When creating a favorable impression on a client, being a practitioner in oil and gas in the Middle East, it is of crucial importance to subconsciously follow the principles of helping skills throughout the communication. When working with a client, I will explicitly execute these skills in order to encourage self-expression, build a trusting relationship for future interactions as well as relieve the possibility of intense emotions. First of all, I will refer to the SOLER principle of attending skills, which will help me demonstrate engagement in the conversation, e.g., using open postures, maintaining eye contact, and leaning forward towards a client.
When it comes to the reflecting process, I will reflect the content on the three levels, including repetition of the keywords, repetition of the client’s words in a different order to encourage a new perspective on the issue, and paraphrasing his or her thoughts to express active listening. Then, I will apply a feeling reflection with the help of using core feeling words. After the reflection process, I will briefly summarize the session gist, making a brief statement.
I will pay equal attention to both focusing and planning summaries to help the client in the most appropriate way. It goes without saying that encouragement in the course of the session is of great importance in order to allow the client to see his or her areas of strengths and a variety of future prospects. To achieve this, I will point out the clients’ strengths and beneficial actions they described in terms of the conversation. At the end of the session, it will be helpful to ask the client some guidance questions, avoiding the direct ones that begin with “Why.” Instead, while paying close attention to the client, I will guide him or her with questions words “how” and “what.” As a practitioner, I will consequently establish a bond with a client by following all the helping skills mentioned.