Custom term paper New Assignment: Role Plays

Counseling session
The first role play
The first role play should undergo several stages to become successful and to bring positive outcomes to the client.
Problem identification. The counseling session starts with the identification of the problem. In case of John, the problem is being late on the regular basis that means that John fails to come in time and the time is the major the counseling session should deal with to help John to tackle his problem successfully. The identification of the problem is the crucial stage in the counseling session because if the counselor and the client fail to identify the problem they are likely to fail the entire session.
Causes of the problem. The counselor should analyze forces influencing the behavior of John to find out what causes of the misbehavior of John are. At this stage, the understanding of causes will help the counselor to focus on the elaboration of effective solutions and strategy of counseling.
Elaborating the plan of the counseling session. On identifying the problem and its causes, the counselor should plan and coordinate his or her work in the course of the session. In this respect, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the counselor should not only elaborate the plan of the session but also he or she has to take into consideration that he or she will work with the facilitator and he or she needs to collaborate with the facilitator effectively. To meet this goal, the counselor should have a strategy of collaboration with the facilitator. For instance, the counselor can ask for a piece of advice from the part of the facilitator on key issues, such as revelation of true causes of John’s misbehavior, possible solutions and counseling strategy. At the same time, the counselor should keep the counseling session under his or her control.
Implementation of the plan. Having the plan of the counseling session, the counselor can carry out the session. At this stage, the counselor should be compassionate and supportive to help the employee to reveal his problems and to elaborate an effective solution. The counselor should not push on the client too much. Instead, he or she should encourage the client to reveal the problem and to admit that the problem does exist. After that, the counselor can help the client to find the solution to his problem. For instance, he or she can recommend John to pay attention to the time or to ask for solutions John can offer himself.
The elaboration of the action plan. The counselor should develop the action plan, which implies the steady shift of John’s behavior toward the desirable behavior. The counselor can promise John certain rewards for arriving in time and establish some fines in case of John being late.
Evaluation of the counseling session. The counselor should evaluate the impact of the counseling session on the client. The best way to evaluate outcomes of the session is to check the behavior of John, whether he is still late or not. In terms of the current counseling session, the counselor can ask a set of questions which reveal whether John has understood his problem and whether he agrees to the suggested plan of action or not.
The second role play
The second role play is, to a significant extent similar to the previous one, but the client, Emily, should be aware that she has to participate in the role play actively but she should not be just the subject to the plan of action suggested by the counselor. All her actions should be conscious and she should be confident in her ability to tackle her problem.
Identification of the problem. Emily should identify the problem clearly. She should understand that her performance has deteriorated and she has to tackle this problem because her position in the company depends on her performance.
Causes of the problem. Emily should understand causes of the deterioration of her performance and the counselor may help her in this regard focusing her attention on possible areas where she may have problems or difficulties.
Counseling session plan and the client involvement into the session’s goals and objectives. Emily should cooperate with the counselor to understand the plan suggested by the counselor and how the counseling session will be carried out. She needs to understand her role and ultimate goals of the session.
The action plan’s evaluation by the client. Emily should be patient but she should evaluate critically the plan of action suggested by the counselor as well as his or her possible recommendations and solutions. The critical evaluation of the plan and solutions is essential because Emily has to be aware that the ultimate outcome of the session is the improvement of her performance that will bring her certain benefits at her workplace, such as career growth, for instance. In addition, she has to stay patient to be able to maximize the positive effect of the counseling session for herself.
Decision-making. Emily should take a decision with the help of the counselor concerning the change in her behavior to improve her performance. This step is essential and it defines the overall outcome of the counseling session. If Emily agrees, this means that the session was successful, if she stays unaware of her problem, than the session has failed.
Part 3. Reaction/evaluation to overall role playing experience
Lessons from role playing
Traditionally, the role playing as an important and effective tool used in counseling en masse. As the matter of fact, the effectiveness of the role playing results from the change of the role clients perform in their regular life. What is meant here is the fact that clients can learn new social experience as they play a role attributed to him or her by the counselor in terms of the role playing. In actuality, this means that the counselor helps a client to change his or her current status or the model of behavior playing the part defined in terms of the role playing. In such a way, clients can easily learn new models of behavior and, what is even more important, they learn that the change of the model of behavior can lead to positive outcomes and to change to their relationships with other people. custom term paper
At the same time, the role playing helps clients to view the situation, in which they are at the moment, from a different angle. They can perform different parts in the role playing and the change of the parts they perform leads to the change of the angle from which they view the situation. As a result, clients learn that one and the same situation can be viewed from different angles and, therefore, they can learn more tolerant and diverse of behavior compared to the model of behavior they are accustomed to in their regular life.
Furthermore, the counselor also learns a number of lessons from the role playing. In this respect, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that it is through the role playing the counselor can identify major problems the client suffers from as well as uncover causes of these problems. In fact, clients uncover the essence of their personality through the role playing because they tend to apply the model of behavior they get used to in their everyday life to the parts they perform in the role playing. As they need to change their standard of behavior in terms of the role playing, the counselor can trace the major problems in the behavior of clients. For instance, speaking about the case of John and his habit to be late, it is possible to identify time habits and time problems of the client, if he fails to admit that he does have a problem. Or else, if a student performing the role of John can hardly identify any reason to be late or, on the contrary, he can name a lot of reasons to be late, it rather reveals his personal habits to be late because the student can take reasons for being late from his personal experience and from his real life.
In addition, the counselor can learn the extent to which the role playing can be effective in regard to the particular client. It proves beyond a doubt that all clients are different. Their personal traits of character, models of behavior, habits and the lifestyle at large differ consistently. Therefore, the role playing can help the counselor to learn how to apply the role playing to learn as much as possible about the personality of the client and, what is even more important, to learn the effective ways to use the role playing to change and modify the behavior, habits or even traits of character of the client respectively to the goals of the counseling session.
Outcomes from the counseling session
On analyzing the outcomes of the counseling session conducted in the class, when the situation of John being late and his counseling was role played, it is worth mentioning the fact that this role playing encouraged students to pay more attention to their personal habits and lifestyle, while many students have admitted that they do have time-related problems. In such a way, at the stage of the identification of the problem, many students have identified the problem defined in the role playing in their own behavior and habits. This fact is very important because the fact that students have managed to identify the problem in their own behavior reveals the extent to which the role playing is effective.
As for the analysis of the outcomes of the role playing in the specific group, the role playing made the client think about his problem in his behavior and start thinking about possible causes of the problem. The revelation of the problem helped the client to change his behavior because he understood that his behavior cannot remain unchanged and he has to learn new models of behavior. Otherwise, he would definitely face the problem of maintenance of positive relationships with his manager and colleagues. Moreover, the risk of losing the job was real and the client understood that he had to start acting to prevent possible negative outcomes of his misbehavior. In such a way, the role playing stimulated the client to start acting. The willing to change his behavior was the first step toward the actual change of his behavior. This step was essential for the counseling session because the client could not change his behavior if he stayed unaware of his problems and its negative effects on his professional as well as personal life.
Furthermore, the client has learned new models of behavior as he communicated with counselor, who offered him other options to behave to come in time and to pay more attention to time in his everyday life. In addition, the client has managed to develop critical and analytical thinking. On the one hand, the client perceived critically the information from the counselor, processed the information and extrapolated counselor’s message on his real life. On the other hand, the role playing stimulated the client to think over his behavior and habits and analyze the impact of his habit to be late on his professional as well as personal life. In such a way, the role playing extended analytical skills of the client and helped him to view his own behavior and habits critically.
Naturally, the major outcome of the counseling session is the change in the behavior and habits of the client because, being aware of negative effects of his problem, the client agreed to follow the recommendations and the action plan developed by the counselor. He agreed to pay more attention to the time and even promised to double check the time when he is going to work as well as other places. In such a way, he is likely to develop a habit to pay attention to the time in his everyday life that naturally minimizes the risk of the client to come late.
Lessons from the counseling session’s role playing
The counseling session contributed to the consistent change in the behavior of the client and stimulated the change in his attitude to time. In this regard, the significance of the role playing can hardly be underestimated. First of all, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the client proved to be able to identify his problem and get involved into the role playing. In fact, it is due to the role playing the client has managed to identify his problem because, when he has got facts that John comes late on the regular basis, he understood that he suffers from this problem as well. In such a way, client learned to analyze his own behavior and to evaluate it critically. In this respect, it is particularly important to stress the fact that the client has started to refer to facts above all, instead of his emotional assessment of the situation and his behavior. To put it more precisely, before the counseling session and the role playing, the client denied that he had any serious problems in his behavior. Moreover, he even admitted that he is a punctual person and normally he arrives in time. However, in the course of the role play, he recalled that his manager reminded him about the time when he came to the job frequently, although this problem did not occur on the regular basis but the frequency of the client’s late comings has increased recently.
Furthermore, the role playing helped the client to learn the factors that increase the risk of being late. The client recognized that he was vulnerable to the impact of some of these factors and he admitted that some factors, such as inconvenient and uncomfortable environment at the workplace increases the risk of his coming late because he is not really eager to come to the workplace, if he is dissatisfied with the workplace environment. In such a way, the client learned that there are multiple factors which may influence his behavior and which are not dependent on his own habits and behavior. In other words, the client learned to take into consideration external factors which he has to adapt to instead of ignoring them. For instance, he admitted that he would improve his workplace environment through changing it and bringing some things he likes from his home to his workplace to feel more comfortable and at ease.
Finally, the counseling session’s role playing helped the client to learn to monitor and control his behavior and habits on the regular basis. Due to the counseling session, the client has grown more aware of the risk of the development of negative habits in his behavior, whereas monitoring and control over his everyday life and activities help him to minimize the risk of the development of negative habits. In such a way, the client has started to pay more attention to his behavior and his habits and, what is more important, he has become more responsible.
The choice of counseling activity for the session
The change in the behavior and habits of the client was, to a significant extent, determined by the choice of the counseling activity for the session. To put it more precisely, the choice of the group work of the counselor, facilitator and client in the role playing was a very effective activity because it maximized the effectiveness of counseling. In this respect, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the counselor could get and did get the support from the part of the facilitator, who helped the counselor to defined causes of the client’s problem and to develop possible solutions to the problem and to give recommendations to the client to tackle the problem.
Furthermore, the collaboration between the counselor and the facilitator was particularly important for the overall success of the counseling session because the facilitator backed up the counselor and helped the counselor to elaborate effective counseling strategy. On the other hand, the facilitator did not interfere in the counseling process directly because it was counselor, who took decisions on the counseling session and the plan of actions developed for the client. In such a situation, the counselor got the support of the facilitator and preserved his independence of external influences because he evaluated critically the recommendations provided by the facilitator.
At the same time, it is important to take into consideration the overall impact of the counseling session and the role playing on the client. In fact, the counseling session has proved to be very effective that means that the choice of the counseling session activity was correct and effective. In this regard, the role playing helped consistently to conduct the counseling session in a comfortable ambiance. Due to the role playing, the client felt comfortable, at ease and fully relaxed. He could evaluate critically his own behavior and habits without excessive stresses and pressure on his personal life and behavior. At the same time, the role playing helped the client to identify his problem that means that the counseling session activity was effective enough. In fact, the chosen counseling session activity did not only help to identify the problem of the client but also it helped to define the way to overcome the actual problem the client had.
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the role playing is an effective counseling session activity which helps clients to relax and to develop new models of behavior. At any rate, clients can view one and the same situation from different angles that would be impossible if another activity was used. The role playing is one of the best activities which allow clients to choose a different model of behavior or to view the situation from a different angle. In addition, the role playing helps the client to evaluate the situation and his behavior critically and to agree to change his habits, behavior and lifestyle at large. In such a way, the ultimate goal of the counseling session is achieved. At the same time, the counselor can learn more about the client in the course of the role playing that is particularly important for the overall success of the counseling session.