Students of counselling and psychotherapy are often required to record and transcribe skills sessions – and to add a commentary that explains your rationale for each response, whether the response was effective, and how you could improve it (if relevant). The task of transcribing can be very long-winded and time-consuming.
Rory and Ken offer various tips on recording and transcribing counselling sessions:
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Clause 32 of the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions, published by the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (2015), states: ‘We will give careful consideration to how we reach agreement with clients and contract with them about the terms on which our services will be provided.’
It is important to have a contract so that the client has the information they need to make an informed choice, and to help balance the power dynamic in the therapist-client relationship. It is good practice for the contract to be in writing, and to give the client a copy of this to take away with them.
Rory recommends that the contract should cover:
You can download Rory’s handout on this topic here, or it is also available in the Handouts Vault and Counselling Study Resource (CSR).
Contracting in Counselling
It was Albert Ellis who originally developed rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT), which was a precursor of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), developed later by Aaron Beck.
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Ellis was strongly influenced by the Greek Stoic philosophers. One of these, Epictetus, was a Greek-born slave of Rome in the first century. He became a great philosopher and teacher, and was eventually granted his freedom. Although he didn’t write down his teachings, which are based in Stoic philosophy, others did. Epictetus is reported as having said: ‘Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.’ This quote appeared (initially in Greek, then later in Latin) in the Enchiridion, which was written by Lucius Flavius Arrianus, a student of Epictetus.
Stoicism taught the development of self-control and fortitude as a way of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy held that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allowed people to understand universal reason. For the Stoic philosophers, ‘reason’ meant not only using logic, but also understanding natural processes. They believed that living according to reason and virtue was living in harmony with the divine order of the universe, in recognition of common reason and everyone’s essential value.
Contracting in Counselling