Hospital studies have shown that patients improved when their therapist demonstrated levels of warmth, genuineness and accurate empathic understanding. Patients grew worse when their counselors lacked these qualities. Similar findings are shown in clients who are not hospitalized.
1. Warmth: This implies caring, respecting and possessing a sincere, non-smothering concern for the client, regardless for his or her actions or attitudes. Jesus showed this for the woman at the well.
2. Genuineness: This implies that the counselor is “for real.” He would be open, sincere, and avoids phoniness or playing a superior role. It involves honesty without cruel confrontation. The person is not thinking or feeling one thing and saying another.
3. Empathy: What does the person really think? How does the person feel inside? What are the person’s values, beliefs, inner conflicts and hurts? A good counselor is sensitive to these issues, able to understand them and effective in communicating this understanding (using words or gestures) to the client. The counselor must “feel with” the client in order to move toward accurate empathic understanding. It is possible to help people even if we don’t understand, but this quality always increases the counselor’s effectiveness.
4. Others are helpful: able to get along; absence of immobilizing conflicts, hang-ups, insecurities or personal problems; compassionate, interested in people; alert to his own feelings and motives; more self-revealing than self-concealing; knowledgeable in the field of counseling. Love is NOT enough. Discipline and structure are also important factors.