Helping Skills

Catalog description

This course will provide students with an understanding of the foundations underlying basic clinical helping skills. It will introduce students to the ethical principles that guide best practices, the ethical dilemmas beginning helping clinicians are likely to face, and models for how to resolve such dilemmas. Further, students will grapple with the challenges and significant issues faced when engaging in cross-cultural clinical interactions. Students will be asked to apply their knowledge of multicultural therapeutic models and related research. Considerable emphasis will then be given to learning the stages of clinical intervention and the critical skills that accompany each stage. Students will become familiar with the research supporting the use of “helping skills,” small interventions frequently used in most therapeutic interactions. They will practice these skills and record their own progress in using them. Students will be asked to document their progress and their increased familiarity with when and how to use the helping skills. Prerequisite(s)/Corequisite(s): PSYC 101 or HUMS 105 .