Various techniques for responding to the client can be used not only in the initial building of a relationship with the client, but throughout the entire counselor/client relationship. Commonly used responses by counselors include:

1. Attending
2. Paraphrasing
3. Reflecting
4. Clarifying
5. Leading
6. Summarizing
7. Supporting
8. Approving
9. Confronting
10. Informing
11. Interpreting
12. Assigning tasks and contracting
13. Instructing

One of the techniques for effectively responding to a client is to use approval to agree with the client's feelings, thoughts, or behaviors. A counselor should use approval if he/or she would like to strengthen concrete and ideal alterations in the client's feelings and behaviors. This type of response is most commonly used in the latter stages of counseling. An example of a counselor using approval is the client saying to the counselor, "After a while I just got plain sick of allowing criticism from my husband when I did not actually know what I had done wrong to offend him. So I finally just asked him what I had done to offend him and whether or not what I had done was so bad that he needed to criticize me so strongly." The counselor uses an approving response to the client by saying, "You handled that well. You questioned him instead of allowing him to criticize you."