Conduct an online, real-time counseling session with a classmate as your “client” via Google Docs or any other similar instant communication platform on a computer. The resulting transcript of the counselling session should be at least 1500 words and properly formatted according to the sample provided in class.

Conduct this session as yourself, a Counselling Skills student, and apply the appropriate skills and guidelines learned in the module to counsel your classmate. Do not pretend to be a professional counselor or anyone else but ensure that ethical guidelines such as informed consent are followed. In your 1500-word essay, exclusive of the transcript, you are required to:

1. Explain what counseling is.
2. Explain 5 counselling skills that you applied appropriately during the counselling session with your classmate-client. These 5 skills should be evident in your transcript and should be from the following list:

• Attending
• Active listening
• Responding
• Paraphrasing
• Summarising
• Questioning
• Self-disclosure
• Immediacy
• Advanced empathy
• Challenging

3. Identify 3 counselor-centered areas for improvement encountered during the counselling session. In other words, do not attribute shortcomings in the counseling session to the classmate-client or counseling medium.
4. Suggest appropriate ways to address the above-mentioned 3 areas for improvement.