WEL2390

Practice skills for human service workers

Leah Zaks

8 points
* 4 hours per week (plus at least 2 hours per week for videotaped co-counselling)
* First semester
* Caulfield
* Prerequisite: WEL1340

Objectives On completion of this subject students should be familiar with a range of approaches to interpersonal counselling; be aware of the ideological differences underlying different counselling models; be able to conduct a basic counselling interview, demonstrating attendance, empathy and congruence; be able to accept constructive feedback from video-taped interviews and commentaries on these; be able to formulate in writing personal statements of themselves as counsellors in relation to the material presented in the subject.

Synopsis An overview of various forms of counselling intervention including individual, group and systems approaches. Alternative ideological and theoretical frameworks in counselling, for example humanistic, dynamic and behavioural models. Counselling as a role. Responsibility, listening, confronting and empathy. Individual and group processes. Facilitation and exploration of personal and group issues. Counselling using video feedback.

Assessment Presentation of a videotaped counselling session: 25%
* Co-counselling case notes: 25%
* Essay (3000 words): 50%

Prescribed texts

Zastrow C The practice of social work 5th edn, Brooks Cole, 1995

Recommended texts

Corsini R Current psychotherapies 4th edn, Peacock, 1989
Egan G The skilled helper: A systematic approach to effective helping 4th edn, Brooks Cole, 1990
Evans R I Carl Rogers: The man and his ideas Dutton, 1975
Kopp S If you meet the budda on the road kill him! Sheldon, 1974
Rosenblatt D Opening doors Harper and Row, 1976
Spence D P The Freudian metaphor: Toward paradigm change in psychoanalysis Norton, 1987
Singer J Boundaries of the soul: The practice of Jungian psychology Anchor Press, 1973
A more extensive reading list is supplied to students.