Courses

Accurate and empathic listening coupled with effective communication is a requisite in encouraging growth or development within any of our relationships, both personal and professional.  This is an intensive practical skills course and trains the student in the micro skills leading to empathic listening and effective growth-producing communication, which are essential for counselling and ministry activities.  It will also enhance all our dialogues within the church, and between the church and the world.  This course will require a certain level of self-disclosure, at a level of comfort of the student, and will rely heavily on practicing these micro skills both inside and outside class in the roles of “counselor”, “counselee”, and observer.

Knowing

• To differentiate the roles of psychotherapist and pastoral counsellors in relation to other health professionals and recognize the limits of professional competence in understanding scope of practice (CRPO 4.1.2, 3.1.6)
• To distinguish the goals and phases of counselling, the roles of “counselor” and “counselee”, and the language terms of microskills in therapeutic dialogue
• To be able to correctly identify the different types of responses and interventions which might occur in dyadic communication or dialogue
• To discriminate the kinds of responses and interventions that are helpful or not helpful in promoting growth and change, and in specific situations in the therapeutic relationship (CRPO 4.5.5, 4.5.7)
• To identify when and how to review therapeutic process and progress with clients periodically, make appropriate adjustments, and refer clients appropriately, and to identify the important factors in conducting an effective and appropriate closure process (4.5.3, 4.5.4, 4.6, 4.7)
• Recognize ethical issues encountered in practice, such as maintaining appropriate boundaries with clients, use of counselor self-disclosure in therapy relationships, and how to respond to inappropriate client requests (CRPO 3.2.1)
• Integrate knowledge of human and cultural diversity in relation to psychotherapy practice, in terms of understanding how cultural factors can influence therapeutic engagement and response to interventions, recognizing multicultural implications of some basic counselling interventions, and recognizing cultural barriers that may affect engagement in the therapeutic process to enable modification of interventions according to cultural needs and preferences (CRPO 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2)

Being

• To increase comfort with self-disclosure, within one’s own sense of safety and boundaries, and as appropriate to the assignments
• To increasingly practice empathic listening skills and effective responses in all our relationships
• To increase tolerance in hearing others’ pain and being open to the experience of one’s own pain
• To develop a growing self-awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses
• To better understand one’s motivating factors, thoughts, and feelings, in pursuit of safe and effective use of self, and developing the person of the counsellor
• To develop greater comfort and appreciation for receiving feedback from peers and teachers

Doing

• To observe, identify, and demonstrate helpful versus non helpful responses in therapeutic dialogue (CRPO 4.5.5, 4.5.7)
• To demonstrate micro-skills in noticing, reflecting, and validating, both content and feelings, in order to establish relationship, encourage deeper exploration and growth, and consolidate learnings (CRPO 4.5.5, 4.5.6, 4.5.7, 4.5.8)
• To demonstrate micro-skills in clarifying, confronting, using metaphors, and using authenticity, self-disclosure and immediacy to encourage growth and change (CRPO 4.5.9, 4.5.10)
• To practice obtaining informed consent and explaining client rights to privacy and confidentiality, and the limitations imposed on them by law (CRPO 3.1.1, 3.1.5, 4.1.5, 4.1.7))