SKILL TRAINING IN COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Although Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) pioneered in some aspects of skill training, it recognizes some distinct disadvantages in making that approach the modus operandi of counselling. Both the advantages and disadvantages of a skill-training approach are discussed in order to clarify RETs position on the topic. Résumé La thérapie rationnelle-émotive a fait oeuvre de pionnier dans certains aspects du développement de compétences. Cependant, on reconnaît qu'il y aurait des désavantages à rendre cette approche le modus operandi de toute consultation. On discute tant les avantages que les désavantages de cette approche afin de clarifier la position de la thérapie rationnelle-émotive sur ce sujet. Cliff Christensen, in the January 1976 issue of the Canadian Counsellor, has raised a very important question regarding the place of skill training in counselling and psychotherapy when he states that "clearly there is a trend toward the counsellor functioning more as a teacher who helps the client re-examine values, learn interper-sonal skills, and develop understandings. This then becomes the content of counselling." Let us assume that Christensen describes the current situation correctly, and that counsellors today, in opposition to the Rogerian trend of "nondirective " relating of the 1950's and 1960's (Rogers, 1951, 1961), and to the somewhat later trend of counsellor "empathizing " of the 1960's and early 1970's (Truax & Carkhuff, 1967), "are now actively developing and researching a skills approach to counselling) (Christensen, 1976, p. 46.) Certainly, a good deal of evidence supports this contention — as shown by the popularity of skill training in such diverse fields as se