ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of basic micro skills, the basic foundational skills involved in effective helping relationships, including practice examples and activities. This process begins with learning basic helping skills and practicing to gain competency as well as participating in honest self-reflection and self-assessment. Helping skills are basic verbal and nonverbal skills that are essential for establishing and maintaining rapport, form the basis of effective communication, and provide a solid foundation for helping. In a helping relationship, genuineness encompasses being honest and authentic in communicating with those being helped. Attending behavior, a communication skill, is used to establish a positive environment in a helping relationship, including the use of physical behaviors such as maintaining an open posture, making eye contact, smiling, gesturing, and nodding to convey that the helper is interested in and open to the person being helped. A reflection of feeling response is a paraphrase of the affective portion of the content.
