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Unit 10 Reflective Relationship Techniques

1. What do you understand by reflection?

Reflection is a paraphrased response to a feeling communicated by the client, either verbally or non-verbally. The counsellor tries to understand the feelings and thoughts expressed by the client and then rephrase the client's statements as an attempt to communicate concern and involvement in the therapeutic relationship. 

2. Why is reflection important in a therapeutic relationship? 

Reflection is important to the therapeutic relationship because of the following reasons: 

• It provides an opportunity for the clients to hear themselves as others hear them and learn more effective ways of expressing themselves, 

• It helps to create an atmosphere of empathy which enhances emotional proximity between the counsellor and the client, 

• It contributes to a sense of self acceptance in the client, and 

• Reflection contributes to a feeling of being understood, thereby bringing a sense of relief in the client, which creates a positive path for the progress of therapy. 

3. What do you understand by reflection of feelings? Why is it used in counselling relationship?

Reflection of feelings means that the counsellor focuses on the affective portion of the client's statement. It communicates the therapist's acceptance and understanding of these feelings to the clients. 

It is used because of the following reasons: 

• It is the best strategy for reducing client anxiety, 

• It diminishes the intensity of feelings, 

• It provides the client with an accepted listener to their feelings, 

• When client's feelings are accepted and understood with warmth, it helps them to incorporate personal feelings and perceptions into their self-image, and 

• Responding to client's feelings establishes a high level of trust between the counsellor and the client. 

4. Discuss the disadvantages of (i) affective reflection, and (ii) cognitive reflection

Disadvantages of affective reflection are given below: 

• Responding only to feelings is unrealistic, and it reduces the possibility of the client being able to generalize aspects of counselling relationships to other relationship, and 

• Responding only to feelings may make the client so preoccupied with themselves that the level of their other relationships deteriorates even more. 

Disadvantages of cognitive reflection are as follows: 

• It may reinforce the client to think and abstract and deny feelings that are actually influencing her or his behaviour, and 

• It may not provide the opportunity that the client needs to share and express feelings in a non- judgemental setting. 

5. Give an example of behavioural reflection.

An example of behavioural reflection is given below: 

Client: (Sitting in a chair in a slumped position, eyes downcast, tired and lost look on his face). 

Counsellor: "From the way you look, you must be very lonely and confused right now". 

6. When do we use summary reflection? 

We use summary reflection in the following conditions: 

• When the counsellor discriminates between different aff ective components of the client's communication and communicates the understanding of the client's feeling, 

• When a client's communication contains many diff erent affective elements, 

rather than just one or two, and 

• When one topic has been covered repeatedly or silence occurs in the interview. 

7. What is important to reflect accurately? 

In order to reflect accurately, the following become very important: 

• Context, 

• Awareness, and 

• Presence. 

8. What are the difficulties that can arise in use of reflective relationship techniques?

Following are the difficulties that can arise in use of reflective relationship techniques:

• Stereotypes,

• Timing,

• Selection of feelings,

• Context,

• Depth, and

• Language. 

9. How does reflection help in increasing client involvement? 

• Reducing Psychological Pain
• Maintaining Client Focus
• Properly Pacing Therapy