Reasonable Adjustments for Students - Feelings on Breaking Confidentiality
In episode 127 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, Ken Kelly and Rory Lees-Oakes look at recording therapy sessions. 'Check-In with CPCAB' then looks at reasonable adjustments that can be made by centres to help establish a level playing field for all students. Finally, the presenters explore the feelings that might arise in the counsellor and the client when confidentiality has to be broken.
Recording Therapy Sessions (starts at 2.15 mins)
Recording therapy sessions is a key part of most counselling training, as a way of your tutor listening to your work to ensure that you are fit to practise before you begin your placement.
Qualified therapists may also choose to record sessions so that they can play back and learn from them, and share these with their supervisors. Indeed, Carl Rogers and his colleagues used to do this regularly.
It is natural to find recording therapy sessions stressful, especially in the early days of doing so. Ken and Rory provide tips to help you become more comfortable with this:
Practise recording in peer sessions so that you become familiar with the feeling of having a recording device in the room.
Use the right equipment when recording therapy sessions: neither mobile phones nor dictaphones are well suited to the task; instead, search online (perhaps on auction sites such as eBay) for 'handheld professional audio recorders'.
Before you start recording your session, do a short test recording and check that this sounds clear (rather than starting your proper recording with an exchange about whether or not the machine is working properly).
Ensure that any equipment you buy is digital - so that you can upload your recording to your computer, and transfer it electronically to your tutor.
When recording your assessed session, work with a peer who you have worked with before, so that you have already developed a therapeutic relationship.
Don't worry about how your voice sounds - our own voices always sound strange to us when we listen back (as we're not used to hearing ourselves 'from the outside'!). You might find it helpful to listen to your own voice recordings beforehand to get used to this.
When listening back to your recording, focus on your interventions (not the client's story), looking at your responses, the skills used, and their effect on the client/relationship.
You can download a free Counselling Tutor handout on choosing the right recording equipment here. It is also available through the Handouts Vault and Counselling Study Resource (CSR).
Check-In with CPCAB: Reasonable Adjustments for Students (starts at 16.40 mins)
Rory speaks to Kelly Budd (Qualification Service Manager) at CPCAB (Counselling & Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body) about reasonable adjustments in assessment.
Some counselling students may be neurodiverse - for example, having specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia) or physical impairments (e.g. to sight). If these affect their ability to perform in a standard assessment, CPCAB can adjust the style of this to meet the candidate's needs and to ensure that there is a level playing field for all candidates.
While CPCAB tries hard to make its exam papers as accessible to all as possible (e.g. by using fonts shown by research to be the most legible), you might also be able to have:
a computer (rather than hand-writing)
a separate room
a reader and/or scribe
an interpreter
extra time
special font types or sizes
coloured paper.
If you think you might need any such adjustments, it's really important that you tell your tutor as soon as possible, as they can take time to organise. Communicate what your issue is, how it affects your study, and possible obstacles you can foresee on the course.
Each person's difficulties are unique, and so - while the tutor has a responsibility to treat these with understan...
In episode 127 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, Ken Kelly and Rory Lees-Oakes look at recording therapy sessions. 'Check-In with CPCAB' then looks at reasonable adjustments that can be made by centres to help establish a level playing field for all students. Finally, the presenters explore the feelings that might arise in the counsellor and the client when confidentiality has to be broken.
Recording Therapy Sessions (starts at 2.15 mins)
Recording therapy sessions is a key part of most counselling training, as a way of your tutor listening to your work to ensure that you are fit to practise before you begin your placement.
Qualified therapists may also choose to record sessions so that they can play back and learn from them, and share these with their supervisors. Indeed, Carl Rogers and his colleagues used to do this regularly.
It is natural to find recording therapy sessions stressful, especially in the early days of doing so. Ken and Rory provide tips to help you become more comfortable with this:
Practise recording in peer sessions so that you become familiar with the feeling of having a recording device in the room.
Use the right equipment when recording therapy sessions: neither mobile phones nor dictaphones are well suited to the task; instead, search online (perhaps on auction sites such as eBay) for 'handheld professional audio recorders'.
Before you start recording your session, do a short test recording and check that this sounds clear (rather than starting your proper recording with an exchange about whether or not the machine is working properly).
Ensure that any equipment you buy is digital - so that you can upload your recording to your computer, and transfer it electronically to your tutor.
When recording your assessed session, work with a peer who you have worked with before, so that you have already developed a therapeutic relationship.
Don't worry about how your voice sounds - our own voices always sound strange to us when we listen back (as we're not used to hearing ourselves 'from the outside'!). You might find it helpful to listen to your own voice recordings beforehand to get used to this.
When listening back to your recording, focus on your interventions (not the client's story), looking at your responses, the skills used, and their effect on the client/relationship.
You can download a free Counselling Tutor handout on choosing the right recording equipment here. It is also available through the Handouts Vault and Counselling Study Resource (CSR).
Check-In with CPCAB: Reasonable Adjustments for Students (starts at 16.40 mins)
Rory speaks to Kelly Budd (Qualification Service Manager) at CPCAB (Counselling & Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body) about reasonable adjustments in assessment.
Some counselling students may be neurodiverse - for example, having specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia) or physical impairments (e.g. to sight). If these affect their ability to perform in a standard assessment, CPCAB can adjust the style of this to meet the candidate's needs and to ensure that there is a level playing field for all candidates.
While CPCAB tries hard to make its exam papers as accessible to all as possible (e.g. by using fonts shown by research to be the most legible), you might also be able to have:
a computer (rather than hand-writing)
a separate room
a reader and/or scribe
an interpreter
extra time
special font types or sizes
coloured paper.
If you think you might need any such adjustments, it's really important that you tell your tutor as soon as possible, as they can take time to organise. Communicate what your issue is, how it affects your study, and possible obstacles you can foresee on the course.
Each person's difficulties are unique, and so - while the tutor has a responsibility to treat these with understan...
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