Stephanie, an African American college student, comes to the university counseling center to meet with you for academic advising. She was a student at a historically Black university in New Orleans and had to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina. She does not know whether her house flooded, and she has not been able to contact many of her friends.

Your university is a state university in which the majority of the students are White. Her New Orleans university is closed because of flooding, and she is not sure when it will reopen.

Stephanie would like to take courses at your university while her university is closed. When you tell her that only one of the classes in which she would like to enroll is open, she bursts into tears and has trouble talking. She apologizes and tells you that she knows she should be stronger.

How would your nonverbals (body language, tone of voice) affect the client?

How might you provide feedback?

What type of self-disclosure might be useful?

How can you interpret/reframe the situation to help Stephanie develop an alternative assessment of herself?

How might you reflect Stephanie's feelings?