Teaching basic skills to beginning counseling students can be an overwhelming experience. In each therapy session, students bring their own human qualities and life experiences that have shaped them as individuals. Trainees must understand that their needs, motivations, values and personality traits can either enhance or interfere with their counselor effectiveness. Cognitive mapping can help expand students' awareness while building the foundation of their counseling skills because it involves practical integration of learning attributes and prior knowledge into a new situation. Through the use of simple graphic visual learning tools, students can successfully incorporate basic skills into their development as counselors in an attempt to enable a positive initial learning experience that does not overwhelm them with the nuances and complexities of advanced counselor development.Keywords: counseling students, basic skills, counseling formula, cognitive mapping, graphic visual learning toolsWhy does occur in therapy? Theorists have attempted to answer this question over the decades. Certainly the starting place is to focus on the importance of the therapeutic relationship, which is central and foundational to therapeutic growth (Slattery & Park, 2011, p. 235). Specifically, the outcome of counseling involves a connection between the counselor and client that begins with warmth, empathy, respect and genuineness (Chang, Scott, & Decker, 2009; Flaskas, 2004; McClam & Woodside, 2010; Smith, Thomas, & Jackson, 2004).Rogers (1951, 1957, 1958) discussed his ideas about unconditional positive regard, congruence and empathy as basic key factors in the development of a therapeutic relationship. Moursund and Kenny (2002) summarized Lazarus' perspective and proposed that establishing the therapeutic relationship is the most important skill for clinicians, and involves a connection between the counselor and the client. Each influences the other by bringing individual strengths, knowledge of the situation, life experiences, as well as their own personal values and beliefs. therapeutic relationship is viewed as both a precondition of and a process of change (Prochaska & Norcross, 2003, p. 492). The purpose of this article is to explore one method of breaking down basic counseling skills into a manageable counseling formula in order to enable a positive initial learning experience for students without overwhelming them with the nuances and complexities of advanced counselor development.Challenges of Mastering Basic SkillsInitially, when introduced to counseling basic skills from a written textbook, students can find acquiring this knowledge to be challenging. Without prior experience, the challenge may intensify and become daunting when successful academic progress becomes an expectation defined by mastery of clearly defined basic skills. Counseling students struggle to appropriately apply these skills, while linked with timing and delivery.Counseling is a unique experience that is different from daily communications in social interactions. As counselors-in-training learn the art of counseling, they become aware of the necessity of using their skills to empower their clients to set appropriate goals. Often empowerment, a concept that focuses on clients' ability to choose their own solutions in life situations and issues, is a lofty ideal that is difficult to define. Even the definition of empowerment is ever-evolving (Asimakopoulou, Gilbert, Newton, & Scrambler, 2012). Empowerment's overarching theme further contributes to the complexities of the learning process for beginning students (Hill, 2005).While no one would argue the importance of empowerment or the significance of the therapeutic relationship, it also is critical that beginning students master many interpersonal skills while learning to observe, effectively attend to, and play an interpersonal role in shaping and guiding the counseling session (Ackerman & Hilsenroth, 2001; Chang et al, 2009; Jacobs, 1994; Jacobs, Masson, Harvill, & Schimmel, 2012; Meier & Davis, 2011). …