I handle Aliaa’s case which is about abortion. Aliaa live together with Azman without marriage. 3 times she made an abortion. She seeks me to make her mind clear and want to change her to be a better one. During the session, I applied some techniques of counseling successfully. But there is certain part that I miss to use it.
In the early session, I have done a paraphrase that reflects the content of what a client has just communicated. By appropriately reflecting content, I assure client that I understand her story. Furthermore, my purpose to do reflecting content is, I communicate to the client that I am following and attempting to understand what is being said.
“You feel so guilty but do not have any choices”
Here, I’m using reflecting feeling. A reflection of feeling should be clear, concise and accurate. It will help the client identify and cope with her feeling. Besides that, when I reflect feeling, I indicate that I can accurately sense the world as the client feels and perceives it. As a result, I build a good relationship with client
My mistakes during the session:
I must do a confronting. Alya don’t want to go to welfare house because she scared to Azman. She thinks, Azman will find and hit her again. So, I can ask these questions:
“Have you thought that welfare house can protect you?”
“Do you think Azman have a right to disturb you there? “
I must confront the client while attending to her feeling concerning the problem area. By confronting with support it indicate that I invite her to face her problem and deal with it. In the other situations, Alya have a difficulty to be independent, she only had a PMR qualification. So, she gets a difficulty to get a job. On her mind, Azman is the only one can help in terms of finance. Here, I also can use a confrontation to encourage clients to accept herself and become fully functioning.
“You are finding it difficult to face the fact that your qualifications interfere with your choice of jobs. Considering your own qualification is threatening”
By focusing on the discrepancy between the type of job the client wants and the type of job for which she is qualified, I can help her look at her situation realistically.
Besides that, I did not explore more her content. She always said, she doesn’t have a choice that led her to make an abortion. From this situation, I should ask this question:
“What makes you feel that you don’t have a choice?”
This open question gives the client the responsibility for continuing the discussion and determining the direction of the interview. It also encourages the clients to tell more about her feeling.
At the end of session, I should give an assessment in terms of her financial problems. Ask her to think:
“Is it true that if we have a lowest academic qualification we can not have a job?”
I should make an assessment on her. Ask her to do some survey at supermarket. She can ask the worker at there about their qualification. Any workers have a same qualification like her? If yes, Aliaa will realize, she can find a job with her qualification.
As a conclusion, I need to practice more about counseling skills. Try to handle case as many as I can, so from here, I will learn about my mistakes. Some people say: practice make perfect. I totally agree.
