Relationships And Communication Counselling

RELATIONSHIP AND COMMUNICATION COUNSELLING - HOME LEARNING

There are many and varied reasons why relationships breakdown and irreconcilable differences is one of them. If you work with families, support them or want to understand your own family better this course is indispensible. With this course you will:

• Learn why relationships deteriorate
• Learn to help people involved in relationship breakdowns
• Enhance your skills as a counsellor
• Improve your career opportunities in counselling and psychology

• Gain confidence in your ability to support families
  

If you want to learn more about relationships and communication counselling, this could be the course for you.

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

1. Communication in Emerging Relationships
   • Introduction
   • Problems in relationships
   • Stages in relationships
   • Interpersonal communication
   • The communication process
   • Principles of communication
   • Communication filtered through perceptions
   • Verbal communication
   • Non verbal communication
   • Communication responsibility
   • Ineffective communication
   • Signs of relationship breakdownEffective communication
   • Abuse and violence in relationships
2. Self-Awareness and Communication Goals
   • Introduction
   • Negative communication
   • Self awareness
   • Setting the stage for change
   • Good communication is thoughtful
   • Intent
   • Awareness
   • Recognising reactive patterns
   • Relationship goals
3. Communication Patterns in Relationships
   • Negative patterns of communication
   • Aggressive patterns
   • Victim patterns
   • Avoidance patterns
   • Thought, feeling and action cycle
   • Thoughts and feelings differentiated
   • Emotions (feelings)
   • Patterns of thought
   • Behaviour (Actions)
   • Action skills
   • Communicating intent
4. Influences on Relating Behaviour and PBL.
   • Influences on communication
   • Environmental influences; family, culture, social, other
   • Global factors
   • Communicating and changing interpersonal needs
   • Changing expectations and needs
   • Adult psychological development
   • Erikson's psycho social stages
   • PBL to create and plan a counselling intervention for a couple who are experiencing relationship difficulties.
5. Communication Techniques and Skills
   • Introduction
   • Triads
   • Listening
   • Paraphrasing
   • Reflective responses; emotions
   • Reflective responses; content
   • Guidelines to prevent inauthentic listening
   • Open questions
   • Message statements or requests
   • Self disclosure
   • Encouraging clients to learn communication
6. Maintaining Relationships
   • Introduction
   • Kinds of, and stages in relationships
   • Factors to help maintain relationships
   • Agreements or contracts
   • Praise and gifts for service
   • Relationship nurturing communication
   • Straight talk

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

What You Will Do

• Determine ways in which we consciously communicate in a relationship, and ways in which we unconsciously communicate.
• Examine the thinking, behaviour, triangle and its role in establishing wholistic communications.
• Determine different negative messages that can damage relationships, and different positive messages that can nurture them.
• Define effective and inefective communication.
• Determine attitudes or expectations (thoughts and beliefs) that can result in destructive communication, and describe one likely negative outcome for each.
• Identify common needs and goals people wish to satisfy through relationships.
• Identify cultural or social influences that affect individual and family attitudes to happiness, self-expression, and relationships.
• Explain psychological theories and terms such as attribution theory, implicit personality theory, Gestalt impression formation, inference processes, stereotyping.
• List benefits and disadvantages of ‘self-disclosure’ and ‘self-disguise or concealment’ (lying)
• Discuss the role that judgment and other roadblocks plays in preventing a person from understanding and/or respecting another person’s point of view and feelings.
• Consider the ‘stages of a relationship’ models.
• Reflect on the languages of love and how praise and gifts can build a relationship.
• Discuss strategies and techniques for replacing negative communication patterns in relationships with positive patterns.

Some Sample course notes -

Setting the Stage for Change

To begin on our journey toward positive relationships, we might need to work through existing preconceptions such as unrealistic expectations, negativity, subconscious values, and self-defeating beliefs. This may require a deeper level of introspection and self-awareness than we are accustomed to, and can be quite challenging. It is not surprising that most people do not engage in this kind of purposeful reflection until something goes very wrong: an important relationship cracks at the seams; we feel ourselves changing into someone we do not like; we find ourselves becoming increasingly angry, frustrated, negative or depressed; we recognise a pattern of failed or failing relationships. Often, it is only when we hurt (ourselves or those we care about) that we begin the introspective work of establishing a positive context for future relationships. But it doesn’t have to start there.

A key placed to begin on our journey toward self awareness is examining our own belief system. If our belief system works well for us, then we will analyse life’s events and process challenges smoothly and find solutions easily. If our belief system contains negative thoughts such as “I’m never good at relating tactfully”, then we get stuck between unhelpful beliefs and the negative emotions this produces for us. A great way to start looking at what you believe is to ask yourself some questions. What do I think about my physical appearance? Use single words to describe yourself. Now tune in to the emotions you experience when thinking about this. Write down what you are feeling. Continue this process trying to identify the beliefs and values, and expectations you hold.

A further exercise that helps in the process of self discovery is asking yourself wether the following types of questions are true for you:

• If I don’t succeed at everything I am a failure.
• I don’t like social settings because I make a fool of myself
• No-one listens to my point of view
• People won’t like me if I don’t keep up my façade
• I will be seen as weak if I talk about my problems

Make up a list of actions (I finish my work at the last minute, I avoid talking about my problems), and work out where they came from (did a parent display the same trait?) and whether it is a positive behaviour for you or negative.

Don’t shy away from the irrational and down right negative beliefs. List them as well. Remember, beliefs are most harmful when they remain hidden from consciousness and are hard to live up to. After all, how can we change the thought processes that beliefs are the basis for, when we are not aware they exist?

The more you understand what you are all about, the better you will communicate and relate to others.

Take a Look at our Bookshop Sometime

Our bookshop offers a range of counseling and psychology courses which you may find useful. You can see our range of books at –

http://www.acsbookshop.com/books_productcategory.aspx?id=14

Not sure whether counseling is the right career for you or if you would like to know more. You can find out more about careers in psychology and counseling at - http://www.thecareersguide.com/articles.aspx?category=14

Why not have a look at -

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=359 Introduction to Psychology

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=509 Abnormal Psychology

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=662 Adolescent Psychology

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=367 Stress Management

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=366 Conflict Management

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=360 Psychology and Counselling

http://www.acsedu.com/Courses/product.aspx?id=475 Counselling Skills I

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