and increasing counselor self-awareness.

 

Three - As a core relational skill supporting the therapeutic process, how is mindfulness evidenced?

 

Four - List two things that allow a counselor to sense the very nature of the client’s inner experiences.

 

 

Five - Define “immature decentering”.

 

Six - What learning strategy can sustain the development of counselor preparation and social justice?

 

Seven - What is the importance of ‘attunement’ in the therapeutic setting?

 

Eight - Fill in the blank.

Connectedness, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy can be enhanced by ­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________.

 

Nine - Fill in the blank.

Modeled as self-kindness, mindfulness, and recognition of a shared experience, ____________________can mitigate the negative effects, both cognitive and affective, of anxiety thereby improving student professional development.

 

Ten - Fill in the blank.

Self-generated thought, defined as mostly environmentally independent mental content is largely composed of

​ 

Please submit answers via email.