This document covers nine core counselling skills assessment.
Empathy is the ability to try to understand what the client is feeling. This refers to the counsellor’s capacity to understand the client’s experience and feelings sensitively and accurately in the here and now. Empathetic understanding represents one of the core conditions necessary for effective therapeutic relationships.
Empathetic understanding is shown by the way that the counsellor attends to the client and listens and responds to them. It involves trying to see a situation through the eyes of the client rather than through the counsellor’s own perspective.
The demonstration of empathy occurs through specific counselling behaviours, including active listening, appropriate body language, reflective responses, and verbal acknowledgments that show genuine understanding of the client’s experience. These behaviours communicate to clients that their feelings are heard, understood, and validated without judgement.
It can be used in bereavement, grief, trauma and loss. As well as in general counselling relationships to build rapport and trust. Empathy helps clients feel safe and supported, which can facilitate deeper exploration of their feelings and experiences. Bereavement counsellors must demonstrate empathy rather than sympathy, ensuring that the focus remains on the clients who have suffered the loss. This focus allows clients to fully explore their grief, process their emotions, and find their own path through difficult times without being burdened by the counsellor’s emotional reactions.
Active listening requires full focus and intentional engagement with the client’s communication, including attention to both verbal and non-verbal cues. Unlike passive hearing or casual conversation, it involves deliberately focusing attention and energy on understanding the complete message being communicated. This skill creates safe environments where clients feel comfortable opening up and demonstrates genuine attention to their concerns.
Active listening differs from supportive listening by requiring conscious awareness of which skills to employ, when to apply them, and how to maintain appropriate boundaries throughout the helping process. Dr Gerard Egan developed the S.O.L.E.R. framework—a non-verbal listening approach that creates the foundation for therapeutic trust and engagement.
Listening has three key aspects: linguistic listening (the words spoken), paralinguistic listening (tone of voice, pitch, volume, and pace), and non-verbal listening (body language, facial expressions, and eye contact). Together, these aspects enable the counsellor to receive and respond to both spoken and unspoken messages effectively.
Beyond counselling relationships, active listening can be practised in personal relationships, work settings, and social interactions to foster better understanding, build stronger connections, and resolve conflicts more effectively. It promotes empathy, reduces misunderstandings, and creates a supportive environment for open communication in everyday life.
Questioning skills are essential throughout the counselling process. The ability to ask the right type of question at the right time significantly influences the depth and direction of therapeutic conversation, helping clients explore their thoughts and feelings while providing counsellors with necessary information.
It serves multiple purposes: motivates communication, encourages elaboration, elicits specific examples, and helps define the boundaries of issues being explored. Counselling questions fall into two fundamental categories:
Open-ended questions: typically begin with “how, what, or why” and invite extended responses. They create space for clients to explore their internal experiences and provide details according to their own priorities. Example: “How did that situation make you feel?” or “What thoughts were going through your mind at that moment?”
Closed-ended questions: can be answered with yes, no, or a very short phrase. They gather concrete information and define the parameters of issues. Example: “Did this happen before you moved house?” or “Are you currently taking medications?”
The choice between question types depends on the therapeutic purpose at that moment and the kind of information or exploration needed. Apart from counselling relationships, effective questioning skills enhance communication in personal relationships and educational contexts by promoting deeper understanding and clarifying complex issues.
Beyond the basic distinction between open and closed questions, counsellors should be aware of several specialised question types that can either enhance or hinder therapeutic effectiveness; they are not discussed in detail here.
Questions can be asked in a series to make them more or less restrictive gradually at each step, creating a structured path through a topic. This technique is known as “The Funnelling Technique.”
Paraphrasing involves the counsellor rephrasing the client’s message to demonstrate understanding and facilitate therapeutic progress. Rather than repeating word-for-word, it condenses the client’s message into key points while maintaining accuracy and conciseness.
When the client has told their story, the counsellor summarises the main points using appropriate opening phrases. Paraphrasing serves several important functions: it conveys understanding by demonstrating the counsellor has heard and comprehended the client’s message, encourages elaboration by inviting clients to expand on their thoughts and feelings, simplifies communication by clarifying complex or confused messages, and verifies understanding by providing opportunity for correction.
There exist five key strategies in academia for effective paraphrasing:
Effective counsellors use varied language to introduce paraphrases, such as “So what you’re saying is…”, “In other words…”, “Let me see if I understand…”, or “What I am hearing is…” for content. For feelings, phrases like “You are feeling…”, “It sounds like you are experiencing…”, or “There is a sense of…” work well. To check understanding, counsellors might say “Correct me if I am wrong, but…”, “Let me check I have got this right…”, or “Is it fair to say that…?”
While counselling and academic paraphrasing serve different purposes, they share common principles. Both forms require genuine engagement with the original message and the ability to express ideas authentically while maintaining the essential meaning. Though this skill is often required in academic work, if used in daily life, conversation can make a person very interesting and magnetic, just like successful salespersons.
Reflecting helps clients feel understood by mirroring back their feelings, enabling them to identify and clarify emotions. It serves multiple therapeutic purposes: validating emotional experience, encouraging deeper exploration, and demonstrating genuine understanding and empathy.
A counsellor might reflect: “It seems like you are feeling angry because you did not receive the promotions.” This combines observation of the emotion with the identified cause, allowing the client to confirm, correct, or explore the feeling further.
Choosing feeling words with appropriate intensity is critical for accurate reflection. Low-intensity words include annoyed, concerned, and disappointed. Medium-intensity words include angry, worried, and sad. High-intensity words include furious, terrified and devastated.
Reflecting vs. Paraphrasing
While both are essential skills, reflecting focuses on feelings and emotions to validate experiences and deepen awareness (example: “You seem overwhelmed by this”), whereas paraphrasing focuses on content and facts to demonstrate understanding of information (example: “So you have been at the company for five years”). Example scenarios: A client says, “I finally got the promotion I have been working toward for three years. I should be happy, but all I can think about is whether I can actually do the job. What if everyone realises I am not good enough?” An effective reflection captures both emotions: “It sounds like you are feeling proud of your achievement but also anxious about the new responsibilities.” This validates the complex emotional experience while providing an opportunity for further exploration.
Mastery of reflecting develops through practice, self-awareness, and attention to client responses. By consciously applying this skill while avoiding common pitfalls, counsellors harness an innate human capacity for empathy and understanding to support client growth, emotional awareness and self-discovery. The natural occurrence of reflecting and mirroring in everyday interactions demonstrates its fundamental role in human connection, which counsellors intentionally employ to create therapeutic relationships that facilitate meaningful change.
Summarising is a collection of paraphrases that condenses the content and messages expressed during a session. Unlike paraphrasing, which focuses on a single client statement, summarising brings together multiple elements of therapeutic conversation into a coherent whole.
It serves multiple functions: identifying common themes and recurring patterns, drawing key points together into a coherent understanding, providing building blocks for client reflection between sessions, bringing sessions to a close appropriately, checking the counsellor’s understanding of complex narratives, and focusing wandering discussions on central issues.
Different types of summaries serve distinct purposes. Opening summaries establish continuity by recapping previous sessions. Mid-session summaries consolidate progress and refocus discussion when conversations feel scattered. Closing summaries consolidate the work done and prepare clients for the period until the next meeting. Thematic summaries highlight recurring patterns that emerge across multiple sessions.
Effective summarising requires several key elements:
Summarising differs from paraphrasing in scope, timing, and function. Paraphrasing addresses single statements throughout the session to demonstrate immediate understanding, while summarising covers multiple statements at strategic points, such as mid-session or closing, to identify patterns and themes. Paraphrasing provides the building blocks that summarising brings together into a larger structure.
hallenging is an advanced counselling skill that requires substantial supervised practice under the guidance of a qualified counsellor before implementation. At the current level of training, the primary objective is awareness rather than active practice. It is considered one of the most difficult counselling skills to master and should not be used without sufficient supervised practice.
Challenging serves two primary therapeutic functions. First, it identifies discrepancies within the client’s narrative, such as inconsistencies between what clients say and what they do, contradictions between verbal statements and non-verbal communication, contradictions between different statements made at various points, or discrepancies between stated values and actions. When these inconsistencies are gently brought to the client’s attention, opportunities for enhanced self-awareness and insight emerge.
Second, challenging facilitates client progress by helping clients move beyond surface-level exploration toward deeper, more significant issues. It encourages clients to examine aspects they have been avoiding, supports them in taking responsibility for their choices, and prompts them to consider alternative perspectives they had not previously contemplated.
Challenging belongs specifically to Stage 2 of Dr Gerard Egan’s Three Stage Model, which focuses on helping clients develop new perspectives and identify preferred scenarios. This placement indicates that challenging should not be introduced prematurely; adequate groundwork must be established through Stage 1 skills such as active listening, paraphrasing, and reflecting before more confrontational techniques are appropriate.
The application of challenging requires exceptional sensitivity due to potential risks, including being perceived as confrontational, provoking emotional distress, causing defensive reactions, damaging the therapeutic relationship, and creating discomfort for both counsellor and client. These risks require careful management, strong rapport, tentative language, adequate session time for emotional processing, and a solid relationship foundation.
UPR is an unconditional acceptance extended towards another person, coined by humanist psychologist Carl Rogers. It represents one of the three core conditions necessary for therapeutic change and personal growth.
The essential skill in UPR is learning to separate the actions and beliefs of the client from the client as a person. This allows counsellors to accept and value the client as a human being whilst acknowledging problematic behaviours without condemning the person. The counsellor communicates “I accept you as you are,” even when disagreeing with certain actions, recognising that this separation is not about condoning harmful behaviours but about honouring the inherent worth of every individual.
When clients experience UPR, they feel safe to share thoughts, feelings, and actions without fear of judgement or rejection, which is essential for therapeutic progress. This acceptance helps clients gain confidence, develop positive self-regard, and build self-compassion.
In everyday life, most parents attempt to give their children unconditional love; only a few grant their children URP.
While UPR can be difficult to sustain when clients repeatedly make harmful choices, effective counsellors strike a balance by maintaining core acceptance whilst providing honest feedback about harmful behaviours within a framework of acceptance.
Not all clients benefit from or desire pure unconditional positive regard. Some situations where UPR may be challenging include:
Congruence, also known as genuineness, is defined as genuineness and honesty exhibited by the counsellor as an essential part of their person and their work. The concept originated with psychiatrist Carl Whitaker in the mid-1950s and was later integrated by Carl Rogers into person-centred therapy as one of the core conditions necessary for therapeutic personality change.
Congruence is perhaps the most important basick skill for counsellors because clients possess an intuitive ability to detect whether the counsellor is authentic or merely going through the motions. When genuineness is absent, clients may perceive the counsellor as inauthentic, leading to a breakdown in trust. Without trust, clients are unlikely to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, feelings, and concerns, which hinders therapeutic progress.
When counsellors demonstrate congruence, they establish and deepen the relationship by creating a safe space for exploration and growth. Rogers recognised that clients are more likely to disclose what troubles them when they perceive the counsellors as genuine. Additionally, when counsellors demonstrate congruence, they model this genuineness for clients, serving as a powerful therapeutic tool that supports clients in developing their own authenticity.
Congruence stems from a sincere desire to help clients find solutions to their problems rather than from the counsellor’s need to be liked or perceived as competent. It is strongly linked to UPR and requires counsellors to be authentic rather than adopting a facade. Practical ways to demonstrate congruence include being authentic and avoiding professional facades, avoiding defensive practice by not hiding behind theory, owning mistakes and offering timely apologies when appropriate, acknowledging limitations by saying “I do not know” rather than pretending to know, and trusting in one’s own adequacy as a counsellor.
Beyond formal counselling relationships, congruence can be applied in mentoring, coaching, teaching, healthcare, social work, and any helping relationships where authenticity and trust are essential for supporting others in their personal or professional development.
When starting a new helping relationship, it is essential to establish clear boundaries from the outset. The boundaries that are set will depend on the type of helping relationship and the norms that are applied in different organisations.
Boundaries to consider include the duration of the relationship (such as six sessions or open-ended), the frequency of sessions (weekly or fortnightly), the location of sessions (in person, online, or telephone), limits of confidentiality (safeguarding concerns and legal requirements), appropriate touching (handshakes or hugs only with consent), appropriate duration of phone calls (only during office hours or only for emergencies), guidelines for sending or responding to emails, and strategies for managing episodes of self-harm.
These boundaries can be formally agreed upon, meaning they are written up and signed as a professional document. Agreements should typically state that confidentiality is essential and must be maintained, except in circumstances where a child or adult is at risk of harm or abuse, or where a crime might be or has been committed. Clients should also be made aware that their information will be shared with a supervisor.
Touching is usually limited to none, as even a hand on the shoulder should always be viewed with caution as it could be intrusive or perceived as an assault. Phone calls and emails may not be deemed appropriate at all, or could be negotiated if the helper has a professional telephone number and email address. Managing possible self-harm should be negotiated and is often the point at which the client should be referred to other professionals.
Healthy boundaries are necessary in a counselling or helping relationship if the relationship is to be effective. They protect the client, protect the counsellor, and keep the relationship professional and safe. Boundaries ensure that the focus remains on the client’s needs and that the counsellor does not exploit the relationship for personal gain.
Agreeing objectives with a client requires collaborative exploration and negotiation. The essential first step is understanding why the client is engaging in the helping relationship.
When clients have clear goals, the practitioner should confirm understanding and refine objectives collaboratively. When objectives are unclear, the practitioner helps clients articulate what brought them to counselling and what changes or outcomes they desire.
It may be difficult to agree objectives initially because the client’s view may not be realistic, or the helper may not know enough about the client. Therefore, objectives may be loosely set at first.
Objectives should be negotiated taking into account what the client wants from the relationship, their long-term aims, the time and resources available, and any boundaries already agreed.
Objectives may need adjustment as counselling progresses. Regular review ensures they remain appropriate and achievable. The skilled practitioner notices when objectives no longer serve the client’s best interests and facilitates constructive revision.
Positive impacts:
For the client, a well-managed ending can support successful transition to independence, allowing them to maintain and build upon therapeutic gains achieved during counselling. It can reinforce their capacity to manage difficulties independently and validate their growth and progress. When endings are handled appropriately, clients can experience satisfaction from recognising their achievements and feel confident about managing without ongoing therapeutic support.
For the helper, when sessions progress positively and clients demonstrate meaningful growth, practitioners may experience satisfaction and professional fulfilment. Successful endings validate the practitioner’s skills and effectiveness. They can feel confident that they have helped the client achieve therapeutic goals and supported their journey toward independence, which contributes to professional competence and job satisfaction.
Negative impacts:
For the client, common negative responses include apathy, where they question the value of continuing work when ending is imminent. They may experience anger about the relationship ending, sense of separation and loss particularly when they felt close to the helper, regression to previous problematic patterns hoping sessions will continue, and anxiety about managing without therapeutic support. Poorly managed or abrupt endings can leave clients feeling abandoned, confused, or damaged, reinforce negative relational patterns, damage their capacity to trust helping professionals in future, undermine therapeutic gains already achieved, and reduce likelihood of seeking help when needed in future.
For the helper, negative impacts include feelings of impotence and inadequacy from not being able to help as much as desired, anger towards systems that limit time or frustration with perceived lack of client progress, lack of confidence in their skills and knowledge, and sense of failure that success was not achieved to the extent desired. Helpers may struggle with witnessing client distress whilst maintaining professional boundaries and experience emotional difficulty when meaningful therapeutic relationships conclude.