Competencies of Counselors

• Counselors who are competent display the ability to listen, communicate, empathize and be present.

  Interpersonal Skills
• Counselors have the capacity to accept others, awareness of ethical and moral choices and sensitivity to values held by client and self.


  Personal Beliefs and Attitude
• Counselors have the ability to understand and assess the client’s problems.

  Conceptual Ability
• Counselors must have no irrational beliefs that are destructive to counseling relationships, secure personal boundaries, must carry no social prejudice, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism.

  Personal Soundness
• Counselors must have a knowledge of when and how to carry out specific interventions, understanding the rationale behind techniques, and possession of a wide repertoire of intervention.

  Mastery of Techniques
• This would consist of awareness of family and work relationships of clients and the impact of agency on the clients.

  Ability to understand and work within social system
• Counselors must have the capacity to be curious about client’s backgrounds and problems.

  Openness to learning and inquiry