APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

GRA 2237 Counselling

Responsible for the course
Jan Ketil Arnulf

Department
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
All contemporary human service providers and personnel managers encounter situations in which they are required to help people to change some aspect of their behaviour. In the workplace, such situations may include employees’ need for improved role effectiveness, personnel conflicts, organizational changes that affect the individual, such as job loss, restructuring and reorganization. All people who counsel operate from theoretical frameworks about how people become the way they are, how they respond to situations, how problems evolve and are maintained, and how people can be helped to change. Counseling is also at the heart of coaching, which has become very popular as a tool in many contemporary leadership development programs. This course will give students an up-to-date overview of major theoretical approaches in counseling and how they are used in counseling work problems.

Learning outcome
The objective of the course is to provide students with knowledge of different theoretical approaches to counselling as well as awareness of how and why these theories are used to counsel employees. At the end of the course, not only will students have an understanding of the major counselling theories and their academic roots, but will also have gained a better understanding of their own behaviour and some practical skills in counselling. They should have a realistic expectation about the possible contributions they can make by using conversations as tools for changing clients, with a particular emphasis on workplace problems and leadership development. Further, the course will train the students to see that ethical issues protecting client integrity is an integrated part of professional helping relationships. The students will be aware their limitations in that this is not a course enabling them to treat people, but instead an orientation to make them able to choose from the available counselling and coaching techniques to find practical courses later on that will further their professional skills.

Prerequisites
GRA 2205 Organizational Behaviour, GRA 2203 Psychological Measurement

Compulsory reading
Books:
Colledge, Ray. 2002. Mastering counselling theory. Palgrave
Nelson-Jones, Richard. 2012. Basic counselling skills : a helpers's manual. 3rd ed. Sage

Collection of articles:
A collection of research articles will be made available at the start of the course

Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading

Course outline
- Introduction to counselling and counselling theory
- Humanistic approaches to counselling
- Existential approaches to counselling
- Behavioural approaches to counselling
- Cognitive and cognitive-behavioural approaches to counselling
- Integrative approaches to counseling
- Differences between counseling and therapy.

Computer-based tools
It's learning/homepage

Learning process and workload
The course is structured as a combination of lectures, discussions, in-class activities, role plays and student case presentations. It requires substantial amount of preparation by the students and active involvement during class.
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Please note that it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.

Examination
30% - Case presentations
70% - Term paper (written in groups of 2 students, single students possible after approval by the teacher)

In this course class attendence is mandatory. Unexcused absence can result in a lower score. Specific Information regarding student evaluation will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

Examination code(s)
GRA 22371 continuous examination accounts for 100 % of the final grade in the course GRA 2237.

Examination support materials
Exam aids at written examiniations are explained under exam information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on examaids

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught.
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.