Skills and interest

Counseling

We are a group of primary care health practitioners who are dedicated in learning and applying counseling skills in family practice.

Why applying counseling skills in family practice?

As frontline practitioners, we are often reminded by the interaction among the physical, psychological and social aspects of the patients.  The physical symptoms sometimes may just act as the admission ticket for consultation.  The underlying issue is often the psycho-social problem.  Dealing with the psycho-social problems becomes unavoidable if we really aim to provide holistic care to our patients.

Some may argue that the primary care team is not the most appropriate one to provide counseling.  Certainly, time constraint and the lack of training in counseling are some of our limitations.  However, application of basic counseling skills can still benefit many of our patients.

Good communication skills are essential in the process of counseling.  This helps to explore the problem and establish rapport with the patient.   Establishment of the therapeutic relationship by itself can lead to the resolution of problems even without specific counseling technique as stated in person centre therapy (one of the counseling theories).

Counseling applying certain specific counseling techniques, such as CBT, has been shown to be beneficial to depressed patients.  This has been confirmed by clinical evidence.  Apart from management of the psycho-social problems, counseling also helps in some physical problems.  For example, patients with hypertension may have misunderstanding about this illness.  This in turn affects their compliance to treatment.  After proper counseling, such misconceptions can be clarified.

Definitely, there are a lot of other applications of various counseling skills in the daily practice of a primary care practitioner.

We learn, we share and we grow.

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- suggested book list for reading

 The Use of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Primary Care Counseling