Egan’s Model of Problem-Management

Abstract

The practical approach to problem-solving and the opening up of possibilities is responsible for the unbroken popularity of G. Egan’s book “The skilled helper”.

He recognised from the outset that there was a tension between behavioural science psychology, on the one hand, and humanistic psychology, on the other.

In all editions of his book, Egan tried to combine the two psychological directions, recognising that the behaviourist counselling always needed humanising.

It was important for him not only to present a model of helping but also to provide counsellors with a set of techniques and skills to make his approach actually work.

Updated translation of chapter 3 from: Handbuch Beratungskompetenz, 4th ed. by Bernd-Joachim Ertelt & William E. Schulz, 2019, Springer Verlag.

3.1 Development and Status of the Model

3.1.1 Introduction

Gerard Egan is professor emeritus of organisational development and psychology at the Centre for Organisational Development at Loyola University in Chicago. “The skilled helper” is probably the most widely used specialist text for counselling professions worldwide and has been translated into both European and Asian languages and was also given central consideration in the counselling concept of the Federal Employment Agency Germany (cf. Rübner & Sprengard, 2010). The practical approach to problem-solving and the opening up of possibilities is, among a number of other reasons, responsible for the unbroken popularity of the book (Egan, 1998, 2018):

• 1. Problem-solving is one of the most researched paradigms in psychology.

• 2. Problem-solving and exploring possibilities for action are part of almost every kind of help. The reason for this is probably that the approach focuses on the needs of the person seeking advice and is not dominated by a theory.

• 3. The problem-solving process or model is universal at its core; therefore, it can be easily adapted to cultural differences.

• 4. It is a very practical model. Each case is a study in itself; goals are set and progress towards those goals is monitored.

• 5. Counsellors quickly understand the problem-solving process and this understanding allows them to become partners in counselling.

• 6. The counselling sessions become laboratories for better-designed problem-solving.

• 7. Helpers can use the problem-solving framework to organise a wide range of help methods. It becomes a tool for them to perceive the best of research and new methods and to integrate them into practice.

Egan recognised from the outset that there was a tension between behavioural science psychology on the one hand and humanistic psychology on the other. When “The Skilled Helper” was first introduced and extensively reviewed, Egan received positive comments from both camps, with behaviourists viewing the model as a humanistic way to introduce behaviourist, action-oriented concepts, and representatives of humanistic psychology viewing it as a behaviourist way to spread humanistic ideas. In all editions, Egan tried to combine the two psychological directions, recognising that the behaviourist counselling technique always needed humanising.

3.1.2 The Development of Egan’s Model

All editions of Egan’s book “The Skilled Helper” emphasize two principles:

• 1. The aim is to help those seeking counselling to cope better with the problems in their lives and to better activate unused or underused resources. Clients are successful to the extent that they are involved in the help or counselling process and implement what they have learned in the counselling to deal effectively with problematic situations.

• 2. The clients should be encouraged to help themselves with the challenges of daily life. Counsellors are only professional to the extent that they can support clients in developing their own skills. Counselling skills should enable clients to act independently. In this sense, Egan (2007) sees counselling as an attempt to help clients become more socially and emotionally mature. He defined maturity in terms of self-management, which includes self-awareness, self-control and action orientation. Mature personalities are also capable of good interpersonal relationships and they have empathy and communicative competence. They constantly strive to understand the world in which they live.

When Egan (1975) first presented his approach, he called it a model for systematic helping and interpersonal relationship building. His work was strongly influenced by three interrelated sources:

• 1. The work of Robert Carkhuff and other counselling skills training systems,

• 2. The theory of social imprinting, and

• 3. Learning theory and the basic assumptions about maintenance and change of behaviour.

Although Carkhuff (1971, 1973) was strongly influenced by Carl Rogers (1965), especially with regard to the use of communicative skills and attentive listening, he extended Rogers’ relational theory and added a handling phase. Carkhuff’s well-thought-out, scientific model appealed to Egan. He was impressed by the way Carkhuff detailed the requirements and characteristics of each of the three stages of his model. Egan also used Carkhuff’s approach to identify the skills the counsellor needs to be effective. Many of the skills (and gradations of skills) described also appear in Egan’s model: empathic understanding, various degrees of respect and genuineness, correctness or attention to detail, confrontation, and others.

Brammer (1973) also developed a systematic skills training programme that influenced Egan’s work. Brammer’s model, like Egan’s, could be called eclectic. Brammer expanded Carkhuff’s list of counselling skills and added 20 specific skills that he felt would be beneficial to counselling.

Egan was also influenced by Ivey and his colleagues (Hackney et al., 1970; Ivey, 1971, 1972) in developing his systematic, skills-based model of counselling assistance (see Chap. 2).

Egan included two other models of help, Hackney and Nye’s (1973) model of discrimination and Kagan’s micro-manufacturing approach to counsellor training. Hackney and Nye found it especially important to set goals and plan behavioural interventions to help the client in achieving their goals, Kagan (1973, p. 44) put the essence of his training approach in the following words:

The general teaching strategy […] has evolved as a step-by-step sequence of lessons starting with a didactic notion of concepts, then moving on to simulation exercises, interpersonal affective stress, video and psychological feedback, studying one’s own inaction, feedback from clients, and finally understanding and dealing with complex bilateral differences of opinion that occur when two people enter into relationship.

Egan sees helping as a socially influenced process. He emphasises the importance of the helper’s first step being to respond positively to the client. This creates a basis for being able to influence the person seeking advice by means of proven professionalism, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Egan also uses this influence on question and challenge the client’s attitudes. Skills such as active listening, attention, empathy, and summary are used by Egan to make social influence possible.

Of greater influence on the Egan model were, thirdly, learning, and behavioural theory and its principles. These insights were important because Egan (1975, p. 6 f.) saw counselling as helping people to change their behaviour. Individuals should make significant changes in themselves and in their environment, improve their destructive behaviour towards themselves and others, and acquire skills that will enable them to live more effectively. Egan encouraged all his students to acquire a wide range of skills—based on learning principles—in problem-solving and behaviour change.

Thus, Egan’s model represents the integration of three influences in a three-stage development model. Egan saw himself as a mediator who is in touch with the best in research and theory and adapts this to the needs of the practitioner.

Gerard Egan has written more than 15 works on counselling and communication. He has continually made changes in his approach to reflect the many changes in counselling over the last decade. For example, support for counselling from most American government agencies is limited to just a few sessions, as longer-term models are seen as too expensive. Also, the emphasis is no longer only on an empathic relationship, but increasingly on client activation and problem-solving.

In recent years, EGAN has emphasised cognitive and affective behaviours (Egan, 2010; Egan et al., 2013).

However, listening and understanding remain at the core of his model, but he also sees that people often need to be asked to make multiple efforts. This is why problem management is more prominent in the new editions of “The Skilled Helper”.

In our first three exercises on EGAN’s counselling model, we take into account the fact that he continues to emphasise the importance of emotions; but this does not contradict the increasing focus on goal setting, procedures and the decision-making process. EGAN does not ignore the importance of the past, but instead of focusing on the causes of problems, possibilities for a better future are explored. Therefore, from the beginning of counselling, Egan’s model of helping encourages step-by-step actions in terms of problem-solving (Egan, 2010).

Exercises 13 and 14 help to illustrate this approach and to better understand what EGAN calls “The Way Forward”.

In 2018, EGAN released a new version of “The Skilled Helper” specifically for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It is intended for counsellors who have not been under the strong influence of counselling models that emphasise relational counselling. Therefore, EGAN focuses much more on relationship building skills and specifically on empathic responding. A number of suggestions are made for this (Egan, 2018, p. 98):

• Consider empathy as a value in its own right, a way of being.

• Pay conscious attention to the client’s point of view.

• Look out for culture-specific cues and key messages.

• Pay attention to non-verbal cues.

• Be restrained in your answers.

• Practice empathy in all phases of your counselling,

• Remembering that empathy is only one tool among many.

As Egan’s approach for counsellors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is more relational, it suggests some approaches for dealing with clients’ personal problems:

• Help to overcome and identify possible obstacles and blockages (see Exercise 22).

• Help in the development of action-related self-commitments.

• Helping people to help themselves.

3.1.3 Model of Assistance and Interpersonal Relationship Building

In his book “The Skilled Helper” (1975, p. 30), Egan gave an “overview of an organic or developmental model of helping and interpersonal relationship building”. The model includes a pre-help phase and three stages.

Pre-help or pre-communication phase:

Pay attention

Goal of the helper: To pay attention to the other person, both physically and psychologically, to devote oneself completely to the other person, to work with the other person.

Stage I: Reacting/Self-Exploration

Goal of the helper: Respond. Respond to clients and their expressions with care and empathy; establish a relationship of effective community work with clients; facilitate clients’ self-exploration.

Client’s goal: Self-exploration. To explore experiences, behaviours and feelings relevant to the client’s life problems; to explore the ways in which the client is living ineffectively.

Stage II: Integrative understanding/dynamic self-understanding

Goal of the helper: Integrative understanding. The helper starts by assembling the data provided by the client in the self-exploration phase. He sees guiding behavioural motives or patterns and helps the other to identify them. He helps the other to see the “bigger picture”. He teaches the client to go about this integration process himself.

Client’s goal: dynamic self-understanding. Develop self-understanding that recognises the need for a turnaround and the need for action; learn from the helper the ability to put the bigger picture together for him- or herself; identify resources, especially unused ones.

Stage III: Facilitate/act

Goal of the facilitator: Facilitate action. To work with the client to develop specific programmes of action; to help the client to act on a new understanding of him/herself; to identify with the client a wide range of different ways and means of seeking to change behaviour in a constructive way; to provide guidance and instructions for programmes of action.

Goal of the client: Taking action, living more effectively. To learn the skills needed to live more effectively and to deal with the social-emotional dimensions of life; to discard self-destructive and other destructive behaviour patterns; and, to develop new resources.

In Stage I, the counsellor lays a foundation for social influence in the client’s life. A good relationship is established, and the counsellor becomes a counsellor who works with clients in their attempts to cope with their problem.

In Stage II, the counsellor assists clients in their efforts to understand guiding principles in their life. This stage can also be understood as an influencing process, as the counsellor uses the basis established in Stage I (through expertise, trust, contact) to influence the clients’ perceptions, i.e. to help them to a more realistic perception of themselves, their environment and the interaction between both. In the course of Stage II, clients become increasingly clear about the need for action, and in Stage III, helper and client work out action programmes together. These usually include problem-solving techniques, decision-making methods, behaviour change programmes, homework and training in interpersonal and other skills (Egan, 1975, p. 49).

In the second edition (1982), Egan clearly describes his three-stage solution approach as a problem management model. Counsellors are advisors who help to manage problems. Greater emphasis is placed on goal setting in stage II of the helping process. This stage is described by Egan (1982, p. 51) is characterised as follows:

Stage II: Setting goals based on dynamic understanding

The counsellor helps the counselee to synthesise the data obtained in the self-exploration phase; helps the client to develop those new perspectives that are necessary for goal setting and facilitates the goal-setting process.

This shift towards greater emphasis on goal setting continues in the third edition of “The Skilled Helper”(1986). In fact, Stage II is now called “goal setting” instead of “integrative understanding”. What is new is the idea of helping clients construct a new scenario. Egan thus bridges the ideas of self-understanding to goal setting. Since people come to counsellors because their current situation is problematic, the counsellor’s goal must be to help the client envision a better scenario. This includes more constructive behaviour patterns and the goals of the corresponding help process.

In his fourth edition (1990), Egan makes a number of additional changes to his model. The second and third steps of Stage I are reversed: questioning (third step) is thus included earlier in the counselling interview. Those seeking counselling are more likely to be able to deal with their problems if they first critically examine blind spots such as problem distortions, misinterpretations, motivational deficits, and lack of problem awareness.

The client’s actions become increasingly important, as do client knowledge, goal setting and strategy planning. But it seems even more important to get the person seeking advice to act. And that means not only helping them to build a better future and committing them to a programme of action, but also helping them to choose the best strategies to implement.

Egan (1990) also emphasises the importance of practical experience. The best counsellors are mediators, i.e. professionals who base their practice on both action research with clients and current scientific knowledge. The recognition of the importance of counselling practice led Egan to describe his model less as a sequence of developmental stages and steps, but rather as a series of ground rules that could serve as guidelines for practitioners. Since the early 1990s at the latest, Egan no longer wanted to offer a how-to book with standard recipes.

The fifth edition (1994) of “The Skilled Helper” is almost 100 pages shorter than the fourth edition of 1990, but no changes in content have been made. Egan continues to strongly advocate the approach of problem-solving and opportunity development. The final chapter of the fourth edition, in which Egan discusses the counselling period and the conclusion of counselling, has been greatly shortened.

In the sixth edition (1998), the increasing influence of brief therapy and the more strictly regulated health care in the USA (where health insurance only pays for a limited number of sessions with a counsellor or therapist) is evident. Egan places an even stronger emphasis on clients taking advantage of untapped opportunities. As with some forms of brief therapy, Egan (1998) looks for the strengths that clients bring to the conversation. He notes that by focusing on possible solutions, clients can often manage their own problems (p. XVI). However, all this should be done quickly and efficiently.

In the sixth edition of 1998, Egan places particular emphasis on the preventive use of communication and problem-solving skills.

The learning of these skills is often left to chance, but ideally, they are taught and shaped in many areas, including at home, at school and in the community.

In updating our book on counselling competence, we were made aware—in a similar way to Egan—of the growing importance of multiculturalism in counselling. Already in his booklet “Skilled Helping Around the World” (2002a), Egan states that we should “appreciate and learn from diversity rather than looking down on it or just ‘tolerating’ it. People thereby develop empathy for the living environment and a place in it. Without giving up one’s own views and values, one realises that there are many ways of life and that one is not necessarily ‘better’ than the other” (p. 1).

Multiculturalism in counselling contributes to equality and justice in all countries. It is essential for counsellors to recognise the relationship between characteristics (ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, national origin, physical characteristics, gender, etc.) and the issues and problems that affect clients.

There are currently many contributions on the need for multicultural competence of counsellors. According to our observations, two frequently repeated views stand side by side:

• “Remember that not everyone is exactly like you. And, if you are uncomfortable with the differences, look first to yourself and your prejudices”.

• “Multiculturally oriented counsellors often make two mistakes: they focus on the specific and unique of their clients rather than the universal; or they see the general rather than the specific and unique”.

Obviously, there is a need for mediation between the two views. Egan (2002a, p. 11) offers a number of good suggestions in this regard:

• Counsellors should be aware of their own cultural background, how they present themselves and how they are perceived by clients.

• Counsellors should be aware of their cultural biases towards certain groups and people.

• Counsellors should positively perceive the ways in which diversity contributes to the dynamic appearance of each client.

• Counsellors should always be aware of the ways in which poverty, stereotyping, discrimination, oppression and prejudice affect particular groups and individuals.

• Counsellors have to take into account that Western-oriented theories may not always be appropriate for other cultures. Counsellors should essentially know the family structures and gender roles of their clients.

• Counsellors should consider differences in interaction styles, language differences and non-verbal communication.

• Counsellors should master different procedures in which the cultural variable plays a role.

• Counsellors must be able to assess their multicultural competence and be motivated to further develop their knowledge and skills.

3.1.4 Theory Influences

Egan’s model of problem management is primarily a practical approach, but it is not therefore untheoretical. Rather, it is an integrative approach that borrows from many counselling theories. The model is primarily based on learning theory and the principles underlying behaviour change. However, because it is a problem-solving approach, the model draws heavily on research on problem-solving and decision-making. It has also been influenced by Rogers’ (1965) relationship theory and communication skills.

The work of numerous behaviourists influenced Egan and his model; they include Bandura (1969), Eysenck (1965), Goldstein (1966), Krumboltz (1966), Maier (1960) and B. F. Skinner (1953). Most behaviourist-oriented counsellors work with the client. These counsellors are expected to have training and experience in behaviour therapy. For the behaviourists, the counselling focus is on helping the counselee analyse behaviour, pinpoint problems and select goals. The behaviour counsellor should be skilled in using techniques to help clients determine and solve a wide range of problems. Egan incorporated many of these ideas into the second and third stages of his counselling model. Counsellors help counselees determine a preferred scenario so that goals can be accurately stated. In the third stage, Egan helps clients in the same way that behaviourists do, develop action plans and put them into action. Egan also uses the behaviourists’ concepts of self-contracts, self-monitoring, and self-reinforcement.

Carl Rogers’ work is well known in its main features; however, in order to make the direct influence on Egan’s model clear, the main aspects of Rogers’ work are summarised below:

Rogers’ theory focuses on the human being. At its core, it is an amalgamation of views about people and their relationships rather than a treatise on counselling techniques. Rogers emphasises understanding the world of the counselee from his or her perspective (phenomenological point of view). Therefore, it becomes important to make the relationship level with the client as close as possible so that genuine trust and understanding emerge.

Roger (1961) has a very positive view of humanity. He sees people as essentially rational, accepting, forward-looking and full of potential. People have an inherent tendency to develop and grow positively. These positive realisation tendencies can be promoted by counsellors who are sincere or congruent; i.e. the counsellors are not the doer, rather they bring their experience fully to bear. Egan (1975) accepts this notion of Roger’s authenticity and notes that the communication of this authenticity in behaviour involves the following:

• Being free from playing a role

• Spontaneity

• Unopposing

• Consistency, and

• Participation in the self (p. 91).

Empathy and respect (unconditional positive regard) for clients play an important role in Rogers’ theory. Empathic understanding means that the counsellor knows, on both a cognitive and a deeper affective level, what it is like to be someone else while maintaining his or her own autonomy. Unconditional positive awareness is characterised more by a total than a conditional acceptance of a client.

Egan (1975) states that deference is an asset for successful counsellors and is demonstrated to clients as follows (p. 97 f.):

• Be there for the client.

• Support the clients as a unique individual and help them develop their uniqueness.

• Believe in the client’s potential for self-direction.

• Commit to working with the client.

• Assume that the client feels committed to change.

Listening, warmth, understanding, sincerity, empathy, and attention are part of most counselling efforts and training today. Egan and many others have Rogers to thank for his influence in terms of theory.

Despite the theoretical influences on his model, however, it should not be forgotten that Egan relied more and more on his practical instincts in each new edition of his model. In the preface to the fourth edition (1990) of “The Skilled Helper”, Egan notes that “research findings are often so inconsistent and contradictory that it is difficult to formulate a coherent approach to practice” (p. VI). Egan is in full agreement with Morrow-Bradley and Elliott (1986) statement:

Psychotherapy researchers have almost unanimously pointed out that (a) psychotherapy research should yield useful information for practising therapists, (b) such research has not yet taken place, and (c) this problem needs to be remedied (p. 188).

Egan does not think that practitioners should break with research, but they should put more emphasis on their own insights. There are many excellent practitioners “on the front line” who update their practice through action research and who are also willing to share their knowledge with others. Egan always paid attention to the voices from the field; the result has been an effective model for problem-solving. Egan realized that people seeking advice are not interested in theories, but in results (1994, p. 14). To this end, he presented a comprehensive, curricular plan (2002b, p. 17) (see Fig. 3.1).

Fig. 3.1

Sample plan for counsellors according to Egan (2002b)

3.1.5 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Model

Egan (1994) points out that there has always been a certain tension between practitioners and theorists/researchers. Counsellors and other helping professions need to help clients immediately and would readily use any strategy that not only works but works quickly. Researchers often take the longer, more cautious route, claiming that their meagre results are not yet ripe for implementation into practice. Researchers often take the longer, more caution route, claiming that their meagre results are not yet ripe for implementation into practice. Often these researchers criticise practitioners for using methods that have not been fully researched.

With his model of problem management, Egan succeeded in showing the importance of another role: the role of the mediator. Mediators are closely related to validated theory and research and, most importantly, to the needs of practitioners in their work with clients. In short, Egan has tried (successfully) to translate the best of theory and research (Rogers, 1980; Carkhuff, 1969; Bandura, 1969; Krumboltz, 1966, to name but a few) into his very application-oriented model. The worldwide acceptance of his approach supports Egan’s conviction that learning and problem-solving are the cornerstones of any counselling approach. He has provided (1996) a clear logical basis for the use of his approach for counsellors/helpers:

• 1. Problem-solving has been intensively researched and is therefore not based on unproven theory.

• 2. Opening up new possibilities for those seeking advice is an important part of the help.

• 3. The problem-solving process is universal and easy to adapt to cultural differences.

• 4. The process is clear and practical when goals are set and progress towards the goal is planned.

• 5. The process can be made easy to understand for those seeking advice, and they become partners in the process.

• 6. Once the process is learned, clients can apply it to other problem areas in their lives.

• 7. The simple, three-stage basic framework can easily adapt new methods and research findings.

• 8. Problem management can be used preventively.

Egan’s approach did much to demystify the whole counselling process. The three stages of his guidance model are clear and understandable. The method can be applied to many different target groups within a very short time. The present and the future come into focus, the clients work with quickly realisable goals.

Egan’s model is timely as billing arrangements (limited funds for counselling sessions) increasingly influence what counsellors do. The model focuses directly on what clients bring to the conversation and how to use these strengths to reduce problems by focusing on opportunities for action.

But the model also has weaknesses. Like most learning theory approaches to counselling, Egan’s model tends to shift the solution onto the client. The weakness is that if clients come from a repressive environment, be it family, cultural background or circle of acquaintances, they have to return to this environment after counselling and may believe that the causes of the problem lie with them rather than in the social environment.

Little attention is paid in Egan’s help model to factors such as insight, ego strength, self-actualisation, or subconscious factors. Another weakness is that the emphasis (cognitive-behavioural influence) is on goal setting and action planning, possibly at the expense of affective factors. Extensive use of confrontation, questioning, enquiry and brainstorming can become detrimental to a therapeutic relationship and may undermine long-term progress with the client.

Egan’s model largely ignores the genesis of problems and thus fails to provide the counsellee with insights and a deeper understanding of the problem.

For effective practice, the counsellor must not only be able to understand Egan’s model but must also be able to apply techniques and plan actions. Thus, counsellors should be well trained in behavioural techniques and learning theories. Egan, on the other hand, does not clearly explain how the insights of learning theory should actually be put into practice. Not every counsellor has the attitude or aptitude to apply behavioural techniques appropriately. This requires a lot of practice, skill, hard work and practice.

In Egan’s model, the helper works as a cooperative counsellor. But often too little time is spent understanding the psychological or social factors that contribute to the solution of the concern. Similarly, the assumption that every counsellor has the ability to implement a solution to a problem is often made, which is not always the case. Finally, in a counselling approach, the objectivity of the helper is indispensable. But will the counsellor’s perceptions always correspond sufficiently with objective indicators regarding the client’s problem?

To some extent, Egan’s approach does not look at the whole person, but only explains certain behaviours. Coupled with this criticism is that inexperienced counsellors start applying techniques too quickly. Gilliland et al. (1989, p. 47) criticise approaches such as Egan’s for programming the client towards minimal or just tolerable levels of behaviour, reinforcing conformity, stifling creativity and ignoring the client’s needs for self-fulfilment, self-actualisation and feelings of self-worth. To be fair to Egan: He himself partially addressed this criticism, modified his second stage, as explained in the following chapter, and had the clients think more deeply about their preferred scenario.

3.2 The Problem-Management

3.2.1 The Three-Stage Advisory Model

To explain the process of his model, Egan (2002b, p. 25, 2018, p. 173) states that at some point clients with difficulties have to answer four basic questions:

• 1. Current scenario: What problems should I work on? The answers to this question reflect the current state of affairs or the current scenario of the client.

• 2. Preferred scenario: What do I need or want instead of what I have? Answers to this question represent the preferred state of affairs or the preferred scenario.

• 3. Strategies: What do I have to do to get what I need or want? Answers to this question generate action strategies to achieve the goal.

• 4. Act: How do I bring all this about? Answers to this question help clients move from a planning mode to action or “arranging”.

These questions can be broken down schematically to show Egan’s three-stage guidance model (see Fig. 3.2).

Fig. 3.2

The three-stage counselling model according to Egan

Egan (1998, p. 25) provides a simplified case to demonstrate how his model works. It is clear that this is not a detailed account of how the conversation unfolds from session to session, but rather a condensed overview of the process in the three stages of this problem-solving model.

Example

Current scenario: What problems is Maria facing? Maria, a 37-year-old single mother, has two children of primary school age. Since her husband disappeared, she has been working two jobs to earn enough money to support herself and her children. She observes how she becomes more tired and angry every day. At times, she takes out her anger and frustration at work, and because of her frequent outbursts of anger, she is at risk of losing the job. She has also started taking out her anger on the children. Although she does not mistreat her children, she never really has time to devote to them fully.

In desperation, Maria seeks out a counsellor who listens carefully to her story and helps her to elaborate on some important aspects. By digging a little deeper, the counsellor learns that Maria has done nothing to find her missing husband so that he could be ordered to pay alimony. The counsellor also finds out that Maria has a drafting diploma from a technical college. She has skills and talents that are lying idle, which increases her anger because she feels severely under-utilised. In addition, Maria has no social life worth mentioning because of the two jobs and the educational and domestic demands.

After a few counselling sessions, Maria begins to really understand her own situation for the first time. Although there are no dramatic changes in her life, she feels less stressed and angry because of her greater self-understanding. Although she had previously seen herself as a “doer” (after all, she had two jobs and raised two children), she now realises that she had done little to overcome her real problems. Instead, she had developed a victim mentality.

This is a brief sketch of Maria’s current scenario. The counsellor mainly followed Egan’s model in his approach so that Maria could actively participate in the help process.

The three steps of Stage I

• Step A—The story.

  The counsellor helps Maria to tell her story with enough detail to help her get to the goal-setting stage (“What do I really want?”) of the help process. By helping the counsellor to understand her problem and what is going on with her life, she has a better chance of doing something about it.

• Step B—Blind spots.

  In the course of this step, a counsellor helps the client to identify the blind spots that prevent her from seeing her problem situation and unused opportunities realistically and from successfully shaping the helping process. Maria’s counsellor has to help her identify such blind spots and to develop new perspectives.

• Step C—The right choice of problems to work on.

  Maria has to work on something that brings about change.

  It is important that the counsellor and Maria focus on her problems and untapped opportunities that can lead to significant change.

“Focusing” means tackling the problem that is currently most pressing for the client. Through a strictly purpose- and result-oriented approach, counsellors want to set immediate stimuli for the client’s action. In the last part of Step 1, clients are encouraged to ask themselves questions like the following (Egan, 2002b, p. 239, 2018, p. 175):

• Which problem should I really tackle?

• Which central aspect would bring about a fundamental change in my life?

• How would solving one problem affect the others?

• Where should I best start?

• What problem do I need to address if I am aiming for quick success?

Focusing aims to ensure that clients leave counselling with the best possible outcome.

The three steps of Level II

At this stage, counsellors help the person seeking counselling to recognise what they need and want, i.e. to develop a preferred scenario. For example, what would Maria’s life be like if it were more bearable or even fulfilling? Many counsellors start from the

“What’s wrong?” of Stage I directly to “What can I do about it?” of Stage III. But Stage II helps clients discover what they really want. It has a profound impact on the whole helping process.

Example

Preferred scenario:

Within this stage, the counsellor encourages looking into the future. In discussions with the counsellor, Maria discovers many things she would like: a better-paid job, a job that requires her to think and make decisions, better relationships with her children, time for herself, a nicer flat, a few luxuries, a meal in a restaurant now and then, a trip to the cinema and maybe even a car. She also expresses the desire to have less guilt and aggression. She also wants financial help from her husband to support their children.

Maria is encouraged to structure and prioritise her needs and wants. She realises that in order to get out of the impasse, she first needs a better-paid job that allows her more time at home, resulting in a better relationship with her children and also some kind of social life. Just setting priorities makes her think of ways to realise them. The counsellor helps Maria to filter her wishes even more, for example, by asking her to describe in more detail what a better relationship with her children would look like. The counsellor also talks about specific occupations that would fit her needs and desires.

• Step A—Possibilities for a better future.

  By using techniques such as divergent thinking and brainstorming, counsellor and client use their imagination to design a better future. Once clients have a more accurate sense of what they really want, they are more able to identify the most important problem points in their lives.

• Step B—The change catalogue.

  The counsellor helps the person seeking advice to formulate realistic and appealing goals in order to address the problems and untapped opportunities identified in Step A. Maria’s initial list of changes included getting a better job, improving her relationship with her children, and having a better social life.

• Step C—Self-realisation.

  Counselling enables clients to find incentives that help them to pursue new goals with perseverance. To achieve this, Maria will need courage and will have to do a lot of work.

The three steps of Level III

Level III defines what needs to be done (“action strategies”) to help the client move from priority setting to problem-solving. Here Maria has to ask herself: “What do I have to do to get what I need or want?”

Example

Action strategies:

During individual counselling, the counsellor encourages Maria to join a “Job Finding Club”. Here Maria learns a lot about job search while working with other group members. She talks about the job she wants and she explores what she has to do to get them. Being with other people in a similar situation also allows Maria to restart her own social life. All this helps to relieve her stress about the fact that she feels she has no time for herself. At the same time, she can continue to focus on getting a better-paid job and rebuilding her relationship with the children.

• Step A—Possible actions.

  Let the client realise that there are many different ways to achieve goals. Hasty and disorganised action often leads to a partially filled goal. Thinking calmly about many different ways to reach the goal is usually time well spent.

• Step B—Select best-fit strategies.

  Both—counsellor and Maria—work on finding strategies.

  They focus on the ones that best suit Maria’s talents, style, resources, temperament, and schedule.

• Step C—Design a plan.

  Finally, client and counsellor work on actions that help to achieve the goals set.

3.2.2 Level I Process and Skills

The micro-skills of attentive listening can be summarised in the acronym SOLER (see Exercise 1)

S (squarely)—Openly face the person seeking advice, i.e. adopt a posture that indicates involvement. “I am here with you, I am here for you.” Posture should express involvement. It should be noted, however, that communication skills are a delicate matter when there are cultural differences. If it seems too threatening for certain cultures or anyone else to look the other person full in the face, then the counsellor must change his or her posture accordingly.

O (open)—Adopt an open posture. Crossed arms or crossed legs are often interpreted as diminished interest in others. Counsellors should always be aware of the following during the conversation:

“To what extent does my current attitude proclaim openness and willingness to be there for the client?”

L (leaning)—Leaning slightly forward towards the client indicates attention. “I am with you, I am interested in you and what you have to say.” In a broader sense, the word “leaning” can refer to a kind of physical flexibility or responsiveness that is conducive to communication with the client.

E (eye contact)—It is important that counsellors maintain good eye contact with the client. However, this does not mean staring. Eye contact also has multicultural and gender implications. Counsellors should always be aware of this.

R (relaxed)—Counsellors must appear relaxed or natural in their relationship with clients. This means avoiding disruptive body language or nervous facial expressions.

The point is that a respectful, sincere, helping attitude easily loses its influence if the client does not find this attitude reflected in external, non-verbal behaviour.

Egan (2002b, p. 71) summarises the main aspects of attention in the following ten questions:

• 1. What is my attitude towards the client?

• 2. How would I rate the quality of my presence to the client?

• 3. To what extent does my non-verbal behaviour indicate willingness to work with the client?

• 4. What attitudes am I expressing with my non-verbal behaviour?

• 5. What attitudes am I expressing with my verbal behaviour?

• 6. To what extent does the client experience me as effectively present in working with them?

• 7. To what extent does my non-verbal behaviour reinforce my attitudes?

• 8. What keeps me from giving the client my full attention?

• 9. What do I do to stop this?

• 10. How could I become even more effective for this person?

Active listening

Like other authors, including Ivey et al. (1997, 2002), Rogers (1965), Carkhuff (1969), Eisenberg and Strayer (1987), Egan has shown counsellors the importance of understanding clients’ verbal messages, experiences, behaviours and associated affects or emotions. Problem situations become much clearer when they are expressed as specific experiences, behaviours and feelings related to specific situations.

Conversations about experiences often focus on what people do or do not do. Sometimes it is implicitly made clear that others are to be blamed for the problems. “At home she does nothing but watch TV. At work I often think about it and then I can’t concentrate”. Constantly talking about their experiences also gives clients the opportunity to avoid their own responsibility.

Clients usually want to talk less about their own behaviour, because all people have behaviours that are not always helpful. “I haven’t even started looking for a job because I know there are no vacancies here”; “When things do not go well at home, instead of looking for a job, I phone some friends and we go out and have a drink”. Affects refer to feelings and emotions that accompany or underlie clients’ experiences and behaviours. When clients tell their story, it is a mixture of experiences, behaviours and affects. It is the counsellor’s job to help clients ’embellish’ their accounts with other essential experiences, behaviours and feelings.

Actively listening to clients is not as easy as it may seem. Many obstacles can get in the way. Counsellors do not listen adequately if they are distracted by their own thoughts or problems. In listening, counsellors may judge what the other person is saying as right/wrong, good/bad, or acceptable/unacceptable. Too often this judgmental listening leads to giving advice, perhaps advice that puts clients before themselves.

Bias, prejudice, and cultural filters prevent active listening, so counsellors need to know themselves to counteract such influences. Many counsellors also focus too much on the information to be gained from the clients instead of taking in the totality of the clients’ experiences, behaviours, and feelings.

Besides focusing on data, some counsellors are quick to pigeonhole clients into a particular diagnostic category. It is precisely this pigeonholing that can lead to observational typing (neurotic, paranoid, borderline, etc.) and can get in the way of good active listening.

Exercise 2 aims to help the reader better understand active listening.

Empathy

Empathy is the communication of understanding the other person. That is, the other person must realise that he or she is fully understood by the helper. Empathy seems to mean something different to various authors and counsellors. Schulz (1996), for example, describes empathy as one of the three crucial counselling attitudes (sincerity, respect, and empathy) in building cooperative relationships between helper and client. For Schulz, empathy is more than the ability to reflect a feeling, which is often used to show a certain aspect of empathy. He understands empathy in a comprehensive sense as accepting, affirming, and understanding another person.

Egan, on the other hand, defines empathy more narrowly, as a skill rather than an attitude and/or philosophy. The exercises he offers (see Sect. 3.2) are not dissimilar to the skill of reflecting a feeling according to Gaza et al. (1995) and Ivey et al. (2002). However, to be fair to Egan, he does point out that empathy should ideally be considered “a way of being”, even though he usually describes empathy as a skill in his writings.

Elementary empathy is expressed by Egan in the following formula: “You feel … (correctly label the emotion shown by the client) … because …”. (correctly name the experiences or behaviours that evoke the emotion).

Example

Client (enthusiastic): I threw all caution to the wind and confronted him with his sarcasm (action) and it actually worked. Not only did he apologise, but he behaved for the rest of the trip … (description of the rest of the trip).

Helper: You feel wonderful because you took a chance and it paid off.

Understanding feelings can be expressed in different ways:

Through short statements: e.g. “You feel down”; “You are delighted”; “You are angry”.

Through idioms: e.g. “You are devastated”; “You are floating on clouds”; “You have your back against the wall”.

By what is implied in statements about the behaviour: e.g. “You would like to give up” (feeling of despair is implied); “You would like to hug him” (feeling of joy is implied).

By what is implied in disclosed experiences: e.g. “You feel that you are being trampled on” (implicit feeling: being victimised); “You think they will be caught soon” (implicit feeling: concern about being arrested).

It is important that counsellors listen for key messages and the context of the messages. It is important for counsellors to pay attention to what is most important to the client. This can also mean focusing either more on experiences, more on actions or more on feelings and not on all three aspects at the same time. If empathy is practised with restraint and flexibility, it can be used to keep clients focused on important issues. Counsellors must never forget that empathy helps clients to see themselves and their problem situations more clearly and to deal with them more effectively.

Enquiry

Not all clients will respond to attentive listening and empathy with openness. And while it is very important for counsellors to respond with empathy when clients do not describe their current situation in enough detail, it may also sometimes be necessary to encourage and prod clients to explore their concerns in more detail if they do not do so on their own. The skill of skilful questioning is another important communication skill to move the counselling process forward. As the purpose of enquiry is to help clients explore their problems more fully, enquiry can be useful at every stage and step of the helping process, as it promotes focus and direction.

Enquiry can take many forms:

• 1. Statements: “It is not clear to me which of these two options you would choose”.

• 2. Ask: “Why don’t you tell me what you mean when you say ‘the boss never gets it’”.

• 3. Questions: “What exactly could get in the way of you realising your plan?”

• 4. Minimal encouragement: “Yes”, “Continue”, nodding head, “I understand”, “hm” or “aha”.

• 5. Silence: The helper says nothing but leans forward slightly and waits tensely for the client to continue talking.

Exploratory questions can be used in many counselling situations, for example, to help clients formulate vague and abstract things more concretely.

• Client: “The boss treats me badly”.

• Counsellor: “What does he actually do?”

• Client: “He talks about me behind my back and he always gives me the hardest assignments”.

Enquiry can be used to help clients move forward within each step of the process and from one stage to the next balanced view of their problem situations. Sometimes clients only want to present the negative aspects and fail to look at the positive sides as well.

• Client: “Sometimes at the end of a hard day’s work I’m just not at my best. I rant and rave to myself”.

• Counsellor: “You work hard and you are tired at the end of the day. What about the rest of the day?”

Enquiry can be used to help clients move forward within each step of the process and from one stage to the next. In the first example, the counsellor helps a client brainstorm ways to meet people and make friends.

• Counsellor: “Which of the leisure activities or hobbies that you enjoy could help you meet other people?”

• Client: “Well, I like playing tennis and going to the cinema. I also like book clubs and discussing books”.

In another example, the counsellor uses follow-up questions to help the client move to another stage of the counselling process.

• Client: “I don’t want to retire and then just be a bagger in the supermarket”.

• Counsellor: “You have explained in detail what you are doing, now I wonder if you can also set out what you really need and want?”

Exercise 4 gives the reader an opportunity to combine empathy and probing/inquiry.

Process

When people seek counselling, they must be made to feel welcome. They should be encouraged to tell how things are going for them at the moment. Clients need to feel that they are being paid attention to and listened to, that the counsellor is really trying to understand them from their perspective. In short, a cooperative relationship is established. To fully engage in this process, counsellors use basic communication skills.

When Egan practices communication skills with future counsellors, he emphasises the need to master these skills professionally. Doing exercises (see Sect. 3.3) and applying the skills practically in the group is only helpful if they become an everyday communication style. Students are asked to constantly develop these skills in dealing with others through empathy, attentive listening, questioning, and summarising.

Stage I of the help process is indeed the assessment stage, where the helper tries to find out what is wrong, what resources are not being used and what opportunities are being missed. In order to do this, it is necessary to explore what is currently motivating the client. It is not about putting the client in a particular diagnostic box, but rather about being open to any form of information or understanding. At this stage, key questions need to be clarified, the seriousness of the problems needs to be assessed and the past should be talked about constructively. As clients tell their stories, counsellors look for potential in it and help clients explore untapped possibilities.

Like Ivey, mentioned in the previous chapter, Egan’s model puts a lot of emphasis on learning the key skills of communication, which are used at every stage and step of his model. Unlike Rogers (1965, 1980) and his Person-Centred approach, the communication or relationship between counsellor and client is not the main helping process, but rather the tool for better interaction with clients. The teaching of these skills is not dissimilar to the microcounselling skills of Ivey’s model presented earlier. Egan (1998, p. 60) emphasises that the teaching of micro-skills must be constantly related to the needs of the clients and integrated into the whole three-step helping process.

Basic communication skills

Pay attention

Effective attention lets clients know that the counsellor is standing with them and enables the counsellor to listen carefully to their concerns. Attentive presence of the counsellor can encourage clients to open up, feel trust and explore their concerns and problems.

Summary

Like probing questions, summaries can be used to give focus and direction to a conversation. Summaries can be used to great advantage as an introduction at the beginning of a new session, because they prove to the client that the counsellor has listened attentively in the earlier conversation. After the summary, the client should be encouraged to take the initiative to move forward.

A summary can also be used to give focus to a session that seems to be going nowhere. Similarly, a session in which the client seems to have said everything on a particular topic and now seems stuck.

Of course, at the end of each stage of the counselling session, there should be a summary as a conversation-saving activity.

Advanced communication

The advanced communication skills: Questioning, Advanced Empathy, Information Sharing, Self-Revelation, Authenticity and Focusing are used throughout the stages in Egan’s model, but can be particularly helpful during Step 1 in order to:

• Clarify key issues/problems

• Talk productively about the past

• Search for resources

• Tap into untapped opportunities

• Deal with blind spots

• Identify themes in the clients’ representations

• To establish relationships that may be useful to them

Egan does not believe that Carl Roger’s Person-Centred approach—with its emphasis on sincerity, respect, and empathy—is sufficient, but that clients sometimes simply need to be challenged. Egan’s (1998) principle for this is simple:

Ask clients to question themselves, to change ways of thinking and acting that keep them stuck in the quagmire of problem situations and prevent them from identifying and opening up possibilities. If they do not comply with the request, they are asked directly to change (p. 147).

Asking clients to change is ultimately what the following skills are about (see also Exercise 6).

Advanced empathy

Advanced empathy involves moving on to meanings of which the client is as yet hardly aware. Often the counsellor senses the story behind the story: What is the client only half saying? What is he hinting at? What is he saying in a confused way? What hidden message is behind the explicit communication? (Egan, 2002b, p. 200; 2018, p. 80 ff.).

The most basic form of advanced empathy is to help clients express more strongly what they really mean.

• Client: (hesitantly): “I think I could wait until the personnel office answers. But I don’t think it would be wrong to call and ask about the decision on the job”.

• Counsellor: “You’re thinking of calling, but if I’m not mistaken, you’re not too keen on it”.

Advanced empathy can be used to help clients make connections among their experiences, behaviours, and feelings.

A part-time working student, who is preparing for his final exams and wants to get married after the exam, talks about his fears of not living up to the expectations of others and about his constant exhaustion.

• Counsellor: “There might be a simpler explanation for your anxiety and fatigue. First, you work really hard at your job. Secondly, striving for top marks in your exams can cause stress. And thirdly, marriage preparations bring additional emotional stress. Even ’Superman’ would have problems with all this”.

• Client: “I realise now that I may want to do too many things at once. But all my life I have been taught by my parents to tackle everything that comes my way straight away”.

By asking the client to examine all the factors, the counsellor helps the client to make connections between different circumstances. The client gradually realises that family expectations play a role in his anxiety and stress.

Advanced empathy has been described as elementary empathy plus a hunch or assumption. Allowing clients to share in the counsellor’s educated guesses can help them to see their concerns more clearly and to set goals and act on them. Assumptions can help clients identify guiding principles, take more responsibility for only partially conscious experiences and feelings, and draw logical conclusions from what they say.

Designing information processes

Egan’s model is very useful in educational and vocational counselling, where those seeking advice often fail to make satisfactory progress because of a lack of information. Information can help clients at any of the three levels of the model. The skill of designing information processes is classified under the skills of questioning because they help clients to develop new perspectives on their problems and shows them how others have acted. Clients should not be overwhelmed with information but stimulated by it. Counsellors must take special care to ensure that the information given is both clear and relevant. Of course, the information given should be neutral and not misused to impose the counsellor’s values. Exercise 7 provides the reader with several examples where the method of designing information processes could be helpful.

Self-disclosure

All the skills described in Step I are designed to help clients tell their stories. Sometimes when counsellors share their experiences, behaviours and feelings, clients are more willing to say more about their own experiences. In this respect, the counsellor’s self-disclosure proves to be a form of model learning. Egan (2002b, p. 207 ff., 2018, p. 144 ff.) suggests that counsellor’s self-disclosure is challenging because it is a form of intimacy; and secondly, counsellor disclosures commonly want to say to the client, “You can do this too”.

For self-disclosure to be most helpful, statements must be selective, focused, and appropriate. The client’s concerns must always remain the pivotal point.

Immediacy

In Egan’s goal-oriented, action-focused model, direct talk or immediacy becomes an important prompting skill. Directness can help in a number of situations:

• 1. When there is friction or tension between counsellor and client, it is important to address this tension immediately.

• 2. If it appears that the client does not fully trust the counselling process and/or the counsellor, the counsellor must investigate this lack of trust.

• 3. When conversations seem to become aimless, the counsellor must investigate the lack of progress.

• 4. If cultural diversity results in too much social distance, it is imperative for the counsellor to address this issue.

It is often easier for a helper not to explore tensions, lack of trust, goal-less conversations or social distance. However, counsellors should keep in mind that immediacy is a tool to activate the client and thus to move the whole conversation forward.

Focusing

Stage I of Egan’s helping process also involves helping clients to see through their problems and opportunities, to work on the right things and to keep the goal in mind during the assistance process. Focusing means helping the client to achieve positive results quickly. The counsellor should therefore focus on those problems that cause the client the most distress. If at all possible, the counsellor should start with a solvable sub-problem of a larger problem situation.

Egan often uses the focusing technique introduced by Arnold Lazarus (1981). This involves asking a client to describe their problems in one word. Next, the client is asked to put the word into a one-sentence that would describe the problem. The counsellor then moves from this sentence to a more detailed description of the problem. The procedure is a simple way of giving a conversation a clear goal and can be used at any stage of Egan’s helping process.

3.2.3 Level II Process and Skills

Process

Within Level II, counsellors help clients answer two crucial questions:

• What do you want? (Preferred scenario)

• What do you have to do to get what you want?

More precisely, this stage contains three steps:

• Step 1: Help the client to identify the possibilities for a better future, i.e. determine some of the ways the client can do this.

• Step 2: Assuming there are a few options for the client, which one would s/he choose?

• Step 3: Help clients commit to change.

As described earlier, Egan’s model has evolved over the years. In his revised model of 1998, Egan shifts the emphasis even more to strategies for action. In contrast, fully understanding the origin of problems and changing them through insight takes a back seat. An important aspect of Stage II is goal setting. Goals are needed for the client to act and to show the client the way. Locke and Latham (1984) outline the power of goals this way:

• Goals focus the attention and action of clients.

• Goals mobilise the energy and power of the clients.

• Goals motivate clients to look for strategies to achieve them.

• Goals, if formulated correctly, strengthen the motivation and perseverance of the clients.

Developing a feeling for the right route and exploring the possibilities for a better future are the contents of level II. To let results come before the mind’s eye can achieve a lot. But it is equally dangerous to formulate strategies for action before the client has a clear idea of the desired results.

So what are useful techniques or skills that Egan uses to identify possibilities for a better future (preferred scenario)?

Level II Skills

Divergent thinking

As shown in Exercise 10, divergent thinking is used to help clients answer the question: “What do I want? Divergent or lateral thinking implies that there is more than one way to solve a problem or explore a possibility. De Bono (1987, 1992) has described thoughtful techniques for helping clients to think laterally. You can even ask clients to put on hats of different colours to encourage this. Only the creative, coloured hats are worn, as there is little value in being neutral (white hat) or pessimistic (black hat) at this level of counselling. If one wears the red hat, facts are played down and emotions, hunches, feelings and impressions are emphasised. The judgement is made “from the gut”. The yellow hat is the very positive one. Clients are encouraged to look for good news, benefits and suggestions for improvement. De Bono’s green hat symbolises creative thinking. Clients are asked to be inventive, to look at things differently, to explore alternatives, to go beyond the obvious and to look for interesting solutions.

In short, counsellors need to get clients to overcome fears, fixed habits and dependence on others. In positive terms, this means making clients flexible, persistent and optimistic and preparing them to take appropriate risks.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a common strategy used to encourage non-value-added divergent thinking. The rules for this simple, idea-generating stimulating technique are: to refrain from any evaluation, to produce as many ideas as possible, to use a certain idea as a starting point for further ideas, to discard the usual boundaries of thinking and to produce even more ideas by using special item lists. Exercise 11 shows what can be done to develop non-judgemental suggestions.

Formulation of goals

Helping clients formulate goals is an important skill that counsellors need to learn. Useful goals usually have the following characteristics:

• They are formulated as outcomes rather than activities.

• They are specific, realistic and challenging.

• They are flexible.

• They are within a reasonable time frame.

Counsellors can achieve much greater cooperation in goal setting if they continue to use the collaborative strategy of brainstorming as well as the communication skills presented in Stage I of Egan’s helping process. Egan (1998) asked counsellors who set goals together with clients the following questions:

• 1. Is your goal linguistically oriented towards results?

• 2. Is the goal specific? How do you know you have achieved the goal?

• 3. Can the goal be realised?

• 4. Is it possible to hold on to the realisation of the goal over a long period of time?

• 5. Is the goal compatible with your values?

• 6. Have you set a realistic timeframe for achieving the goal?

Obtain a voluntary commitment

Although engaging the client’s commitment is not such a specific skill as paraphrasing, asking open-ended questions or reflecting feelings, it is an important part of the last step in Step II of Egan’s model of helping. There is already a big difference between a client who is supposed to agree to a goal and a client who does not slacken in achieving his goal through action. What can the counsellor do to achieve an ongoing commitment from clients? Counsellors can help clients by:

• 1. Presenting goals in a more attractive way

• 2. Helping clients to become more involved in their problems

• 3. Helping clients to deal with competing programmes of action

Counsellors can help clients make goals more appealing by pointing out the benefits of individual goals and the consequences of not acting on a goal. For example, if a client continues as before, she will continue to have a job that only pays minimum wage, but if she works on her goal of furthering her education, her prospects for a higher salary and job satisfaction will increase enormously.

Clients need to take full ownership of a goal in order to make a longer-term self-commitment. If it is more the counsellor’s goal than the client’s, the client will blame the counsellor in case of failure. Self-contracts are therefore a good way and also serve to bring the goals more into focus.

Clients will often see other important tasks in their lives that run counter to goal realisation, such as responsibilities for the family, current work or even leisure interests and social life. Counsellors can help by making clients aware of competing tasks and emphasising the need to find a work/life balance without losing sight of the appealing side of goal realisation.

3.2.4 Level III Process and Skills

Process

Level III is about the activities needed to achieve the outcomes planned in the previous level. At Level III, counsellors try to bridge the gap between the resources and the needs or wants of the clients. Clients have to brainstorm many strategies that might help them to achieve their goals. If clients have difficulties in doing this, counsellors can initiate the process by making their own suggestions. However, the main responsibility of assessing the value of approaches and ultimately selecting them lies with the client.

• Client: “I could try one more thing, but that’s it”.

• Counsellor: “I’ll give you a few examples of what others have done who have had a similar problem. Would that be OK”.

An important part of Level III is the identification of resources for the client, such as resources from others, role models, the community, career organisations or oneself.

Other people, such as neighbours, friends and relatives, can be very helpful to someone who is having difficulty finding work. They may have job tips and they can also provide a lot of encouragement and motivation during the job search period. The same goes for identification figures. Having someone as a role model, who does what the client wants to do or who has the attitudes that might be helpful to the client, is an important resource. Some organisations may be willing to help clients; organisations such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Unemployment Initiatives. There may also be programmes, courses or workshops that are of considerable help to the client. In most cities, there are programmes for people who want to become more self-confident or to cope with frustration, depression or grief.

It is important to remember that all clients are ultimately on their own. Thus, counsellors need to help clients establish relationships with appropriate agencies as soon as possible. The counsellor must provide knowledge of community and regional networks.

After this initial step in Stage III, clients need to decide what the best strategies are for their situation and resources and then create a step-by-step change plan.

The approach chosen should be specific and realistic enough to allow the client to arrive at a solution to the problem. Most clients find it easier to choose a strategy if they first try out a few possibilities. For example, a high school graduate who has to decide between several fields of study can seek counselling at a career centre or ask successful people in the field about their interests. Another way to determine the best strategy is the balance matrix method. A sample can be found in Exercise 18.

Finally, clients are asked to make specific plans. A good plan identifies the activities or actions required to achieve the goal or sub-goal, arranges the activities in a logical order and sets a time frame for the successful completion of each major action step.

A good counsellor will also prepare his clients for the time when they are on their own. This includes alternative plans of action for phases in which things do not go so well for the client. This preparation helps clients to develop more responsibility in situations where their plans do not work but they have to make a decision. Alternative plans do not need to be complicated and can be prepared with a counsellor’s question: “If this doesn’t work, what will you do?”

In summary, the three steps at Level III are to:

• 1. Help clients develop possible strategies for achieving their goals (what do clients need to do to get what they want)

• 2. Help clients choose strategies that are related to their preferences and resources

• 3. Help clients develop a step-by-step action plan

Level III Skills

Assessing personal skills

Many clients do not have the life experience or the ability to cope with their problem situation. This being the case, practising skills according to Egan’s counselling model becomes very important. Other clients are not aware of their potentials and need help to assess their personal skills. Exercise 16 provides a helpful checklist for this lack of awareness.

As indicated in the description of this stage, the counsellor also helps the client to access role models, community, and relevant organisations, as well as meetings with people who have similar problems.

Determination of the procedure

Egan asks clients a series of questions to help them choose strategies. Typical questions to check a particular course of action include:

• 1. Do you understand what you need to do with this strategy?

• 2. Will you make it in the planned timeframe?

• 3. Does this strategy suit you personally?

• 4. Will it take you where you want to go?

Balance sheet matrix method

When clients have to make decisions, a kind of balance matrix can be helpful. This involves weighing whether both benefits and costs are acceptable. A less structured approach is to evaluate strategies with questions such as the following:

• 1. How does this strategy benefit me and others?

• 2. What are the costs of this strategy for me and others?

Use supporting forces

Before clients leave counselling with the intention of following a plan of action, counsellors can reinforce clients’ motivations and make it easier for them by making them think of possible help they may get from themselves and others; help such as the following:

• Pride

• A promise to oneself

• Trying something new

• Encouragement from the family

• Encouragement from friends

• Good feeling you get from acting on goals

• Financial resources

• Deferring current pleasures

Exercises 20 and 21 have been included so that counselling students can examine themselves in relation to multiculturalism in their own lives, families, and worldviews. Egan (2002b, p. 52, 2018, p. 42) lists some principles for integrating these views into her counselling methodology:

• Put the client’s needs first in all considerations.

• Identify the client’s perceptions and focus on them.

• Base the counselling methods on the client’s ideas and not on social or political guidelines.

• Make sure that your own value system does not negatively influence the client’s interests.

• Avoid cultural stereotypes, because groups often have greater differences within them than between them.

• Do not meet cultural diversity with definitions that are too narrow.

• Create an atmosphere of professional tolerance.

3.3 Competence Development Exercises

It was important to Egan not only to present a model of helping but also to provide counsellors with a set of techniques and skills to make his approach actually work. These techniques and skills include:

• 1. Basic and advanced communication skills

• 2. Building sustainable relationships with clients

• 3. Helping clients to question themselves

• 4. Problem clarification

• 5. Setting goals

• 6. Developing action plans

• 7. Implementing plans

• 8. On-going evaluation

Egan (1975, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002a, 2002b, 2007, 2010, 2018) and Egan et al. (2013) use a standard approach to teaching and practising skills. The first step is cognitive understanding. Counsellors in training are encouraged to develop a cognitive understanding of a particular skill. This is usually achieved through reading and lectures. Clarification is done through guided discussions about what the students have read or heard. The third step in this process is model learning. Experienced instructors provide a model for the use of a particular skill. This can be done live or via films and video sequences. Next, written exercises (such as those in this section) are provided on the skill. The purpose of the written exercises is to allow learners to experience for themselves that they have understood a particular skill and are now ready to apply it in practice. The fifth step is practice. Egan has students work in small groups so that they can practise skills with other students. In feedback, instructors and students give evaluative comments to reinforce what is done correctly and to correct what was wrong. Finally, in step seven, the learning experience is assessed. Time is taken to reflect on the whole process of the training. Steps one to six cover the acquisition of the necessary skills, while step seven is dedicated to working in training groups. Finally, when participants are ready, they get practice with real clients under supervision.

Before specific exercises are presented, here is again a brief overview of the model and its skills:

Stage I: The current state of affairs

Clarification of the main problems that call for change

• 1. Help clients to tell their “story”.

• 2. Help clients to tackle their blind spots and gain new perspectives.

• 3. Help clients to focus on areas that will bring about significant changes (focus setting).

Some skills for Level I:

• Attentive listening

• Basic empathy

• Enquire/probe

• Summaries

• Advanced empathy

• Information exchange, self-revelation, and immediacy

Level II: The preferred scenario

Helping clients determine what they need and want

• 1. Help clients unlock a range of possibilities for a better future.

• 2. Help clients turn possibilities of the preferred scenario into goals.

• 3. Help clients feel committed to the goals they choose.

Some skills for level II:

• Divergent thinking

• Brainstorming

• Formulation of goals

• Bring about self-commitment

Level III:Strategies for action

Helping clients discover how to achieve what they need and want.

• 1. Help clients brainstorm a range of strategies to achieve their goals.

• 2. Help clients to choose action strategies that best fit their needs and resources.

• 3. Help clients to come up with a plan.

Some skills for level III:

• Assessment of personal skills

• Definition of a strategy

• Balance sheet matrix method

• Additional support

Exercises are intended to provide a link between understanding a skill and actual practice. The following exercises are an abridged version of Egan’s (1998) “Counselling Skills Practice Manual”.

3.3.1 Exercises for Level I Skills

Level I deals with building a cooperative relationship between helper and client and helping the client to focus on key areas. Basic communication skills and stimulation are important throughout the conversation.

Exercise 1

Feedback on attention behaviour

1.	Students should recall the acronym SOLER.
	S	Squarely face the client
	O	Open posture
	L	Lean towards the client at times to emphasise your attention.
	E	Eye contact without staring.
	R	Relaxed while interacting with clients.
2.	During the training programme, give yourself and other students occasional feedback on the quality of your listening attention using the following checklist:
	a.	How effectively does the counsellor use posture to signal willingness to work with the client?
	b.	In what ways does the counsellor distract the client?
	c.	How does SOLER help the counsellor to work more effectively with the client?
	d.	How naturally does the counsellor behave when he devotes himself to the client?
	e.	What else does the consultant have to do in terms of attention in order to achieve more impact?

Exercise 2

Active listening

1.	Listen carefully to what clients are saying.
2.	Identify key experiences of clients.
3.	Identify key behaviours of clients, what they do, don’t do or are ashamed of.
4.	Identify the key emotions associated with these experiences and behaviours.

Exercise 3

Show empathy

1.	Identify for yourself the client’s key experiences, behaviours, and feelings.
2.	Formulate an empathic response using the following form: You feel … (identify the emotion) because … (describe the key experiences and/or behaviours that evoke this emotion).
3.	Make empathetic statements (without using the formula).

Exercise 4

Enquire/Probe

1.	Respond with empathy first.
2.	Formulate a follow-up question that might help the client to identify or explore main issues.
3.	Briefly state the reasons for using the probing question.

Exercise 5

Summarise

In his Exercise Manual, Egan (1998) suggests the following exercise to help students learn the skill of summarising.

1.	The students are divided into groups of three.
2.	There are three roles in each of these subgroups: Helper, Client and Observer.
3.	The helper spends about 7–8 min counselling the client.
4.	After four minutes, the helper summarises the main points of the interaction. After about eight minutes, the helper should make a second summary.
5.	After each summary, the helper should ask the client to draw his or her conclusion, which in turn leads to the next step.
6.	Then the observer and client give feedback to the counsellor on how accurate and helpful the summary was. A summary is helpful if it leads the client to problem clarification, goal setting and action.
7.	The process is repeated until everyone in the group has had a chance to play all three roles.

Exercise 6

Questioning and stimulating a response

General rules

Unproductive mental attitudes and corresponding actions are specifically questioned.

1.	Read the case studies and determine in which area this client could benefit from questioning.
2.	Briefly describe what new perspectives might be helpful.
3.	Share your observations with a fellow student. Record similarities and differences to your suggestions.
4.	Discuss how you would proceed further to help clients question themselves.

Advanced empathy

Advanced empathy means sharing sound assumptions about the client’s experiences, behaviours, and feelings. This skill is only used after a good working relationship has been established.

1.	Approach the client with elementary empathy.
2.	Formulate one or two assumptions about the client’s experiences, behaviours and feelings.
3.	Respond with advanced empathy.

Exercise 7

Giving information

Giving information is the skill of providing clients with information that helps them to see their problem situation more clearly.

1.	Point out possible blind spots of the client in the following examples.
2.	Indicate what information might help the client to gain new perspectives and move to action.

Exercise 8

Self-Disclosure

Self-disclosures should help the client to perceive their problem situations more clearly. List two areas where you think you have something to share that could help clients with problems similar to your own.

Area 1	What from this area could you talk about yourself?
Area 2	What from this area could you talk about yourself?

Exercise 9

Immediacy

Immediacy refers to the counsellor’s ability to deal directly and appropriately with events and behaviours that affect the counselling relationship.

1.	Offer an immediate response to the situations presented, a response that helps the client to question useless perspectives and actions.
2.	Share your responses with a fellow student and give each other feedback. Together, come up with a more effective immediate response.

3.3.2 Level II Skills Exercises

Stage II focuses on a better future, the client’s preferred scenario. Goal setting and self-commitment of the client are important concerns of this stage.

Exercise 10

Divergent thinking

Divergent thinking is used to help clients develop a vision of a better future.

Exercise 11

Brainstorming

Non-judgemental suggestions of what it could look like if everything were better. In other words: What would you like to have instead of what you have now?

1.	Read the case study and assume you are that person. (Do not give advice).
2.	Point out a blind spot that might prevent this person from dealing effectively with the problem situation.
3.	Using brainstorming (in pairs or groups of three), produce a series of possibilities for a better future.
4.	Use the list from the previous exercise (“Divergent Thinking”) to help develop possibilities for a preferred scenario.

Exercise 12

Formulating goals

Goals should be achievable, formulated as outcomes, specific and flexible, and embedded in an appropriate timeframe.

1.	After reading the case study, identify what good intentions the client might have (e.g.: I need to be more energetic if I am to be a good supervisor in this work group).
2.	State the client’s broad (very general) goal (e.g.: I want to be more involved in this group).
3.	Write down a specific goal for this client that is realistic and formulated as an outcome (e.g.: I want to express my thoughts in this group at least once every hour, when appropriate

Exercise 13

The selection of advisory strategies

The following acronym CRRAVE can help those seeking advice to select strategies:

C	Clarity	Is the procedure clear?
R	Relevance	Is it relevant? Is it purposeful?
R	Realistic	Is it realistic? Can I make it?
A	Appeal	Does sit speak to me?
V	Values	Does it correspond to my values?
E	Effective	Is it effective enough? Does it really help?

Use the following four-step process:

• 1. Think about possible action strategies for one of your goals.

• 2. Choose two strategies that seem most important to you.

• 3. Use the CRRAVE questions to test the validity of each of these strategies.

• 4. Make a provisional choice.

Selection process for strategy 1 (with short explanations in each case)

C	Clear
R	Relevant
R	Realistic
A	Stimulating/appealing
V	According to one’s own values
E	Effective

Selection process for strategy 2 (with short explanations in each case)

C	Clear
R	Relevant
R	Realistic
A	Stimulating/appealing
V	According to one’s own values
E	Effective

Exercise 14

Obtain self-commitment

When clients make commitments, they are more likely to achieve their goals.

1.	State the most important goal you set for yourself in the training or a goal a client might set.
2.	Discuss (using the following questions to guide you) this goal with a partner to measure the level of commitment.
	a. What is your current readiness for change in this area?
	b. To what extent do you freely choose this goal?
	c. To what extent do you choose this goal from a range of possibilities?
	d. How much of an incentive do you think this goal is for you personally?
	e. Name everything that makes the destination not appealing to you.
	f. What urges you to choose this destination?
	g. If your goal has been imposed on you in some way, what are you doing to make it your own?
	h. What difficulties do you experience in committing to this goal?
	i. To what extent is it possible that your commitment is not a genuine self-obligation?
	j. What can you do to overcome the obstacles?
	k. What can you do to increase your engagement?
	l. In what ways can the goal be reformulated to make it more appealing?
	m. To what extent is the timetable for achieving this goal insufficient?

1. (Egan, 1998, p. 137)

3.3.3 Exercises for Level III Skills

Level III is about what clients need to do to solve their problems. At this level, the counsellor can use the skills of divergent thinking (Exercise 10) and brainstorming (Exercise 11) to help clients identify different ways to achieve their goals. Other skills that counsellors can use during this level are the focus of the following four exercises.

Exercise 15

Steps in a plan of action

This exercise is designed to help you develop an action plan for each of your action goals.

1.	Specify a goal that you would like to achieve.
2.	Review the strategies you have considered.
3.	Outline the main steps you need to take.
4.	Get feedback from others in your training group.
5.	Revise your plan based on the feedback in terms of (a) The objectives to be achieved (b) The strategies for achieving the goal (c) The most important steps in the plan

Exercise 16

Assessment of personal skills

Sometimes problems develop because clients do not understand how to make sense of certain skills that are needed in life.

Assess each of your skills for yourself in terms of their level and importance.

Next, indicate those skills that, if improved, could help you to manage your worries or problems.

State why such a skill is important to you and what you could do to develop it

Checklist
Expression
very high expression of this skill	5
high expression	4
average expression	3
moderate deficiency in this skill	2
major shortfall	1
Importance
very important	5
important	4
average importance	3
rather unimportant	2
not important at all	1

Exercise 17

Strategy determination

1.	Ask the following questions if clients have difficulty choosing among possible strategies. Clarity: Is the strategy clear? Relevance: Is it relevant to my situation and goal? Realism: Is it realistic? Can I do it? Incentive: Does it excite me? Values: Is it compatible with my values? Effectiveness: Is it effective enough? Will it get me where I want to go?
2.	Share your findings with a fellow student. What can you learn from the differences?

Case study

A young man in his final year of school is completely undecided about what career direction he wants to take. He has good grades. He prefers more practical learning and would therefore rather go to a technical college than to a university. On the other hand, he thinks it would be better in the long run if he enrolled at university. Use the above criteria to evaluate the following strategy of the young man: “I’ll go to university for a year first and if I don’t like it, I’ll change to a technical college”.

Exercise 18

Balance sheet matrix method

The balance matrix can be used to help clients choose both goals and strategies. The balance matrix should not be used in its entirety, but only those parts that can currently help the client.

1.	Choose a personal goal with a partner and brainstorm a set of strategies.
2.	Choose a main strategy or sequence of actions to be studied in more detail.
3.	Identify the significant other and social references affected by your choice.
4.	Explore the possible course of action, using as much of the balance matrix as necessary to make a clear decision.

The decision matrix
	Acceptable to me, because	Not acceptable to me, because
The Self
Gains for the self
Losses for the self
Significant others
Gains for others
Losses for others
Social environment
Gains for the social environment
Losses for the social environment

1. (Egan, 1998, p. 344)

Exercise 19

Use supporting forces

In this exercise, you identify forces that could help clients to implement their strategies and plans.

Exercise 20

My family and I

Dealing with one’s own family history plays an important role in most cultures. The following questions should be discussed in the small group:

• What important life events have touched your own family? Tell the story of your family.

• Tell us about the most crucial event in your life and how it influenced you and the work as a counsellor. Was there any multicultural impact?

• How has the family influenced where you are today?

• In the literature, the four essential life roles are defined as loving, learning, working and leisure. How did these roles differ in the different ethnic groups?

• Comment on your culturally specific development and in what way it may have influenced you with regards to your self-perception and the perception of others.

Exercise 21

Your own multicultural worldview

It is undisputed that in North America and Europe, white, male, heterosexual and middle-class people enjoy power and privileges that they are often not even aware of.

Part 1	Discuss the following statements and decide whether you would accept them as “normal”.
a.	If I move, I am absolutely sure that I could rent or buy a house in the area of my choice.
b.	When my children have difficulties at school, the teachers always have an open ear for me.
c.	I have never been asked to speak for all the people in my cultural sub-group.
d.	When paying by credit card, my financial reliability was never questioned because of my skin colour.
e.	I can afford what I want, not just what I need to live.

Part 2	It is now assumed that multiculturally oriented counsellors perceive themselves as culturally aware, have knowledge about ethnic groups and have skills that are appropriate for different clients. In a small group, discuss the following questions:
a.	Do you have prejudices against ethnic minorities? Do you expect some cultural subgroups to have lower levels of education?
b.	Do you have the same attitudes towards homosexuals, women, minorities, and disabled people?
c.	Have you prepared for cultural diversity in your counselling practice?
d.	What knowledge do you have about the ethnic groups in your area?
e.	Which counselling approaches are most appropriate for which minority groups?

Exercise 22

Overcoming obstacles

The following role play serves as an exercise on how to help people who postpone dealing with problems or have difficulties in overcoming obstacles:

Scenario 1:	Roland has difficulties motivating himself to get up early every morning and look for a job. He always finds new excuses for not being active.
Scenario 2:	Sarah informs the counsellor that she will soon be moving to a smaller town where counselling services are not readily available. What advice can be given to Sarah to manage without easily accessible counselling options in the future?