1. JAWAHAR NAVODAYA VIDYALAYA, South Garo Hills, Meghalaya
BASIC SKILLS AND QUALITIES
FOR
COUNSELLOR
BY – Mr. Nabajyoti Saud.
Art Teacher
JAWAHAR NAVODAYA VIDYALAYA,
South Garo Hills, Meghalaya

2. Counseling is a human centered job
Counseling is a human centered job. In a school setting a counselor has to deal with the children. So, professional qualification alone is not sufficient. A counselor must be basically interested in working with human beings. Since the counselor has to work with human beings, he can not expect a standard application or uniform result of their knowledge. So the counselor should be able to adjust according to need and nature of individual case.

3. COMMUNICATION SKILL
The effective communication is an urgent need for each and every individual. In day-to-day life, we keep communicating with people around us. This give and take relationship will be successful and effective, if we know how to convey our thoughts to others. In every communication, there is some loss of information. Hence effective communication implies the clarity.

4. A Counselor should have excellent communication skill both verbal and non verbal. He/ she must use language to the level of counselee, the language that client can understand. There should be fluency and the fluency provides direction to the session. The pitch, volume and the rate of speech should be cared.

5. NON-VERBAL
Eye contact – it should be between shifty eyes and fixed gaze.
Head nods: It indicates that counselor is listening and attentive. It gives a faith to the client that counselor is involved and committed.
Facial Expression: The facial expression is the mirror for the client. It should have happy look and smile but not always.
Distance: An ideal or healthy distance to be maintained between the counselor and the counselee.

6. RELATIONSHIP SKILL
Relationships are vitally important in all spheres of life and people create relationships for all sorts of reasons. We create relationships because we are social by nature. We form relationships because of our inner urge to be with others and also we are told by the voices of authority and tradition. But sustaining a healthy bond in our relationships depends largely on our interpersonal relationship skills.

7. Interpersonal relationship skills help us to relate in positive ways with our family members and others around. Relationships are like bank accounts: the more we deposit the greater they become. Therefore, the more we can draw from them. However, if you try to draw without depositing, it leads to disappointment. Generally the poor interpersonal relationship with others leads to stress, lack of communication, suspicion, isolation, prejudices, conflict, frustration, lack of sympathy and empathy, poor health etc.

8. EMPATHY SKILL
The empathy is the ability to imagine what life is like for another person even in a situation that we may not be familiar with. Empathy is the imaginative transposing of ourselves to the thinking, feeling and acting of others. The empathy has got significant role in the counselling process. It is the ability to feel and describe the thoughts of others. A counsellor must have empathy for the client.

9. EMOTIONAL STABILITY
The Emotional Stability is the ability to manage emotions and remain calm in any decision-making situation. Emotion is the effective aspect of consciousness. Emotion is generally considered to be a feeling about or reaction to certain important events or thoughts. An emotion may be either pleasant or unpleasant. When one is emotionally involved in a situation, he/she will not be in a position to be objective or think logically.

10. COMPETENCIES:
Knowledge: A counselor must have knowledge of child adolescent, personality development and the child psychology. Should also be competent to handle different situation and the knowledge of approaches, procedure and techniques of counseling.
Role Model: In all respect, in his behavior, habits and knowledge, the counselor is to be the role model for the counselee.

11. COMPETENCIES
Sense of Humour: The counselor should have the strong sense of humour.
Patience: Counselor should have the patience in any life situations.
Sensitivity: The counselor should have the strong sensitivity in the process of helping the client.
Non-judgmental: The counselor in the process of helping the client to find out where and when things went wrong and how to correct the same, should be non judgmental.

12. TRUSTWORTHINESS
It means the counselor is reliable and responsible person. It also means that counselor is honest, dependable and has skill to safeguard client’s communication. In other words, “we should not promise more than one can do, do exactly as one has promised”. A counselor should not divulge the client’s information to others; he should promise for the strict confidentiality and should keep it up.

13. OPENMINDEDNESS:
A counselor should not have fixed idea. One should be open to all types of idea and opinion. The open-mindedness will:
a) Allow the counselor to accommodate client’s feeling.
b) Allow the counselor to interact with different types of clients.

14. c) Allow the counselor to interact with even unacceptable by society or criminal minded people.
d) The open mindedness is pre requisite for the honest communication.
OBJECTIVITY:
It means without having personal bias and should be rational in thinking and impersonal without getting affected by emotions. A client should not be allowed to play with sympathy.

15. The objectivity is important because:
It helps the counselor to avoid getting caught up in certain client behaviour, dysfunctional communication pattern.
It also safeguards against developing dysfunctional emotional feeling about the client.
It is extremely important to maintain objectivity for the client’s sake. The objectivity provides client a new set of eyes to look into problem from a new angle.

16. RESOURCEFULNESS
The counselor should have the knowledge and have good contacts with people who work in different fields. It is necessary to collect information to guide the client. At any circumstances a career counselor should be a resourceful person. The counselor should have the list of experts, institutions in the field of health, law, banking, social service, training centers etc. The counselor may feel to refer the client to those agencies when the need arises.

17. PERSONALITY NECESSARY
Several studies have been made to determine the personality characteristics of counselor for effective counseling. The following personality characteristics are suggested by different scholars for an effective counselor.
Interested in helping: Since a counselor is to deal with human behaviour, he should be interested in helping others. This attitude helps the client to feel comfortable.

18. Perceptual sensitivity: The counselor should perceive and understand the thoughts and feelings of the client and should be sensitive to the clues given by the client.
Personal Adjustment: The counselor, like any other normal person may have adjustment problems. Counselor should try to adjust with these problems in constructive manner and should not try to solve problem, when he himself is facing difficulties.

19. Personal Security: Felling of personal security is an important
Personal Security: Felling of personal security is an important. A counselor may feel secure in counseling situation on the role of counselor but may feel insecure in other certain areas outside counseling.
Genuineness: The counselor should establish a genuine relationship with his client by which he can achieve his goal. Carl Roger rightly suggested that the counselor should be a real person to his client.

20. COUNSELLORS ATTITUDE
The nature of the counseling relationship depends largely on the attitude of counselor on the client.
BELIEF: A counselor must believe that a client must be treated with dignity, equality and individuality, in the value and worth of the counselee. The client should have faith on counselor about the ability to deal effectively with his or her problem.

21. VALUES: A counselor must follow social and moral values
VALUES: A counselor must follow social and moral values. He should be fully aware of his values because the changing of values is the important goal of counseling. Humanness is the most important value that a counselor should have.
ACCEPTANCE: The acceptance implies respect and liking for the client. It also implies the regards for the feeling. Acceptance means helping an individual. Counselor should also accept himself only then he can accept his client.

22. UNDERSTANDING: It means the ability to grasp clearly and completely the meaning that the client is trying to convey. The counselor should be able to participate completely in the clients communication. The understanding has four levels.
Knowledge about another individual, his behaviour, personality and interest.
A verbal and behavioural understanding
Knowledge of individuals internal world, his fear, love and anxieties.
Self understanding.

23. The counsellor word C – Caring, Committed. O – Open Minded.
U – Understandable.
N – Neutral or Objective.
S – Systematic or Service oriented.
E – Empathetic, Expect no Reward.
L – Listens with Interest.
L – Loyal to the Client’s Welfare.
O – Obliging.
R – Resourceful.

24. THANK YOU ALL