5 Stages Of Counselling

Counselling is a systematic process of helping relationship based on the principles of psychology conducted by professional counsellors to produce change and development based on ethical life (Masson, Jacobs, Harvil, & Schimmel, 2012). The counselling process involves a sequence of development of relations between the counsellor and the client happens in a certain period of time. This relationship begins from the stage and continues to grow into one stage to another. These levels are run regularly and have a specific objective or goal. This process occurs in systematic discussions were guided by a counsellor unnoticed by the client. Meeting and discussion is called a counselling session. It is a process of sharing intellectually and emotionally.

But most often in community counselling and mental health agencies, client and counsellor had no contact prior to the first counselling session”.
In this stage, the counsellor undergoes informed consent to explain to the client about the confidentiality of the session (Pepinsky, 1954). The counsellor explains the purpose of the session and some ethical that the counsellor and the client need to follow during the counselling session (Corey, 1977). Stage one is a critical stage of the counselling process. This is because the counsellor needs to build the trust of the client towards them. It is a challenge to the counsellor where the counsellor needs to allay the client’s fears and encourages the disclosure with the client (Corey,

In this stage, counsellors begin to collect and clarify information related to the client’s reason for seeking counselling service. In this stage, counsellor finds out client’s problems, needs, misinterpretations and behaviours. The role of the counsellor is essential in facilitating clients by focusing on exploring, understanding, and analysing client’s perception about the issue that they want to resolve (Corey, 1977). By doing exploration, the counsellor is able to understand the client’s thought and avoid to misdiagnosis client’s issue (Welfel & Patterson, 2005). This process is successfully achieved through the act of asking questions mainly open-ended questions rather closed-ended questions. There have eight skills used in exploration which is active listening skills, open-ended questions, reflecting on feelings, summarising, warmth, respect, concreteness, paraphrasing, a reflection of feelings and having defined the problem the counsellor takes the client to the stage of mutual