Practice Partner Exercise: Relationship Building And Opening Up
The relationship is both crucial and the central feature. The therapeutic relationship is central to the helping process. It is the first of the stages of helping and impacts all other stages.
Conduct an Unstructured Interview With Your Practice Partner (Approximately 20 Minutes): The interview should be conversational, emphasis on gathering information rather than improving the situation. Avoid giving advice.

Topic For The Unstructured Interview Conversation: Do you think that counseling is important for counselors? Have you been to counseling? Share your experiences. For those who have not, would you go? Why or why not? What concerns do you have about going to counseling? If you were a client, what qualities would you want or need in a helper? As a helper, what might you expect about clients?

One simple way of evaluating yourself is “Did Well” and “Do Better”. This consist of recognizing what you like about your practice exercise and what you want to improve. Based on your experience during your practice exercise write down one or two things you did well in your practice session.
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Now, based on your feedback, write down one or two things you could do to improve your skills.
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Practice Partner:
Please identify one or two things the helper did well in this session.
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Please identify one or two things the helper can do to further improve his or her skills.
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Based on the feedback you received, identify one or two things you hope to work on in upcoming practice sessions.
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Practice Partner Exercise: Relationship Building And Opening Up Th...