Lecture
After the client's confession and the gathering of additional information through questioning and psychodiagnostics, the counselor already has enough information to form a definite picture of the essence of the client's problem, as well as an assumption about the possible causes of the problem and ways of resolving it. The psychologist-counselor must share all of this directly with the client.
The hypothesis expressed verbally by the counselor is an interpretation. Interpretation is the cornerstone of psychotherapy, the turning point of the counseling process.
When interpreting a client's problem, it is important for the psychologist to observe a number of rules.
1. Before the interpretation stage, a short pause in the conversation can be taken, which allows the counselor to step back from listening, reflect, and draw conclusions, while allowing the client to psychologically prepare for listening to the counselor and for a constructive dialogue with him.
2. It is important to make sure that no significant details or particulars are omitted when interpreting the client's confession. Conclusions about the client's problem and about ways of solving it must not be based on contradictory facts that do not agree with one another. Contradictions in the facts will inevitably show up as contradictions in the conclusions drawn from those facts.
3. Care must be taken to ensure that the proposed interpretation of the facts is not one-sided, i.e., that it does not show an obvious preference for one theory or interpretation over others. Any of the existing theories of personality or interpersonal relations that might be used as the basis for interpreting a confession is inevitably incomplete and does not account for all possible facts. (To avoid a one-sided interpretation, the counselor needs, already at the stage of general scientific theoretical training, not only to study various theories of personality and counseling in depth, but also to learn to skillfully apply the tenets of the most diverse theories in practice, which is served by training sessions for beginning counselors, psychological case conferences, and the like.)
4. No confession, whatever its content may be, can have a single, uniquely possible interpretation. There must necessarily be several interpretations, based on different, mutually complementary theories. At the same time, there should not be too many interpretations, since otherwise they would be difficult to reconcile with one another and one could simply become confused among them. Ultimately, a unified but not exclusive (in theoretical terms) treatment of the problem should emerge. The client should be told the conclusions themselves, in a simple, accessible form rather than a pseudo-scientific one, and not the theory on which they are based.
The technique of interpretation is one of the most complex counseling methods; it helps to reveal more than is contained in the client's surface narrative. The external content is, of course, also significant, but more essential is the disclosure of the latent content hidden behind the client's words. For this, interpretation of the narrative is used. The counselor's interpretive statements give a certain meaning to the client's expectations, feelings, and behavior, help establish causal links between behavior and experiences, and help the client see himself and his life difficulties from a new perspective.
The counselor, like any person, can make mistakes, i.e., his interpretations are sometimes inaccurate or do not correspond to reality at all. Therefore, it is inappropriate to formulate interpretive statements in an authoritarian, categorically instructive tone. It is easier for the client to accept interpretations formulated as assumptions, when he is allowed to reject them. It is best to begin interpretive statements with words such as "I suppose," "probably," "why not try looking at it this way," and the like. The hypothetical nature of interpretations in no way diminishes their value if they turn out to be accurate and acceptable to the client.
While listening to the counselor, the client may ask questions of interest and add to what has been said. In addition, the client may express his opinion about what he hears from the psychologist-counselor. One of the important differences between a psychological and a medical appointment is that in medicine the diagnosis is made by one person - the doctor - and communicated to another - the patient, whereas in psychological counseling the choice of a more constructive position is made by the client together with the counselor.
When the problem has been formulated unambiguously, the moment comes to move on to the next stage of the counseling process - working through the options for resolving the problem situation.
Every problem, despite its apparent typicality, is unique and necessarily requires an individual approach. In this sense, it would be a mistake to think that there could be any algorithms for solving individual problems.
At the second stage of this counseling phase, the psychologist and the client together clarify, openly discuss, and work out possible alternative solutions to the problem. Using open-ended questions, the counselor encourages the client to name all the possible options that he considers suitable and realistic. The counselor also helps to put forward additional alternatives, but does not impose his own solutions. A written list of options can be made so that they are easier to compare. A critical evaluation of the selected alternative solutions is then carried out. The counselor helps the client work out which alternatives are suitable and realistic in terms of leading motives, prior experience, and present readiness to change.
An important aspect of the work of finding ways to solve the problem is the client's clear awareness of the desired outcome. At the earlier stages of exploring the problem (the "confession" stage and the client interview), the interaction between client and counselor brought into focus images of the problem, the life difficulties the person seeking help is facing, and their feelings about what is happening. At the stage of discussing alternative solutions to the problem, entirely different images necessarily come into focus – images of the desired future in which the problem has already been resolved. There may be many possible ways the situation could develop, and so the client needs to determine his or her own wishes and motives, as well as take into account how realistic each option is.
It is important to find out how significant the unmet need and unattained goal are in the client's life. Then it should be established to what extent the goal is being blocked or the need is being frustrated. It is also important how long the problem has existed. If it has a long history, the client may have already found many ways (most often unsuitable ones) of compensating for it, which make it harder to identify the true causes of the difficulties. Every counseling case is unique and requires understanding within the context of the particular client's life. The counseling psychologist must constantly bear in mind that the solution that is "right" for him is not necessarily right for the client. The right to make the final choice remains with the client. The client makes the decision that suits him or her.
A solution is the formation of mental operations that reduce the initial uncertainty of a problem situation. In the process of finding a solution, the stages of searching for, adopting, and implementing the solution are distinguished. The typical structure of a person's behavior in the course of solving a problem is the division of the original problem into a number of simpler intermediate tasks in accordance with the solution plan.
Drafting a plan for a realistic solution to the problem should also help the client understand that not all problems are solvable. Some problems require too much time; others can be resolved only partially, by reducing their destructive, disorganizing impact on behavior. The problem-solving plan should specify by what means and methods the client will achieve the goals that have been set.
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