Roleplaying And Egan's Model: A Person-Centered Approach

What is Egan's Model?

Generally, roleplaying enables a person to identify their feelings over a particular condition and learn how other people feel. It can also refer to activities involving speaking where a person puts himself in another person's shoes or when a person is in a difficult situation and under unreal circumstances (Kalieva, 2020). It occurs between two or more people who demonstrate various roles and examine a particular case scenario. For instance, the conversation in the provided video occurs between I as a counsellor and the client who has visited for a counseling session due to pain and stress in her relationship with her husband. Role-play enables people to prepare for complex and painful situations, such as emotional conversations, interviews, and conflicts (Gordon & Thomas, 2018). Employing roleplay enables people to develop their self-confidence and experience in handling real-life situations and provide intuitive and quick responses. Roleplay involves five steps; identification of the problem, adding details, assigning roles, acting the functions, and discussing what has been derived from the scenario (Gordon & Thomas, 2018). For this paper, I will highlight a role play that I have selected to be a counsellor for this role play to facilitate transformative change in my client, who has had a painful and stressful relationship with her husband. Also, I will make references to Egan's model and focus on the various stages of the model. I will also elucidate the essential aspects of the model, such as the skills a counsellor can employ from the model and help the clients to set their goals. Finally, I will point out the strengths and limitations I observed, the struggles I experienced, and what I would have done better in the role play.

Describing and explaining how this roleplay aligned with the Egan's model and attained a person-centered method

Egan's model (1998) is an approach that is employed in the counseling session and has a significant impact on how counselors engage their clients by identifying various steps in their counseling session and stating the appropriate skills they use in every stage. Egan (1998) considers this model a straightforward and flexible model essential in the counseling session. It enables the counselor to identify each in the counseling process where the client was given time to express themselves. Employing this framework in the counselling session enables the counsellor to engage their clients in well planned and appropriate manner; for instance, by being consistent and less reliant on some things such as therapeutic inspiration. The first view of the model presents nine steps in which the counsellor must engage their client in every step to provide the expected change. Circumstances occur where the counsellor misses out on some steps of the model; thus, it is of great significance for a counsellor to repeat all the stages to ensure that both the client and the counsellor are satisfied with the counselling session. Egan provides an organized approach to counselling depending on three main steps, further sub-divided into various steps. The main steps of the model stem from an approach of problem-solving toward issues the client is experiencing; these three stages are derived from a problem-solving approach to clients' problems (Quiroga-Garza, Sánchez, & Vivas, 2018). Egan's framework involves three main stages; Step one; is the examination and elucidation of the current issues. Step two; focuses on the objectives and goals that facilitate new understanding concerning the problems. Stage 3; involves implementing plans of action toward a particular scenario.
The above stages are further subdivided into subsections as a story, blind spots, leverage, and future possibilities. Throwing light on the above stages, Egan's Model can be employed in a counseling session in a particular place and has a significant impact on the entire counseling session.

Using Egan's Model in Counseling Sessions

This step begins by giving the client ample time to tell their stories. However, this may not be as expected from the client in every counselling session. As previously mentioned, it is easier for a counsellor to play around with the stages of the model as they offer counseling sessions to their clients; for instance, other counseling sessions consider discussion of the possible changes that the client wants in their life, focusing on their past situations. In most cases, a session of allowing the client to tell their story may take various counselling sessions to be complete. This is essential as it enables the client to maneuver around all the stages of the model throughout their therapy. These circumstances may result from the ability of the client to recall issues or events that happened in their lifetime, and they feel that it is essential to open up with their counsellors. However, this model can enable clients to tell their counselors their stories in steps and link them to their past as they gain confidence and trust from their counselors. According to Egan (1998), no one should underestimate the stage of assisting clients in telling their stories. Allowing the client to disclose their information has various benefits in the counseling session; for example, it offers a glimpse of problem-solving and has a cathartic impact. In the initial step of the counselling session, the counsellor assists the client in telling their story and elucidating their issues and how the events unfold in their life. This helps to determine the issues the client experiences and the available resources for the session. The counselor encourages their clients to establish a trusting relationship to enable them to feel comfortable and free to tell their stories. For instance, I assured the client that the conversation will be private and confidential; it will only be disclosed if there will be any harm to the client or any other person.

The counsellor can help by employing various counselling skills such as open questions, silence, attending, Summarising, reflecting, focusing, and Probing & paraphrasing (Sigstad & Garrels, 2018). Carl Rogers considers that employing these skills aligns with three fundamental conditions; empathic understating and listening genuineness and unconditional optimistic regard essential to building a therapeutic association. For instance, in this stage, I maintained eye contact with the client and expressed that I valued what she said as her relationship with her husband had become painful and stressful, and they have been together for the past four years. However, the client did not maintain eye contact with me throughout the session. This may be due to being uncomfortable with me. As she expressed herself, she looked down, sideways, and upwards. In addition, I employed the empathic understanding skill used when a counsellor wants to focus on a particular element concerning what is being said by the client. For instance, if the client demonstrates any distress, discomfort, or anger. A counsellor needs to be aware of their body language; I was keen on my body language in my discussion with the client. In addition, another vital skill that I employed is questioning; for instance, I asked the client various questions such as how their relationship had been before, the events that led to the problem, and what she wanted to ensure that their relationship returned to normal. She states that her communication with her husband has not been the same as before and wants to have regular communication with her husband to regain their relationship.
Stage 2; challenging

Step 1: Examining and Elucidation of Current Issues

Compelling telling the story will promote the second step of the model, which concerns assisting the client is looking at their blind spots. It is vital to use challenging skills to help clients identify and overcome their blind spots. "Challenging aims to offer the counsellor's perspective and accurate information. This stage enables the counselor to challenge the client's strengths and identify available resources that may facilitate a successful counseling session. According to Egan, there are five challenging skills, such as Confrontation; Egan states that there are various inconsistencies in what the client says and their actions. Egan (1998) envisages that "Confrontation refers to challenging clients to establish new perspectives and change inner and exterior behaviour. Confrontation skill enables the clients to establish new perceptions on their issues, provide them with information, and make corrections to wrong information provided.

In some cases, (grief), the information can confirm and support. Another skill is Self-Disclosure; Egan understood this to be about sharing one's own experiences of a situation with a client. It encourages clients to open up and disclose themselves throughout the counselling session (Postings, 2021). Accurately used, disclosing self can be helpful and cheerful. Still, ineffective and untimely disclosures may promote anxiety among the clients; for example, the session changes from its focus from the client to the counselor. For instance, the client feels free to open up about her relationship with her husband.

Advanced Empathy refers to sharing educated intuitions concerning the client and their behaviours, feelings, and experiences to establish new ideas and perspectives towards setting the goals they want to achieve in their life. Immediacy includes being about open and honest communication. It provides that the client is aware of the counselling relationship; for instance, I started the session by introducing myself and stated that the information provided will be kept private and confidential. Immediacy is the skill of disclosing your rapport with your clients and can also be termed as 'here and now or 'you-me talk' (Gibson & Trnka, 2020). It is important to note that challenging skills are compelling and can only be used based on the client and their counselor's relationship. For instance, my role play followed this step of Egan's framework that involved challenging the current views that are one problem at a time. For example, I advised the client to book another session if she feels happy with the first counselling session.

Setting goals is essential in any counselling session as it enables the client to engage themselves in various things and activities that can facilitate change. As a counsellor, I will employ the SMART goal approach to ensure that clients achieve their goals. The SMART approach is an abbreviation for Specific; making the goals more specific facilitates easy achievement (Grant, 2020). Measurable; I will ensure that the client can measure their goals and whether they are being met or not. Achievable; I will also ensure that the client achieves their goals. Realistic; it provides that the goals are realistic and can be achieved with the available resources. Time-Limited; as a counsellor, I will ensure that the client knows the deadline for achieving the goal. To help the client set goals, I will also ensure that I identify hopes, dreams, and motives, choose one theme to focus on, narrow it down to it and develop more specific goals, ensure that the goals are SMART and measurable, and develop an action plan to track and achieve the goals the counsellor will also involve the client in every step towards achieving the goals to ensure that the goals are client-centered. For instance, when I ask the client what she wants and she tells the client to book for another session if the feels happy with the session. The client states that she wants to regain her communication with her husband as it was before.

Counselor Skills for Step 1

The strengths I observed in the conversation include; I told the client that the discussion would be kept private and confidential in case of any harm to the client or other people, and the confidentiality of the conversation would be revealed. As the counsellor, I started the session by introducing myself to the client. I brief the client about the counselling session and begin to ask questions such as why the client feels stressed. We both allow turn-taking; for example, I ask a question and allow the client to respond. The client responds well to the questions asked. The client spends her time at work to cope with the stress. In addition, the client provides various suggestions to improve her relationship. For example, she says maintaining communication as they were before. Also, she is happy about the session as it provided her with the chance to express her feelings. In addition, the conversation is Client-centred; as the counsellor I involve the client throughout the discussion. Using a client-centered approach in counseling sessions enhances successful communication that will promote successful outcomes of the counseling session. Finally, the conversation ends well when I tell the client that if she is happy about the situation, she should feel free to book an appointment for another session.

The conversation also has a weakness; for instance, the client does not maintain contact throughout the discussion. She looks sideways and upwards as she explains how her relationship with her husband has been since they met. Also, the session had less structure where it unfolded more in the client's story throughout the conversation. The main struggle I experienced in the counseling session was understanding what the client was going through. Also, I struggled with my stress as time went by, but I had to listen to the client and help her out. The only thing I could have done differently is to structure the counseling session in steps, making them more open-ended to establish a deep thought of the client's condition. A well-structured session will guide what to do next and facilitate the achievement of the client's goals.

References

Egan, M., Dubouloz, C. J., Zweck, C. V., & Vallerand, J. (1998). The client-centred evidence-based practice of occupational therapy. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 65(3), 136-143.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000841749806500303

Eryilmaz, A., & Mutlu, T. (2017). Developing the Four-Stage Supervision Model for Counselor Trainees. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 17(2), 597-629.https://eric.ed.gov

Gibson, K., & Trnka, S. (2020). Young people's priorities for support on social media: "It takes trust to talk about these issues." Computers in human behavior, 102, 238-247.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563219303176

Gordon, S., & Thomas, I. (2018). 'The learning sticks': reflections on a case study of roleplaying for sustainability. Environmental Education Research, 24(2), 172-190.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2016.1190959

Grant, A. M. (2020). An integrated model of goal?focused coaching: an evidence?based framework for teaching and practice. Coaching Researched: A Coaching Psychology Reader, 115-139.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119656913.ch7

Kalieva, D. B. (2020). Role playing as an effective tool for developing speaking skills. ?????????????? ????? ? ????????, (4 (30)).https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/role-playing-as-an-effective-tool-for-developing-speaking-skills

Postings, T. (2021). Counselling Skills. SAGE.https://books.google.co.ke/books

Quiroga-Garza, A., Sánchez, S. D., & Vivas, G. N. (2018). Human immunodeficiency virus: the need of a person-centered counselling. Sociol Int J, 2(1), 00032.https://www.sidastudi.org/resources/inmagic-img/DD51004.pdf

Sadowski, E. (2018). Intuition and Education. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education.https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-306

Sigstad, H. M. H., & Garrels, V. (2018). Facilitating qualitative research interviews for respondents with intellectual disabilities. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 33(5), 692-706.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08856257.2017.1413802