Pre-requisites

CN510 Introduction to Counselling

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

• Compare, contrast and demonstrate a range of counselling skills

• Demonstrate an introductory level of client-centred counselling practice

• Evaluate personal strengths and weaknesses with regard to basic counselling skills

• Distinguish client needs through the use of basic counselling skills and apply appropriate basic strategies in a client-directed way, informed by a Christian perspective.

Unit Description

This unit builds upon the essential elements of the counselling relationship learnt in the Introduction to Counselling unit by focusing on the skills required for counselling practice. The unit emphasises the role of counsellors in using skills to make contact with their individual clients, to help them feel understood, and to clarify the major issues that trouble clients who present themselves for counselling.

At the same time, the theories and assumptions including a Christian perspective, underlying different skills are explored and assessed. Students are given opportunities to practise, apply and integrate a range of skills and strategies at an introductory level and at different stages of counselling relationship with self-awareness and awareness of the counsellor-client dynamics of the relationship in stages.

Topics

1. Building on the foundational qualities: exploring problem stories while keeping an open mind to exceptions, hopeful ‘sparkling moments’ and what may be ‘absent but implicit’
2. Commonly used skills: affirmation-giving, encouragement, modelling, self-disclosure
3. Commonly used skills: silence and pause time; immediacy and spontaneity- being in the here-and-now
4. Commonly used skills: giving feedback and confrontation and challenge; challenging self-destructive beliefs
5. Spiritual conversations and integrating spiritual resources
6. Externalising and relational language making
7. Other strength-based skills and practices to inspire hope: skills for not-knowing; amplifying what the client wants; exploring for exceptions; remembering practices; re-authoring practices; definitional ceremonies
8. Skills for engaging with specific client concerns 9-12. Student practice either with recordings or observation and feedback

Teaching Strategies

Teaching strategies include: lectures and tutorials; weekend schools; class discussions; role plays and practice of skills within class; presentation of instructional material in the form of printed documentation, DVD, video and audio tape and online interaction.

---

Unit offerings

Face to face: Semester 2, 2026 (Every 2nd Year (Even), Semester 2)

Please note

The Unit Offerings listed above are a guide only and the timetable for any year is the final authority. The College may vary offerings based on demand, regulatory requirements, continual improvement processes or other conditions.

This unit may be available in different modes of delivery i.e. online and face-to-face as listed above. The unit content will not differ between these modes of delivery. There will possibly be a difference in the schedule and/or the prescribed assessment tasks, however both will cover and assess the same content.