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714 N. Walnut • P.O. Box 817 • Bloomington, In 47402 • (812) 333-1555

Explanation of Peer Counselor Training Contents

Techniques for Individual Counseling and Confidentiality

  1. Personal characteristics that help a counselor be effective
  2. Basic counseling guidelines
  3. Specific "Do's" and "Don'ts"
  4. Definition and basic rules of confidentiality
  5. Situations which require exceptions
  6. Talking about matters of confidentiality with clients and inquirers
Unless confidentiality is protected, our ministry is rendered ineffective.

Setting Personal Boundaries

Setting personal boundaries helps the counselor keep a balance and set boundaries in the client/counselor relationship

  1. The balance necessary between protection and vulnerability
  2. Practical application of boundaries
  3. How personal needs and unresolved conflicts can become entangled in the therapeutic process
For counselors who are completing their own healing process, this warning is very important.

Understanding Your Client—Personality Temperaments

  1. A description of the four basic personality types:
    Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic
  2. The strengths and weaknesses of each type will be presented and discussed
This information is most valuable in understanding yourself as counselor, the client you work with, and the dynamics of the interaction between the two of you, as well as how the client will react to others in her life.

Communication Techniques

  1. Basic types of communication techniques
  2. Levels of communication
  3. Rules and attitudes necessary for effective communication (listen, try to understand, and give feedback)
  4. Roadblocks that hinder communication

Listening Skills Techniques

  1. Personal qualities necessary to be a good listener
  2. Positions counselors take in relationship to their clients
  3. Choosing between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable
  4. Levels of listening
  5. Roadblocks that hinder listening
Much of the effectiveness of ministry involves skills in listening.

Techniques of Group Facilitating

  1. Rationale
  2. Techniques
  3. Areas of need
  4. Nuts and bolts of beginning a group
  5. Practical application

The Healing Process

Session 1 includes:
  1. Introduction to the recovery process
  2. The characteristics of an emotionally wounded person
Session 2 includes:
  • Stages of the healing process
Session 3 includes:
  1. Presents and describes the sixteen core issues common to all woundedness
  2. Instructions for working through problems, conflicts or issues
Regardless of the cause for woundedness, the healing process involves working through core issues.

Understanding Codependency

Session 1 includes:
  1. A description of codependency
  2. Its causes and symptoms
  3. How it influences relationships
Session 2 includes:
  • Steps to recovery
Ninety-six percent of us are codependent to some degree, and codependency hinders emotional health.

Distorted Image of God and Spiritual Abuse—How it Affects Healing

  1. Spiritual abuse as the cause of a distorted image of God
  2. How a distorted image of God happens in childhood
  3. How it happens in adulthood
  4. How a distorted image of God affects the view of ourselves and others
  5. How can we as counselors assist in healing?
  6. The R's of Recovery=
    Rest Rehabilitation Releasing the hurt Risk taking
  7. Our role as fellow believers in the healing process
A distorted image of God hinders the healing process because Christ is the healer. If we are unable to view God accurately, healing is impeded.

Challenge of Personal Accountability

This closing workshop challenges the counselor:
  1. Personal integrity
  2. Continual pursuit of a deep relationship with God
  3. Vigilance in recognizing and confronting evil in ministry situations

Unless our personal relationship with God is healthy and developing, we will have nothing to give others.

We usually conclude the series after this workshop with communion and a "blessing" for ministry.

Applications Workshop

Students observe a mock counseling session and then participate in mock sessions.
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