The Helping Process
Counseling is a form of helping people; and helping people efficiently is not a process that can be improvised if one wants the best results possible. One of the ways that professionals go about helping people is by following a model of helping to navigate how to help people; this way, there can be structured adjustments made to find the most beneficial way to help someone.
Before a counselor or professional can help someone, there are conditions that must be present. First the professional must WANT to give help. There are times when professionals do not want to help people, often times these professionals are in a wrong setting for their personality/values. Secondly, the professional must be CAPABLE of providing help. This is a major area of concern in the AODA field because of the dual diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder with other Mental Health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and/or personality disorders. The counselor must understand their scope of practice if they are only trained for Substance Use Disorders. A lot of damage can evolve from an untrained professional trying to help someone with whom they are not trained to help. Finally, the setting must permit the helping relationship; in other words, the relationship is therapeutic, and therapeutic only, and there are no conflicts of interest present. Once the conditions for a helping relationship are present, the helping relationship can begin.
Helping relationships have a few characteristics present in them. These include characteristics such as:
Accepting - The helper accepts the individuals autonomy, importance, existence, and value.
Dynamic - Both the helper and the client are active in the helping process.
Emotional - The helping relationship is emotional rather than intellectual. more feelings based than fact based.
Purposeful, Time-Limited, and Unequal - The relationship has a purpose, to resolve an issue, has goals to solve said issue within some sort of time period, and unequal because the helper and helpee are NOT friends.
Honest, Realistic, Responsible, and Safe - The client must be honest with the helper, the counselor must act ethically responsible, and the client should feel safe to be honest.
Authoritative in Appropriate Ways - The helper has authority of knowledge and authority of social function, but not authority to remove the clients autonomy.
Once the helping relationship is established and the characteristics are present, there are three ways to approach helping; the Micro, the Mezzo, and the Macro Approaches all attempt to help others on different levels. The Micro Approach works on helping individuals on a one-to-one basis. This is seen a individual therapy sessions, intake, referrals, and/or case management. The topics are focused on whatever the individual client needs. The Mezzo Approach is focused on working with small groups. This is seen as family therapy and other social groups. Mezzo practice works on resolving issues within the systems that influence the individual, such as the family system, school system, or judicial system. This can also be done in group work. Finally, Macro Approach focuses on making changes in larger social structures, normally including changes in laws, regulations, and social policies. Each approach has its benefits and limitations, depending on the type of help the helper wants to offer, and the type of problem that is presented by the helpee.
Aside from the approaches, there are models for the helping process. These include the TFA Model, and the Strengths Perspective (although there are many more). THe TFA Model focuses on the Thoughts, Feelings and Actions of the helpee. The key points include:
Knowledge of self is necessary to effectively help others
Behavior is the interaction of Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions (T-F-A)
Behavior is not static and may change in different situations
Assessing behavior is a situation is useful in providing clues to understanding ones self and improving how one helps another
The Strengths based perspective is another way to help individuals that focuses on an individuals strengths and how to maximize the use of the strengths and using external resources to resolve issues. This perspective makes a few assumptions that include:
All people and environments have strengths, despite their problems. These strengths can be emphasized and used to improve the quality of the individuals life; it is the practitioners responsibility to respect the strengths and allow the client to decide how to direct them.
The client's motivation stems from the clients strengths and how the client defines his/her strengths.
The discovery of strengths is done collaboratively between the client and the practitioner, and it is the clients prerogative to identify his/her needs.
The focus on the client's strengths removes the practitioners focus from victim blaming and toward discovering how the client has coped with the undesirable circumstances.
All environments contain resources in which the client can use to find resolve.
Although the TFA and the Strengths perspective seem to apply to many situations, it is important to integrate various perspectives to create a broad process of helping. One integrated approach is the Egate Model.
The Egate Model focuses on the clients strengths and include five stages. The first stage is assessing the clients strengths and concerns. During this stage the client and practitioner engage each other and the clients strengths are drawn out as well as why the client is seeking help. The second stage is goal setting. This stage is when the client and counselor work collaboratively to identify how the client wants to resolve the problems or concerns he/she has and then sets small goals that will help reach the larger goal. The third stage is the stage in which the work begins. The client and counselor work together to reach the goals by using various theories to implement a change in the client behavior. The fourth stage is the Termination stage in which the client and counselor end the therapeutic relationship because one of three things occurred, the goals were met, the client is unable to continue treatment, or the client is no longer interested in receiving treatment. During this stage the client and counselor evaluate the work that was done and determine if the goals were met, discuss any concerns the client has about unresolved issues or ending the relationship, and deal with any feelings of grief or sadness due to the ending of the relationship. The final stage is when the practitioner evaluates the process, what he/she did well and not so well, and follows-up with the client to see if the treatment had lasting effects. This stage is where the practitioner self reflects and finds areas of improvement.
Overall, there are many types of approaches to treatment and ways to go about helping others. various integrated models make use of the most beneficial aspects of the different perspectives to best help the clients in which the helpers serve.
