NATURE AND SCOPE OF HELPING RELATIONSHIPS

• Helping relationship


  A process of human connection between helpers and clients that occurs face-to-face
• Connection is the essential characteristic of any helping relationship
• Helping relationships can occur in

  • Counseling
  • Healthcare
  • Human resource management
  • Teaching
  • Voluntary agency work
• Rogers' definition of a helping relationship


  At least one of the parties has the intent of promoting the growth, development, maturity, improved functioning and improved coping with life of the other
• Okun's definition of a helping relationship


  The development of a warm, trustful relationship between the helper and helpee underlies any strategy or approach to the helping process and is a basic condition for the success of any helping process
• Miars and Haverson's definition of a helping relationship


  The ultimate goal should be to promote the development of more effective and adaptive behavior in the client
• Pepinsky and Pepinsky's definition of a helping relationship


  A hypothetical construct to designate the inferred character of the observable interaction between two individuals
• Schertzer and Stone's definition of a helping relationship


  The endeavor, by interacting with others, to contribute in a facilitating, positive way to their improvement
• The helping relationship is a unique and dynamic process through which one individual assists another to grow in a positive direction and actualize their potential for a meaningful life
• Helping relationship


  • It serves as the foundation on which the professions of counseling and psychotherapy rest
  • It is the principal process vehicle for both helper and helpee to express and fulfill their needs, as well as to coalesce the helpee's problems with the helper's expertise in a positive interface
  • It is the process of sharing wealth, knowledge or skill with one who happens to have less of these valuable commodities
• Characteristics of the helping relationship

  • Honesty
  • Intensity
  • Growth and Change
  • Support
  • Privacy
  • Affective-ness
• The helping relationship is intricate and difficult to lessen its components without annihilating its meaning
• Stages of the helping relationship


  • Increased awareness of self and others
  • Expanded exploration of self and environment
  • Internalization of new and more productive thoughts and actions
  • Stabilization of new behavior
• Brammer's phases of the helping relationship

  1. Building Relationship: Preparing the client and opening the relationship, Clarifying the problem or concern, Structuring the process, Building a relationship

  2. Facilitating Positive Action: Exploration, Consolidation, Planning, Termination
• Purkey and Schmidt's stages of building the helping relationship

  1. Preparation: Having the desire for a relationship, Expecting good things, Preparing the setting, Reading the situation

  2. Initiating Responding: Choosing caringly, Acting appropriately, Honoring the client, Ensuring reception

  3. Follow-up: Interpreting responses, Negotiating position, Evaluating the process, Developing trust
• Egan's phases of the helping relationship

  1. Relationship building: Challenging the client to find ways to a foundation of mutual trust and client understanding

  2. Challenging the client to "try on" new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving

  3. Facilitating actions that lead toward change and growth in the client's life outside the counseling relationship
• Developmental stages of the helping relationship

  1. Relationship Development

  2. Extended Exploration

  3. Problem Resolution

  4. Termination and Follow-up
• Core conditions of the helping relationship

  • Empathic Understanding
  • Respect and Positive Regard
  • Genuineness and Congruence
  • Concreteness
  • Warmth
  • Immediacy
  • Cultural Awareness
• Helping relationship strategies

  • Attending and Encouraging
  • Restating and Paraphrasing
  • Clarifying and Perception Checking
  • Summarizing
  • Questioning
  • Probing and Leading
  • Self-disclosure
  • Confrontation
  • Responding to Nonverbal Cues
• Basic steps for the helping relationship

  1. State the problem clearly

  2. Identify and accept ownership of the problem

  3. Propose every possible option without evaluation

  4. Evaluate each proposed alternative in terms of implementation realities and hypothesized consequences

  5. Release the final list of alternatives, their consequences, and the risks involved

  6. Decide to implement one or more alternatives

  7. Determine how and when to implement the plan

  8. Generalize

  9. Evaluate the implementation
• Computerized age


  The focus is on automated equipment, only facts are dealt with, no personal feelings or opinions are revealed, emotional topics are off limits
• What makes the internet so alluring?

  • Anonymity
  • Convenience
  • Escape
• The helping professions

  • Social Work
  • Psychiatry
  • Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Counseling
• Counseling


  The application of mental health, psychological or human development principles, through cognitive, affective, behavioral or systematic interventions, strategies that address wellness, personal growth, or career development, as well as pathology
• Counseling is a profession, deals with wellness, personal growth, career, and pathological concerns, is conducted with persons who are considered to be functioning well and those who are having more serious problems, is theory-based, and includes various specialties
• Commonalities of helping professions through helping relationships

  • Nonprofessional helpers
  • Generalist human services workers
  • Professional helpers
• Differences in the nature of work of helping professions

  • Educational, vocational, and school counselors
  • Rehabilitation Counselors
  • Mental health counselors
  • Substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselor
  • Pastoral Counselor