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Introduction

CASE STUDY OF THREE COUNSELLING SESSIONS Introduction: This is the first of three sessions with Val. Val is a married lady, in her early fifties, she has one son. Val has agreed to take part in this counselling case study and understands it will entail three counselling sessions. She is aware that it will involve the use of videotapes for my training and that the tapes will be seen by my tutor, Val has given her permission for this. The sessions will be weekly and will take place within the college. The issue that Val wanted to talk about, was a burglary that had happened to her about a year ago. SESSION ONE EVALUATION At the beginning of the session with Val, I explained confidentiality and how certain disclosures might affect her. I also explained that this was the first of three sessions and the amount of time we would have for the session. I tried to put her at ease by asking was that okay after explaining what confidentiality was. I opened the session by say" what ever you want to talk about". Val had come to talk about a burglary, which had happened to her last year. As Val started talking in the early part of the session I was able to pickup her emotions of shock and disbelief that this had happened to her. I clarified early on in the session which burglary she was talking about as she disclosed she had, had another burglary the previous year. I feel I was silent for quite a long time in the early part of the session but I feel that this was necessary. ...read more.

Middle

I think I missed this because I was out of the clients frame of reference, as she had spoken of precautions they had taken since. So I let myself move away from where she was at, at that moment. I had moved on but she hadn't. If I had picked up this phase I could have said something like "you say devastated that's quite a strong statement could you explain it a bit more". Towards the end of the session Val again mentioned that she knew who had done the burglary, she stated that "he had got away with it again". As we were nearing the end of the session I made Val aware of the time. I summarised and said; "I feel that throughout the session I was aware of her feelings of frustration and anger about how she felt she had been treated and her disappoint with the way the police had handled her case". I also said "perhaps in the next session we could focus on the person who had done the burglary and Val's feelings about him". The feedback from my peers was quite specific in that I had missed a couple of key phrases and that my body language was very stilted and static again this week. I feel that although the feedback this week wasn't quite so good, I had given the client more and because of having more time and had touched on more of her feelings. I also felt that the relationship with the client was building up nicely. ...read more.

Conclusion

And what I felt had happened in some of the other sessions, I reflected and recalled some of the things said and spoke of Val's feelings and frustrations. I feel that I summarised well and showed my understanding of her issues. I then asked, "how the last three weeks had been for Val". Val stated that she had enjoyed the sessions and had" felt it was something she needed to do". I feel that the sessions were quite cathartic for Val and had brought some sort of closure for her. This also was I feel a good example of an ending in counselling. I said, "I hope it had helped ". The feedback was on the whole quite good. One thing that was picked was the way I had phrased a question "what I would put to you". I think I could have re-phrased it but at the time, that was how I thought would focus the client. Another thing given in feedback was the "dart board effect" again I don't know if I agree with this, as I feel perhaps my challenge was too strong as I said earlier I don't really know. CONCLUSION: I think overall I have tried to be client centred in my approach to the client and I feel that for most of the time, I was. I feel that a relationship was established, as Mearns and Thorne point out "the relationship is all -important: if that is healthy then the counselling outcome has the best chance of being productive" (Mearns and Thorne 2000). I also think I was able to provide the core conditions in which the client could explore her feeling thus enabling her to enter the therapeutic process. ...read more.

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