Characteristics and Behaviors of Effective Counseling

Effective mental health counselors develop and apply certain characteristics and behaviors with clients. One way to understand and recognize effective counseling characteristics and behaviors is to critically reflect on your own mental health counseling session or an observation of another mental health counselor’s session. Reflecting on what occurred within the session helps you to evaluate which characteristics and behaviors are present, which ones you need to develop, and which ones you may manifest in your life, but also need to expand.

This Assignment gives you some hands-on practice with analyzing a case study and evaluating the effectiveness of the mental health counselor’s characteristics and behaviors. You also consider how the mental health counselor’s characteristics and behaviors may influence the session.

To prepare for this Assignment:
Review Chapter 5 in the course text, Orientation to the Counseling Profession: Advocacy, Ethics, and Essential Professional Foundations, focusing on effective counseling characteristics. Think about how each of these would affect your behaviors as a mental health counselor.
Review the media program, paying attention to the characteristics of effective counseling.
Think about effective and ineffective counseling characteristics and the behaviors associated with them.
Review the Transcript: Effective Counselor Characteristics and Behaviors document located in the Learning Resources. Think about which of the mental health counselor’s characteristics and behaviors in the case study were effective and which were ineffective. Consider how these characteristics influenced the counseling session.
Think about whether characteristics and behaviors are consistent with counseling as an art or a science, or both, and why.

The Assignment (2–3 pages)
Describe at least two effective characteristics and/or behaviors in the case study and explain why they were effective.
Describe at least two ineffective characteristics and/or behaviors and explain why they were ineffective.
Explain how the mental health counselor’s characteristics and/or behaviors may influence the session in the case study.

Support your Assignment with specific references to all resources using appropriate APA format and style used in its preparation. You are asked to provide a reference list for all resources, including those in the Learning Resources for this course.

Due by Day 7.
Cooper, J. B. (2014). Counseling microskills. In B. T. Erford (Ed.), Orientation to the counseling profession: Advocacy, ethics, and essential professional foundations (2nd ed.).(pp. 194–214). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Sheperis, D. S., & Ellis, C. M. (2014). The counseling process. In B. T. Erford (Ed.), Orientation to the counseling profession: Advocacy, ethics, and essential professional foundations (2nd ed).(pp. 160–193). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Levitt, D. H. (2001). Active listening and counselor self-efficacy: Emphasis on one microskill in beginning counselor training. Clinical Supervisor, 20(2), 101–115.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Document: Vignettes: Counseling Microskills Discussion
Note: You will use this document to complete this week’s Discussion.
Document: Transcript: Effective Counselor Characteristics and Behaviors
Note: You will use this document to complete this week’s Assignment.