Building Effective Relationships With Egan's Skilled Helper Model

You are required to with reference to Egan's skilled helper model, identify the role of the helper, describing the life-cycle of this relationship and the helping and hindering factors in the formation of the relationship. Then reflecting upon your learning, evaluate your development of stage 1 and 2 counselling skills.

Relationship Building and Key Elements

Human beings are considered to be a social creature and love to maintain a good relationship in the society. Relationship can be identified in many ways. In fact, there are several types of relationship such as relationship at workplace, in personal life as well as with the counsellor as well. In response to this, it can be ascribed that a good relationship or communication can help a person to get more confidence and learn the techniques of gaining attention. In this regards, the skill helper model of Egan is considered to be an effective way of bringing efficiency in the practice. The model emphasises on the problem solving layout and help people to develop opportunities to sort the issues out. Hence, the purpose of this report is to put more focus on the effectiveness of Egan’s skilled helper model and make an understanding of various facets of relationship building concept. The discussion is going to widen up its discourse by taking a great deal of analysis on various stages, role of helper and advantages and disadvantages of building relationship.

Building relationship

Relationship building is a complex but easy task. There are some key elements aligned with relationship building which are essentially helpful to make the relationship better and stronger. Factors like trust, mutual respect, mindfulness, open communication can be discussed in this context. It is also imperative to analyse the perspective of the helpers and their efficiency as well. In order to do this, the skilled helper model of Egan becomes significant. The model is a three stage framework in which the helping process is being advocated. This model never deals with solving problems, rather it emphasises the role of a counsellor in recognizing the problems and suggests accordingly. Besides this, it is also essential for a helper to build up a sense of genuineness, respect and empathy. 

Stages

Based on Egan's skilled helper model (refer to Appendix 1), the stages are divided into three sequential but unique steps. The first step is related to the current scenario of the problem, the second step is to identify the preferred scenario and finally the third step prescribes an action strategy.

The first stage is going to deal with the specific problems of the speaker. In this phase, the helper will remain silent and try to acknowledge the problems. Exploring the major issues and compartmentalise it is the primary concern of the counsellor. In addition to this, open ended questions related to the issues are also being asked. After that, the second stage in the name of preferred scenario needs to be discussed. This part essentially reflects the mindset of the speaker in order to get a clear picture about his or her expectation. The significance of the second stage is that it clarifies the goals and ambition of the speaker to get rid of the emerging problem. The final part will put a great deal of light into the set of plans which will help the speaker to sort out the problems. It is primarily a creative part where the helper will envision a strategy related to the mentioned target and will provide an estimated timeline for completing the plan.

Egan's Skilled Helper Model and its 3 Stages

Role of the helper

Professional helping relationship is manifested by both the participation of advisor and receiver. Therefore, it is very essential to illustrate the role of helper in giving suggestions. In this regards, the term helpers connotes a clear identification of those people who are engaged with giving consultation and having helping skills. The practise of helping becomes more restricted and significant when it is practised in a professional way. Nonetheless, there are a number of way that helping in professional basis can be delivered. It can be individual, group, couple or in family counselling. In addition to this, the role of the helpers can also be differentiated with the type of helping that they are performed. In general, the fundamental role of a helper is to give proper advice to an individual in trouble. In this context, the role of an helper is slightly deviated from the action of a helper is slightly deviated from the work of a counsellor or a psychotherapist. It can be argued that the primary target of a helper is strictly focused on assist people to meet their goals, the psycho analysis or the consultative nature is considered secondary in this matter. Hence, the role of a helper is meant to be more significant and creative in nature. 

Enabling factors

There are a number of influential factors that can help a counsellor or a helper to become effective in practise. In that context, communication skills are considered to be of very essential. As far as the entire conversation is based in positive communication so that the helper must have possess the art of implementing a free and open conversation with the speaker in order to understand specific problems. Besides this, building a good relation is supposed to be an effective strategy for the helper. This rapport building skill fosters positivism for the client to express himself freely. Another key factor in this regards is the skill of planning. A better planning which is simple but effective can always get top preference from the client. Therefore, keeping in mind about the excellence of the strategy the helper must figure out the achievable way of effective planning.

Restraining elements

Subsequently the helper can also face obligations and obstructions in course of counselling. Lack of understanding can lead towards a wrong advice which is inadequate for the situation. It is important for the helper to provide enough time to the speaker so that he or she can ventilate expression properly. However, it is also essential for the helper to build up a good and open environment for the client which will reflect a good sense of positivism. The client will get demoralized if he does not get any positive response from the helper. 

The Role of a Helper

Life cycle

The life cycle of helping mechanism is based on four stages in terms of problems, identification, urge for a change and solution (refer to Appendix 2).The problem phase reflects the issues regarding the client. In this phase the client will express his problems and also share his view about the issues. The next step is related to the helper. It focuses on identification of the problem. It is often happened that clients have no idea about their actual problem or incapable to figure out the root cause of the problem. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the helper to identify the issues properly. After that, the helper must have the understanding about the client’s perception on his problems. The reason behind this is that the helper wants to get a clear idea about the intensity of client’s problem and how much it will affect his or her life. Based on the intensity of the problem it is the duty of the helper to set proper planning for the client which will lead towards success.

Advantages

The skilled helper model developed by Gerard Egan is very helpful in addressing specific issue. The model helps the clients to take responsibility for their own decision making. It can be asserted that the skill helper model dedicatedly create an empathic relationship with the clients which encourages them to share their issues. The model never judge its clients in a preconceive manner which facilitates to yield positive outcomes.

Disadvantages

Lack of close ended question can perturbs the urgency of the planning. Often the clients are telling several things which are not important for understanding the problem and as a result it takes long time to formulate a plan. The model is partially depends upon the perception of the clients and it can be wrong to identify the problem based on client’s perception. 

Reflection

Keeping in focus of the framework of Egan’s skilled helper model I conducted a helping process in order to understand the effectiveness of the model in present case scenario. In the first stage of the process it seemed so strenuous for a helper to keep listing the speaker. It requires a great deal of concentration and expertise. As this was my first experience so that I had done some mistakes and realized it later on. The second stage was also a bit complex because it was based on the verdict of the clients only. Nevertheless, the model is simple and useful for experimental purposes.

Conclusion

Despite all the challenges a helper can face while practising the Egan’s skilled helper model, it can be argued that the model is good and is able to provide a clear picture of the client’s problem. At the same time it also retrieves the expectation of the client in difficult situation. Therefore, it can be concluded that the scientific process and patience has been generated through the Egan’s skilled helper model which is beneficial for the helper to understand the problem of his client effectively. 

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