In episode 177 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, Rory Lees-Oakes and Ken Kelly discuss the situation when clients don’t show up for therapy-or what we abbreviate as DNA (do not attend). Then, ‘Digital Counselling Revolution’ looks at how we manage and experience endings online. Finally, in ‘Practice Matters’, Rory talks with person-centred counsellor, trainer, author and doctoral student Lisa Cromar about autism-masking.
When Clients Don’t Show Up for Therapy
When clients don’t show up for therapy, this can feel very frustrating for you as the counsellor, especially if you are a student working hard to build your placement hours.
Ken and Rory provide the following tips for dealing with no-show clients:
Rory has produced a handout on what to do when clients don’t show up for therapy, which you can download here, or via the Counselling Study Resource (CSR). The CSR also contains a lecture and range of resources on this topic.
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Kelly – Graduated and now in practice.
How we manage and experience endings is very different online from face-to-face work. When working online and by telephone, session endings can feel more abrupt.
Moreover, neither client nor counsellor has the time they might usually spend walking out of the room and building, or travelling to where they need to be next. Thus, there is less immediate opportunity to process the session.
Ken and Rory suggest:
Unplanned endings can be especially challenging, and the presenters direct you to episode 163 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, in which they discussed the black-hole effect. You can also find a resource on the black-hole effect on our website.
You might also like to consider taking our course, Online and Telephone Counselling, which includes sections on online endings and the black-hole effect.
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Lisa Cromar has previously produced a lecture for Counsellor CPD (our online CPD library that contains over 150 hours of on-demand CPD lectures to support your development) on counselling autistic clients. Her latest offering on this specialist topic looks at recognising and working with autism-masking.
Lisa explains how she came to be diagnosed as autistic herself aged 37, and her particular interest since then in researching, writing about and working with autism.
Lisa and Rory talk about:
When Clients Don’t Show Up for Therapy
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