Therapeutic Communication

Catalog description

This course is designed to provide counseling students with diverse theoretical and experiential approaches to effective therapeutic communication, with a significant emphasis on practice. Dyadic role-plays will be consistently integrated into the course curriculum to provide students with hands- on opportunities to explore and rehearse both new and familiar clinical interventions and approaches to rapport-building and relational deepening in a therapeutic context. Students will enrich their understanding of therapeutic dynamics and strengthen their confidence in implementing such approaches with individual clients in community mental health settings in ways that are congruent with their unique developing style in conducting psychotherapy. This course will also emphasize the cultivation of an ongoing personal mindfulness practice as an adjunct to interpersonal work, in the conviction that we cannot adequately attend to the needs of others unless we are first able to sustainably tend to our own well-being. RESTRICTED TO COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH STUDENTS