Please don't try too hard. Given formulae for counselling in the situation of threatening imminent death are likely to ring false or be inappropriate. Be quiet, pateint, un-prescriptive and listen, first to the patient, then to those family in attendance, then to other carers. Be un-hurried, and  ready to wait. That is why palliative care has an unpopular place in timed and evidence-based medicine. What troubles the patient?  What troubles the family, the carers? Do they have similar assessments of what matters? A most rewarding process.

I agree with Ian Maddocks - we can run into a lot of trouble with standardised care and counselling in palliative care. It is really all about the patient / client - what do they want /need? that said, there is a lot of material written that would guide and aid us - see web sites of Hospice Palliative Care Association, also for spiritual assessment, care and counselling look at FICA

I agree with Prof. Maddocks. The NIH of the US has produced a counseling pamphlet for the same purpose. Perhaps you may find it helpful.

In counseling, as Prof Maddox suggests, offering presence and listening--following the patient where he/she wants to go--are two primary approaches.  Questions of meaning, purpose, existence, as well as spiritual distress and spiritual strengths often move to the foreground.  Asking what meaning the illness carries for the patient/caregivers could be helpful. Our Domains of Spirituality tool (Nelson-Becker, Nakashima, & Canda, 2006) suggests 11 areas and types of questions that could be posed.  Stanford has a free online training series on all aspects of palliative care, though probably less specifically on counseling.  https://palliative.stanford.edu/

Thank you Dr Kok for the PDF  and guidelines,. I understand this is a personalized care and requires a lot of listening in fact after listening to a particular patint tailored made advises can be given still there could be specific guidelines on the bases of that guidelines counseler can give counseling to reduce anxieety of cancer patients. I am in search of counseling messages or to cancer patients at least some guidelines based on which we  can draft some schedule so that no aspect is missed out even if the palliative care is given at home by may be some social scientist. In LRCs there is less expertise on such aspacts . Such material will be very helpful if modify according to need of  patient .I need te prectical guidence for counseling.

The practical management of palliative care needs measurable categories and that we can used  NANDA taxonomy International, NIC and NOC to construct  care of specific oncology patients or map. These instruments are very useful for evaluation every categories in physical, psychosocial and spiritual domains. This way is not easy and takes time. Esspecialy we can point to dignity care and that I can suggest you to read article BROKEL, J. M., HOFFMAN, F. 2005. Hospice Methods to Measure and Analyze Nursing-Sensitive Pacient Outcomes. In Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing, 2005, Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 37 – 44. You should read our article at research gate by Nemcova, Hlinkova , Sobekova.

The American Cancer Society produced a helfpul brochure explaining palliative care and its benefits as part of cancer treatment in clear terms consistent with consumer research findings commissioned by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (www.capc.org) and ACS.

http://www.acscan.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Palliative-Care-Consumer-Pamphlet-09022014.pdf

It's worth considering key domains to cover; in order to address what is most important to the patient, consider an open starting question like 'What is worrying/bothering you the most?' which may reveal physical symptoms, emotional distress, concerns about family, existential concerns etc. This allows the conversation to be patient-led, and allows the clinician to seek whatever expert help is most pertinent to the patient's current problems.

We have developed a CBT-based approach to holistic symptom management, that links the patient's thoughts and beliefs about their situation with the emotions  and behaviours triggered by those thoughts, with the physical sensations they are experiencing. Examples include 

- pain triggers thoughts about getting worse, leading to anxiety, sadness and scanning for more symptoms, which leads to a downward spiral of mood

- a media article about cancer triggers anxiety, which in turn exacerbates breathlessness that is misinterpreted as advancing cancer leading to panic and calls for help

'Counselling' in this context may then be about seeking help for physical symptoms; allowing time and space for ventilation of distress; enabling the patient to identify their lifelong coping strategies and resilience in order to use them in this situation.

Emotional support in palliative care is an area of specialist practice; use your local palliative care service for advice.