 Okay, so good morning, the follow field are doing good. Welcome to week 10. Welcome to all the online students, students who are there in person as well as to the e-learning students. I hope all of you have completed your assessments. Please ensure that you get that done by next week. There is a due date for that. Okay, we'll get started. If you'll have a quick overview of what we have been covering as of now, we have been looking at counselling skills. We spent the last three classes looking at skills of attending. We looked at responding skills and last week we looked at questioning. Today we're going to wrap up with the last two skills as important as they are because it helps to wrap the entire session and bring the counselling to a place of understanding, to a place of owning up responsibility for their own, for their issues and what they could do to bring about some action towards resolving their concerns of their issues. Okay, so we're going to be looking at two skills today. One is personalising and the other is initiating. Okay, so personalising and initiating is what we're going to look at. I'm just going to present my screen. Okay, all right. So this cups the skill of personalising. If you're looking at the word, the meaning of personalise and especially when you're talking, when someone comes to you with a struggle, often you will find that there is a lot of helpless talk about a third person or about the other person in question. It could be, you know, their friends or their employees, their family members, their spouse, their parents, their children or somebody else, right, the focus. When someone's coming with you with a problem, a lot of times the focus is on a third person. Like if someone's coming and talking to you about their marriage, the focus will be on their spouse or someone's talking to you about parenting issues, the focus is on the child or if they're talking about their work issues, the focus is on the employer or if you're talking about friends, the focus is on a specific, on another person. Now, what happens is when the focus is on others, they are externalising their experiences. So what does that mean? When when we're talking about how someone is impacting our situation, what it indirectly means is that I don't have any responsibility in this problem myself. The problem is all with the other person. So that's what it means by externalising. So they are putting the responsibility on somebody else. So we always pass on the blame to somebody else for the struggles or the problems that we may be facing. Now, in counseling, you know, it is you understand that the point is, is not to change the other person. But we would want to pass on to personalise understanding of what they are going through and how they may be contributing or they may be responsible for the situation that they may be in. So what does personalising do? Personalising the word in itself says, I am taking a certain problem and trying to personalise it. That is, to see how much I am responsible or how much I contribute or what is my what is what is my take or what is what how do I handle it. So personalising helps the counselling in internalising their experience. So like we said, if they externalise it when they are taking, when they're putting the blame on somebody else, but you're helping to internalise it. So when you focus, when you help them to focus upon themselves, they internalise their experience. Now that, remember that, yeah, so when, so these are the two things that we said, you know, you focus on others. And so that's when they externalise their experiences. But when you focus upon themselves, they internalise their experiences. So what does this word internalising have to do? It makes the counselling accountable for their own experience. They are taking onus or they are taking responsibility. They are looking at it from also their point of view and what probably needs to be changed as a result of this internalising that happens. So this is extremely essential for counsellors to do in order to move forward with the next part of after you've done the exploration, after you've done the finding out and what the problem is in order for them to understand it, they need to actually personalise and make that experience their own, make them accountable to that, to the experience that they are working on. So personalising emphasises internalising these experience, which makes us see it a lot more clearly. So in other words, we really become human as we internalise our understanding of ourselves. So we grow ourselves when we begin to know ourselves. We begin to see what, how have I contributed with what is there within me that could cause the problem that is there externally. So this is a very important part of counselling. When we are being very directive in our approach, which means directive in approaches when we're giving too many advices, we fail to allow a counsellor to really internalise their problem, to really look at their own experience and bring about change. Because when you get into an advise mode of being directive, so let's say, you know, our case of Susan, you remember Susan's case where she is the first very case we've spoken about so many times about Susan being fed up of her marriage and she wants to call it the quits because her husband fries on her. So in that case, when, what are you helping Susan to do? Or when you're giving an advice to Susan, why don't you talk to him? Or why don't you do this? Or why do you do that? Or why don't you get the help of somebody else? You, what you manage to do is not allowed her to internalise her problem to see, okay, what am I doing to contribute to this? For her to really come to a process of change and growth. So it needs to be internalised. And that's why this skill of personalising becomes very, very important for a shift to take place, for a change to take place. All this while, we've been building rapport, we've been helping our counsellor see that we care for them, that their feelings are important. There is no judgement, we are discussing things with them to help them see that we have understood. So all of this, it builds up to this place where now you are personalising, you are helping them see how, or you would like them to see how they are contributing to the struggle that they may be going through. Okay. Now this is important because, like I said, it helps in the growth of the counselling session in itself, okay. So what are you doing while you're personalising, you're enabling the counsellor to understand where they are in relation to where they want to be. You, when you personalise the issue, when you help them to internalise it, they will tell you, you know, this is where I am and that is where I'd like to be. So they begin to see the difference between where they are and where they would like to be because at the end of it, you want to help your counsellor move from a particular space to another, sorry, to another place. And that's why personalising is key in working with your counsellors. Now, what do you personalise? You personalise three things, four things. Feeling, you personalise the meaning of the problem, the personalise the problem in itself and the goal. What does the person want to do about it? Four things, you're personalising the feeling, which means you're helping them actually take a responsibility of what they're feeling. Like, for example, when the counsellor says, you know, I'm very upset because so and so did that, through your responses, you're helping them internalise and accept and come to a place of really internalising and saying, okay, this is the way that I'm feeling about it. I am feeling upset or I am feeling angry. So it is, it's a personal emotion. That's why responding skills are very, very important because your counsellor can tell you a content of a certain situation. But unless and until you match it up with a feeling, they are not going to experience their emotions for it. And that's why responding skills are so important in counselling so that you can prepare them for this stage of actually personalising that feeling. So when a counsellor is telling you, you know, this happened with my spouse. This is what went wrong. This is what is going on. You know, we had a couple of arguments with each other. He's told you, she or he has told you just to content. But when you're going deeper into saying, I see that it makes you very disturbed, or I see that it brings you to a place of unsettling. So you have explored the feeling that they may be going through. Now, how do you personalize the feeling when you're actually saying you seem really upset and you don't want to be this way, or you feel extremely unsettled about what's happening? You're actually helping to personalize the feeling. So these four things personalizing feeling, meaning, problem and goal is very important. So when you're personalizing, the first and foremost thing that you must do as you are engaging in that is to be able to build a strong solid base of understanding, which means your sessions prior, your initial sessions of getting to know them, getting to understand that problem must be solid. It must come from a place of solid understanding. There should be a good understanding about what the problem is that they have come to you with. And that's why, you know, if you if you remember whenever we've spoke whenever we've had these road plays, I keep telling you, don't get into solution mode. Don't get into fixing it because you have not dug deep inside to really peel the onion to really understand the core of it. So before you begin to personalize this, you must build a solid base of understanding your counseling, their problem, their situation, what they may be feeling, how helpless they are, that should be there. And that can happen only when your communication is, you know, you're able to communicate whatever you've understood. That's what it means by interchangeable base of communication is you're being able to communicate and express what you have understood. Okay. Now, in addition to doing that, you also need to respond to their feeling. They should feel adequately heard, adequately understood, adequately having went out their emotions well enough before you can get to the stage of personalizing. So one of the ways that you would know that you haven't responded enough to feelings is when when you're attempting to personalize, they're going back and back again to the same situation, which means they haven't had enough of actually talking and discussing and bearing out their feelings and emotions about the particular situation. So personalizing, one of the important things is to build a good understanding of the counseling of their situation, of the of whatever is the conditions that they're coming with. And this is done by a good communication. And secondly, it's done by being able to respond to feelings. So this is something that needs to be done. You cannot personalize within two minutes of your session with the counseling, right? That you can't, when they're telling you about, you know, this morning, I had a fight with my neighbor, the second sentence cannot be, would you like to tell me what is it? How did you contribute to it? You can't say that, you know, that makes it extremely insensitive because they feel you haven't heard them enough. So they need to go through that space, that situation where they're able to express their feeling, talk about it, come to a place of beginning to see how mad or how angry or how difficult that situation is for them. Okay. Now, once this is done, is when you're getting into the next part of it. What I'd like to do is probably take you through a certain example, I'll build it up in a little, a little by little so that, you know, it makes more sense of explaining what it means to personalize feeling, to personalize meaning, problem and goal. Okay. So the example here is a second BU student who says that things are not going so good for her in school. I just seem to be floundering. I fake it every day, but inside and really down, because I'm not sure of what to do or where I want to go. So here, you know, even after they're relating all of this, you need to adequately respond to her feeling. So what do you think she feels? And I just, just put a very simple, you feel sad, but there are many things that you can build on. You know, you feel disappointed, you feel that you are being very pretentious, or you feel there is, there's nothing real about the way that you are dealing with people. You know, so, so all of this, the more that you are able to respond to that feelings, the much more of meat that you really get. But nevertheless, what I'm trying to hear is says, when a person is talking about their situation, go to respond to how they're feeling, you should adequately explore that part of it, how they feel about the situation before you move forward. Okay. So when you are, when in this case, in Anita's case, when you are, when she's actually bringing about her feelings, you're helping her to see that she feels some bad or sad about something that is external. So you're actually getting her to take onus for what she is feeling. And why is this important? Why should we get the feelings out and be open? Because once they talk about it, it's how they learn to deal with that. They're able to, they're able to express and they're able to find a way to deal with their anger or their sadness or whatever emotions that they may be going through. So the more that you explore the feelings, the more likely they will begin to channel them constructively, right? Instead of maybe shouting or screaming, they have become more aware of their anger and they say, okay, maybe next time I should probably walk out of the room. So you're actually helping them when you explore their feelings to get them to bring about some way of how these, these emotions can be channeled properly, can be, can be, you know, swerved in such a way that is actually helpful for them. Okay. So you, so even as, as you're doing this, you, it's important to, okay, I'm not gonna get into that slide. It's important to respond not just to the feeling, but also to the content. What are they feeling sad about? What are they feeling bad about rather than just saying, oh, you feel very disappointed, but you could, you could build on, can you feel disappointed that, you know, you're not able to, able to work through your classes or you feel helpless that there's nobody to help you or you can build on it. So adding to the feeling as well as to the content is important because it makes, it helps them to merge the two. What are they feeling sad about? What are they feeling upset about? Okay. So taking back the Anita's example, where you're personalizing the feeling as well as the content here. She, so the counselor here says you feel upset because you're struggling with schoolwork. So there is a, an emotion and there's a content. Why am I upset? Because I can't do this. Why am I sad? Because I'm faking it every day. Why am I uncertain? Because I don't know what to do and I don't know where to go, right? So these things do need to come together. Why are they feeling a certain way and what makes them feeling and that makes it more personalized? That helps them to see, I'm feeling like this because I'm struggling at schoolwork because it helps you. Why does this help you? Now, if you were just to say, okay, you feel upset and leave it at that, you're not helping yourself as a counselor to pick on something that she may potentially want to change. So we hear she's saying, I feel upset, you feel upset because you're struggling with schoolwork. So there is some potential change that she can do and that's what you wanted to do to, to internalize the fact that, okay, I am struggling with schoolwork and I have to do something to find a way out. So that's why it's important to merge the feeling alongside with the content. Otherwise, you're going to get lost if you're just going to say, okay, you feel upset, you feel angry, you feel sad, you feel confused. Sorry. It is going to get you not knowing what to do next. But if you're able to merge two things like this, you feel upset when you're struggling with schoolwork, the schoolwork becomes something that she can look forward to figuring out some change because she will personalize it. Okay. So if I were to personalize this, if I were to move into the next thing, I'd say, okay, you feel upset because you're struggling with schoolwork. So I may ask, what would you like your schoolwork to look like? Right? Or what do you think would be one or two things that if you did do would improve your schoolwork? So here, whatever I've done, I've gone back to the council and got them to think about ways of how they can improve their schoolwork. Right? And that's why this is so important of connecting the feeling as well as the content together. Okay. So once you do that, you're helping them move into another place of action. Okay. So this is personalizing feeling and alongside with feeling it is personalizing the content. Okay. Next one is your personalizing the meaning, personalizing the meaning of the problem. So what are some of the things that you would want to know is what is the effect of the situation on the client? Now, for example, in Anita's case, she's not able to manage her schoolwork. So what implications happen as a result of her not paying attention in school? So are you saying what are the consequences or what are the effects of that situation on her? So when you are personalizing, you're helping to build a certain, what do you say, a case or a base to help them begin to see that, yes, I have a part to play in this and I must try and work this out. So you're asking what have been the implications been as a result of this situation. So with Anita's case, you're saying, okay, because you have not been able to pay attention at school, what have been some of the effects? So she said, okay, you know, I have lost my friends or my teachers keep shouting at me or my parents keep shouting at me, I feel very low. So she's able to she's she's helping you to realize that there is a meaning to this schoolwork that cannot that is not being done. There's a meaning to it, because that's something like a helpful tool for you to help a motivator into doing something. Okay, so I hope you're I hope all of you are with me. Is everybody with me? I'm sorry, I can't see. Okay, all right. Okay, so so the the fact of, so that's what we mean by to understand the implications of what is the effects of a certain situation on the council that really helps them to understand the meaning. Again, another meaning that you will need to determine is what are the beliefs that causes your counseling to feel the way about that situation? What are the assumptions that they have made with regard to the with regard to the with the problem? So, so for example, this girl Anita, when when you're looking at her, you know, when you're looking at this the situation, you're looking at, like I said, implications and what what could be the certain beliefs that she may have. All right. So, and this is a formula that you use you feel dash because you and let's look at the example. And then I think it will it will be more helpful. Okay, so here it's the same situation. There's nothing that's changed. But if you look at the example, you feel upset because your future will be affected if you don't do well in college this year. So this is an implication, right? It's an implication that if she doesn't do well, her future would be effective if she doesn't do well. So that's the first one, the implication. There could also be some kind of thoughts or assumptions that she has made as a result of this situation. Now, the example is not here. But maybe, you know, if she were to say, I would ask, okay, but when you haven't done well in school, what has that meant to you? So she may say, I feel stupid, or I feel I can't do anything right. I feel I'm incapable. All right. So this is the assumption that she has made all because she has not done well in school that she is incapable or she's not she's not effective in her in her work. So this is what so how I would put that is if I want to personalize and look at the assumption. So I may say, you know, you feel really concerned because because of the fact that you haven't done so well in school, it really has impacted the way that you see yourself or it is impacted your your capability, it has impacted your confidence. So going back to the earlier slide, I have looked at what the assumption is. The assumption could be that unless I do well, I'm not smart. I'm not I'm not confident because I am not doing well. So you see that there is an assumption that she could have been have made as a result of the of the problem. And that's what you want to highlight, you know, you feel upset because you feel you are incapable of doing things because you have done badly in school or because you have lost marks or whatever. Right. So so you're you're highlighting that and helping her see the kind of assumptions that she's probably made as a result of this this issue. Right. And that's what you want to if you remember the ABCDE model, you are really going to help help them to dispute a certain belief that they are operating from. Okay, I am I'm not able to do well in school because I have no capacity or because I'm dumb or because I'm stupid. So that becomes a personal belief, which is what you want to help them to see and personalize. Right. You feel you feel upset because you feel you're not capable enough to do something. Right. So my next question then would turn to be if that was a if that was an assumption that could change what is an assumption that you would make. Right. So here I am probing as to what is a certain belief that she could operate from rather than this belief to knowing that this belief is not helping her operate in class. What is another belief that she could operate from? Okay, so this is why personalizing the meaning also becomes very, very important to help them. First of all, see what are the implications or the effects of the situation. And secondly, what are the beliefs they have created or what are the assumptions they've made as a result of the situation that is at hand. Okay. All right. I hope this makes sense. I hope everyone is following. Sorry, I'm unable to see anybody. I think it's sitting wrong with my screen. I'm just going to stop sharing and I'll share once again. Students, are you able to see me? Okay. All right. Okay. Okay, I'll just share that once again. Now I wasn't able to see you. Okay. All right. So we looked at personalizing the feeling, personalizing the meaning. Now it is to personalize the problem. Okay. What does it mean to come to a place to understand that you have to come to figure out that this is a problem that you need to resolve. You need to bring about some, some change, some difference in the way that it's happened. So by, what are you doing? By personalizing the meaning, you have begun to help them understand their situation in terms of its internal significance. Right? What, how is it significant for them internally? But they have not yet come in terms with their behavior and how they may have contributed to the situation. So this is where you define problem in new ways, which further will help them come to new goals. So you need to define the problem because you want them to define a goal. Okay. So when you're personalizing the problem, what you're actually doing is what is there about them that is contributing to the problem? What is the problem in them that contributes to this larger issue? Okay. And, and here is a simple, again, a formula. So you feel dashed because you cannot, like, you feel upset because you cannot study or you cannot score or you cannot get into, you know, you're not, you're not able to resolve the struggle with your, with your spouse, whatever. So what you're doing is you are, again, creating a space for them to really understand what, what comes next, which is to, to see the problem and see how they may be contributing to that problem in itself. Okay. We'll just take the example a little further. Okay. So in this, the next base of information you have is I am the school basketball steep captain, and I spend two hours every evening in practice. I am left with no time or energy to study. Okay. So, so this is again an added information that has come about. So when you want to personalize the problem, you, you could probably, you bring about something like this, you feel concerned or upset because you cannot spend enough time studying. So here it has gone back to them that, okay, I need to study, but I'm also involved in the basketball team. And because of that, I don't have enough time to study. So you're actually getting them to see how they are contributing to the problem. Maybe it's not their proper time management or it's, they aren't able to prioritize whatever it may be. The idea is to bring them back to a place of showing that this problem is mine to resolve. Okay. I don't have enough time to study. And that's why I'm not able to study. It's, that's what you are attempting to do through these, through these, these interactions. Right. So here you feel upset because you cannot spend enough time studying or you feel concerned because there is so much to do on the sports front that you may be too exhausted before you can actually go study. So you're actually helping the counselor see, okay, this is the problem. And this is how I'm dealing with this is what, what is happening as a result of my not being able to do something. Now, even as you're doing this, it's very important to stay tuned to how the, the counseling feels about themselves in relation to their problem or deficits, like for this girl, Anita, the very fact that she's doing something, you know, in sports, but she's beginning to see that, that she can't do these two things well enough. Okay. It's like a realization that I thought I could handle my studies and my basketball, but I realize that I'm not unable to do that. Okay. So it is important for us to see how they feel about things that are deficit in them, things that, that they are not very good at. All right. And keep, because sometimes they will realize something, but you always have to keep in tune to check, how do you feel about that? When you have understood that you can't probably do basketball and whatever studies and this together, what does that make you feel? Right? Help them to, to articulate that because they'll say, oh, I, you know, I thought I was really good at multitasking, but now I just realize that I can't, I feel, I feel I can only manage one thing at a time and it feels, it feels sad. It feels sad to know that I am not able to do that. Right? So it's important to get them attuned with what they are feeling at that problem, that point of time, even when it is in relation to certain problems and deficits. Right? Because it can help you to build on getting them to work on what, what comes next. Okay? Now, taking you further information, she's saying, she said, I should never have agreed to being the captain. Okay? So here you see, there is a sense of maybe, maybe, again, a sense of realization. Right? And here, even though she said that, even though she's thought about that, there is probably a new feeling that's arisen. You feel angry because you have taken on more than you can handle. So you see that even as you're reflecting this, you're helping them see and helping them come to a place of realization. So you say, yeah, I feel really upset that I didn't think about this, that I took on more than I could show. I should have been more careful. So you see, as, as you are reflecting, as you are personalizing, they are coming to a place of deciding or coming to a place where they can take their next action. They can, they can, they can move forward into the next part, which is to personalize goals. Okay? I hope you are with me. We spoke about personalizing feeling first, the meaning, personalizing the problem well enough so that you can determine the goal. Okay? Now, your counseling is showing readiness to move from discussing their problems to discussing their goals when you have reached this point. Okay? When they are able to personalize their own problems that I should have never taken up that captainship because I know that's what's affecting my ability to study. So you've come to a place because they have said, yeah, you know, I should have been, I should have thought of it a little better. I should have, you know, planned my day or I should have worked through something. So now they are ready to move from discussing about the problem into looking at a goal. Okay? Now they are ready when they do this for themselves, rather than what you do for them. If you were to sit with your counselor and say, okay, you know, you're a basketball captain, don't you think there are too many things you're doing? Isn't there, you know, aren't you able to see that you can't multitask? If I were to say to them, it doesn't feel like they have taken up the readiness to work through that. Okay? So they need to be ready when they're able to do this for themselves, when they come to that place of a realization that something has to be done. Okay? So when you're establishing, when you're personalizing goals, what you're doing is you want to bring the counseling from where they are to where they want to be. So she may say, Anita may say, I really want to study better. Right? But right now, I'm not able to study and I'm able to see I'm the captain, I'm doing all of this, but I'm not able to study. So what does personalizing goals mean? You're getting them from where they are right now to where they ought to be. And you're also looking at when you're personalizing goals, you're looking at what is it that's contributing to resolving this problem? What helps you to resolve this problem? So I may ask a question before this feeling thing, I may ask a question. Now, since you've realized that multitasking is something that you've just understood that probably is not very helpful for you, you really want to do great in your academics, what would be one thing if you were able to change in order for you to study, what would that one thing be? So I'm helping her to think, what is contributing to, for me to resolve this problem? She may say, Okay, maybe I should give up my captainship or that I must spend a little bit more, I must organize my day in such a way that I can study also. So whatever she's choosing to do to bring about that. And so once she says that, I say, Okay, you feel dash because you cannot dash and you want to dash. So if you see, Okay, I'll look at the look at the example. Okay, so here it says you feel bad because you cannot put in the hours required to study, and you really want to do well in your exams. Okay, so you have spoken about the problem that you cannot put in the hours required because you are in the basketball team. Okay, but you want to be able to do well in your exams. So you have personalized the goal. The goal is I want to do well in my exams. What is my problem? I can't put in enough hours required in this. And how do I feel about it? I feel bad about this. So here, when you come to a place of helping them to personalize their goals, you're discussing this, you feel dash because of the problem that is you cannot put in the hours required and the probable goal, which is I want to be able to do well in my exams. All right. Okay, so from here is you get them to a place of being much more ready, much more ready to have to start on with them with their next journey, okay, into initiating the action. So this is where if you've got your counseling to this place where they're able to personalize the feeling and the personalizing the feeling happens at every point of time. That's why you see all the ways you see, you feel, you feel, you feel, you're helping them personalize the feeling. You help them personalize the meaning of what the situation is. You help them personalize the problem and then you help them personalize the goal. Okay. Now, once you're able to do this, what you do next is you need to have a feeling check with respect to goals. So she says, I want to do well in exams. So then I asked her, okay, what would it make you feel if you do well in your exams? So she may say, I feel hopeful because I'm going to figure out a way of how I can do well in my exams. So then I built that sense of personalizing the feeling of what could be the certain goals and what she could be feeling, really helping her to look a little into the future with hope. Whenever your counseling comes in, you really want to help them to see hope, want them to want them to see that there is something that they can do to make their situation better. So that's why always do a feeling check even when you are getting certain goals in place with respect to their goals. So you say, okay, you feel hopeful because you're going to figure out how you can do well in your exams. Now, when you reach there, the next part is initiating action, which is what we're going to do next. But just to follow up with this, with Anita's case. So I may say, okay, so if you needed to do well in your exams, what would be some strategies you may need to follow? So she may bring about two, three, four strategies. And then build that up. Okay, strategy number one, whose help do you need for that? What time would you require for that? Who will know that you've done a good job once you've done it? So you're actually building up the action point. Okay, so till here is where you're bringing them to a place of personizing. Okay, this is where I am. This is where I want to go. And I feel hopeful because I've understood what my problem is. I know this is my goal. I have to get to this place. And that's where you work with personalizing. So in summary, when you're personalizing, you need to really build a strong base of understanding your counseling and their problem and where they are at, respond to their feelings and the content, personalize the meaning, personalize the problem. And finally, personalize the goal so that you get them to a place of moving into the next step, which is to initiate the action. Okay, all right. I'm open for questions. Any questions? Questions? No questions. Prince, no question or you didn't understand? Which of it? Okay, no one has any thoughts? No question, nothing? Very clear. Okay, all right. I think we'll stop for a break right now because if I start for the next, I will need to have that flow. So let's take a break. And it's early, it's 1046. Yeah, we'll be back by 11. Okay, we'll take an extended break of 14 minutes. See you soon.