Course Information
Following is an outline of the four units contained in the Certificate in Counselling Skills course:
Specialist Interpersonal Communication
This unit involves the exploration and application of basic interpersonal communication skills to facilitate the client-counsellor relationship within a counselling practice. The unit covers the application of:
• Counsellor observation skills
• Counsellor questioning skills
• Counsellor feedback skills
• Noting and reflecting
• The variables in communication, and
• The impact of communication.
Counselling Interview Skills
This unit builds on the basic skills of the previous unit and covers advanced interpersonal communication skills. There is a particular emphasis on facilitating the client-counsellor relationship within a counselling practice. At its completion, students will be able to apply:
• Advanced counselling skills
• Micro-skills for influence
• Focusing skills, and
• Confrontation skills.
The Counselling Process
This unit focuses on the application of the knowledge and skills required to facilitate the counselling process to encourage and enhance client growth. The following areas are covered in the unit:
• Beginning the counselling process
• Facilitating the identification of client concerns
• Exploring client concerns
• Reviewing the counselling process, and
• Negotiating the termination of the client-counsellor relationship.
Ethics and Referral
This unit builds on the Special Interest and Communication unit and provides the opportunity to apply ethical and legal requirements to counselling practice. Students will learn about:
• The need for ethical standards
• A counsellor's ethical and legal responsibilities
• Ethics of dual-role relationships
• Ethical problem solving
• Referral procedures, and
• The need for professional development.
As far back as I can remember I have always enjoyed listening to people discuss issues they have in their lives and now I am qualified to do this and get paid for it! I decided to undertake the Diploma of Professional Counselling to add a specific skill to my existing Bachelor of Arts Degree, while I waited for my youngest son to reach school age.
After what appeared to be countless millennia but in reality was the last thirty years of my life, the days merging into weeks, then morphing into months and transforming into years, it became a blur of sameness and lack of progress. I was evolving but it seemed to always appear that my life was on hold, I was in constant marking time, doing work for others without regard for myself and how I felt.
My entry into counselling began when I was diagnosed with rapidly progressing breast cancer. As a result of this experience and the personal growth that came from the challenge I set up a support website. On being inundated with contacts of varying degrees of distress I found my extensive teaching career and pastoral care knowledge was insufficient.