microcounseling
n. a concentrated training approach originally designed to teach basic counseling skills to trainees in the helping professions (e.g., counseling, clinical psychology). Trainees apply specific, single skills (e.g., attending behavior, basic listening) in 5-minute videotaped sessions with volunteer clients, then view the video while receiving didactic instruction and feedback from a trainer, and then undergo a second round of videotaped skills application and subsequent review and instruction. The approach became a formal training program in the 1960s, founded on several principles, among them observational learning and rehearsal. It has since evolved to become a professional training paradigm for teaching techniques in specific types of therapies (e.g., cognitive behavior therapy, multicultural therapy), a conceptual framework for understanding the counseling process itself, and a method for teaching effective communication skills directly to
clients (e.g., in conjoint therapy). Also called microteaching; microtraining. [developed by U.S. counseling psychologist Allen E. Ivey (1933– )]