Q. Counselling skills used in diabetes mellitus?
Information gathering is an important skill for understanding of the client. Behaviour is complex and, therefore it is important to collect complete information about the client and family. Try to understand behaviour of the client and his non-verbal or body language cues too. Some responses which facilitate information gathering are: paraphrasing, probing, summarizing, reflecting, clarifying etc. Let us learn about body language. Do you know every one of us uses body language while speaking and interacting with people but many a time we are unaware of it. Body language is a term for communication using body movements or gestures instead of, or in addition to, sounds, verbal language or other communication. It forms part of the non verbal language. This includes the movements that many people are not aware of, including winking and slight movement of the eyebrows, facial expression, etc. If a counsellor's body language is not congruent with what they are saying, the result will be confusion and/or misinterpretation. Good counsellors are extremely sensitive to non-verbal communication.