Egan's skilled helper model : developments and applications in counselling

217 Pages·2006·1.56 MB·English

by  Val Wosket

Egan’s Skilled Helper Model
The skilled helper model of counselling is hugely influential in the helping professions.
Egan’s Skilled Helper Model brings a number of new and challenging perspectives to
bear on Egan’s work and makes a major contribution to the development of this problem-
management and opportunity-development approach to helping.
Val Wosket draws on over twenty years’ experience of counselling, training and
supervising to provide a clear exposition of the model and situate it in contemporary
counselling practice. Numerous case studies are provided throughout, along with
contributions from experienced practitioners, illustrating how the model can be applied in
a variety of clinical settings and with a range of counselling issues. Egan’s Skilled Helper
Model builds on and extends the aims of Egan’s original work, covering key topics,
including:
• Developing a client-responsive approach that places the therapeutic relationship at the
heart of the model
• Applying the skilled helper model in research, training and supervision
• Translating the model into more accessible and adaptable language
This book provides an invaluable resource for trainees, trainers, supervisors and
experienced practitioners wishing to update their knowledge of the model. It will also be
of great interest to anyone in the helping professions looking for a pragmatic integrative
framework that is adaptable to a diverse range of client issues and contexts.

Dr Val Wosket is Senior Lecturer in Counselling at York St John University College.
She is a BACP accredited Counsellor, Supervisor and Trainer and also works in private
practice. Her previous publications include The Therapeutic Use of Self: Counselling
Practice, Research and Supervision and, with Steve Page, Supervising the Counsellor: A
Cyclical Model.

Egan’s Skilled Helper Model
Developments and Applications in Counselling
Val Wosket

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2006 by Routledge
27 Church Lane, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of
Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks
please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2006 Val Wosket

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict
environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wosket, Val, 1954–
Egan’s skilled helper model: developments and applications in
counselling/Val Wosket.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-1-58391-203-4 (hbk)
ISBN-10:1-58391-203-7 (hbk)

ISBN-13:978-1-58391-204-1 (pbk)
ISBN-10:1-58391-204-5 (pbk)
1. Counseling. 2. Helping behavior. I. Title.
BF637.C6W675 2006
158′.3–dc22
2006002514

ISBN 0-203-96515-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13:978-1-58391-203-4 (hbk)
ISBN13:978-1-58391-204-1 (pbk)
ISBN10:1-58391-203-7 (hbk)
ISBN10:1-58391-204-5 (pbk)
Contents

Tables and figures vi
Exercises and guidelines vii
Contributors to Chapter 7 ix
Foreword (by Gerard Egan) xi
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction xiv

1 Background and context to the skilled helper model 1
2 Overview of the skilled helper model 1: stage one 23
3 Overview of the skilled helper model 2: stages two and three 48
4 Critiques and commentaries of the skilled helper model 70
5 Using the skilled helper model in training 93
6 Research, supervision and the skilled helper model 119
7 Developments and applications of the skilled helper model: a round-table of 148

views

References 170
Index 181
Tables and figures

Table 1.1 A comparison between Rogers’ and Egan’s view of the person 13
Table 1.2 A comparison between Rogers’ and Egan’s view of the 14

counselling process
Figure 2.1 Overview of the skilled helper model 27
Table 2.1 Different types of action encompassed by the skilled helper 29

model
Figure 3.1 Levels of involvement in goal setting 57
Figure 5.1 The evolution of the professional self 102
Figure 5.2 Client-responsive use of the skilled helper model 110
Figure 6.1 The cyclical model of supervision 132
Exercises and guidelines

Exercise 1.1 The use and misuse of power and authority in counselling 20
Exercise 1.2 Helping counsellors to develop awareness of their own cultural 21

identification and assumptions
Guidelines 2.1 Working with reluctant and resistant clients 44
Exercise 2.1 Understanding my own resistance 45
Guidelines 3.1 Questions to help open the process of step 2A 67
Exercise 3.1 Creative exercise to experience the difference between stages two 67

and three
Exercise 5.1 My personal style of counselling 111
Exercise 5.2 The evolution of the professional self 111
Exercise 5.3 Dyadic feedback exercise 112
Exercise 5.4 Personal and professional profiles 113
Guidelines 5.1 Training in triads: role responsibilities 113
Guidelines 5.2 Giving and receiving constructive feedback 115
Guidelines 5.3 Suggestio ns for client issues to bring to training groups 116
Exercise 6.1 Finding a focus in supervision 141
Exercise 6.2 Exploring the psychodynamics ofsupervision 141
Exercise 6.3 Visual case processing in supervision, using metaphors and 142

drawings
Exercise 6.4 Considering the client’s perspective 144
Exercise 6.5 Giving feedback in supervision—a self-inventory 145
Contributors to Chapter 7
Dr Alan Dunnett
Dr Lynne Gabriel
Trish Hobman
Lynne Lacock
Andy Pendle
Dr Emma Roberts
Lindsay Smith
Peter Storr
Carol Warren