Counselling Process and Skills

Abstract

In this article, I will describe the model I have devised for training counsellors working with dying and bereaved people in individual rather than group counselling. Some trainees are volunteers attached to bereavement services, others are professional people who want to add counselling skills to their existing abilities. Here I will describe the process and skills of counselling which includes the outline of personality adjustment previously described elsewhere, dealing with the intellectual, psychological, spiritual, physical, emotional, behavioral, social-cultural and practical dimensions of adjustment. This is a general model of counselling which I have also used for training counsellors working with adjustment to disability, separation and divorce, immigration and other major life changes and losses. Here, however, the counselling model will be used specifically in relation to dying patients and people who will be or have been bereaved, before or after a death. The counselling process is most effective when begun before the death and continued afterwards. This article describes the overall pattern of the counselling process. The actual techniques — how to conduct the counselling — are not given here but are covered as training progresses.