Unit: 5 - Counselling

 Counselling –Meaning, nature and scope

 Needs and Importance
 Different types
 Steps and Techniques
 Qualities of a good Counsellor

Meaning of counselling:

 Counselling is the process in which the pupil is approached on an individual level.

 Counselling is help or assistance given to an individual at problem points in different
fields such as educational, vocational and psychological
 The subject matter of counselling is pupils needs, abilities, aims, aspirations, plans,
decisions, actions and limitations
 It is a sort of specialised, personalised and individualised service which make
effective use of information collected about an individual
 This information leads to self insight, self analysis and self direction
 This self direction helps the individual in making maximum educational, vocational
and psychological adjustment.
 According to Carl Rogers, “counselling is a series of direct contact with the individual
which aims to offer him assistance in changing his attitudes and behaviour.”
 According to Gilbert C. Wren, “counselling is a personal and dynamic relationship
between two individuals – an older, more experienced and wiser (counsellor) and a
younger less experienced and less wise (counselee). The latter has a problem for
which he seeks the help of the former. The two work together so that the problem may
be clearly defined and the counselee maybe helped to a self determined solution.”
Form the above it may be concluded that:
Counselling is:
 The process that occurs when a client and counsellor set aside time to explore
difficulties which may include the stressful or emotional feelings of the client.
 The act of helping the client to see things more clearly, possibly from a different
view-point. This can enable the client to focus on feelings, experiences or behaviour,
with a goal of facilitating positive change.
 A relationship of trust. Confidentiality is paramount to successful counselling.
Professional counsellors will usually explain their policy on confidentiality.
Counselling is not:
 Giving advice.
 Being judgemental.
  Attempting to sort out the problems of the client.
 Expecting or encouraging a client to behave as the counsellor would behave if
confronted with a similar problem in their own life.
 Getting emotionally involved with the client.
 Looking at a client’s problems from your own perspective, based on your own value
system.

Nature and characteristics of counselling:

o Counselling is an important part of guidance service
o It is a purposeful learning experience for the counselee.
o It is a private interview between counsellor and counselee
o It is a one to one relationship, a relationship based on mutual confidence
o Counselling process is structured round the felt needs of the counselee
o The main emphasis in counselling is on the counselee’s self-direction and self-
acceptance.
o Counselling is a personalised, specialized and individualised service
o Counselling is not restricted only to problem solving. Achieving all round
development and successful life is the ultimate goal of counselling.
o Depending on the needs of the client and the availability of services, counselling may
range from a few brief interactions in a short period of time, to numerous interactions
over an extended period of time.
o Counselling may be delivered by a single counsellor, two counsellors working
collaboratively, or a single counsellor with brief assistance from another counsellor
who has specialized expertise that is needed by the client.

Scope of Counselling:
The scope of counselling is very wide. Some of the areas within the scope of counselling may
be outlined as under:
Individual Counselling
 Adolescent identity, concerns, teen-parent relationships, peer relationships
 Anxiety
 Anger management
  Children’s concerns within the family, sibling relationships, school experiences, peer
relationships
 Depression
 Trauma
 Gender: identity, sexuality
 Grief and bereavement
 Relationships: personal and interpersonal dynamics
 Sexual abuse recovery
 Seniors: challenges, limitations, transitions
 Singles: single, newly single, single through divorce or being widowed
 Spirituality
 Stress management
 Workplace stress and relationships
 Young adult: identity, relationships, vocation
 Educational and vocational adjustment
 Physical, emotional, social problems
Marital and Pre-marital Counselling
 Marital and relational dynamics
 Extended family relationships
 Fertility issues
Family Counselling
 Adolescent and child behaviours within family
 Adult children
 Divorce and separation issues and adjustment
 Family dynamics: separation, conflict, communication
 Life stages and transitions
 Parenting patterns: blended, single, co-parenting families
 Remarriage relationship counselling

Needs of Counselling:
 To help total development of student
 to help proper choices of courses and career
  to help students in vocational development
 to develop readiness for choices and changes to face new challenges
 to help minimize mismatch between education and employment
 to help freshers establish proper adjustment
 to help students in their period of turmoil and confusion
 to help checking wastage and stagnation
 to provide special help to the gifted, backward and the handicapped.
Importance of Counselling:
 Counselling provides not only reliable information but also introspection into those
information which can help to solve difficulties
 Counselling helps pupils when they are in need of an intelligent and experienced
listener to whom they can recite difficulties and seek suggestions
 Counselling provides pupils with the awareness about their own problems
 when pupils are aware about their own problems and difficulties but cannot define or
understand it, counselling can help to define and find solutions to their problems
 counselling can diagnose problems of maladjustment and help in establishing
adjustment

Types of counselling:
Counselling is a very broad area that encompasses various subfields. Counsellors help their
clients in a variety of ways, and there are many different types of counselling depending on
the area or specialty. Here are some of the most common types:
 Marriage and family counselling: Family therapy and marriage counselling are two
names for the same thing: helping people work on their relationships. Marriage and
family therapists offer guidance to couples and families who are dealing with issues
that affect their mental health and the well-being of the whole family. They help
improve communication skills, increase mutual respect, and help kids develop into
healthy adults.

 Guidance and career counselling: It is a comprehensive, developmental program

designed to assist individuals in making and implementing informed educational and
occupational choices. A career guidance and counselling program develops an
 individual's competencies in self-knowledge, educational and occupational
exploration, and career planning.
 Rehabilitation counselling: People with disabilities face challenges that require
creative solutions. Whether a person has a physical, mental or emotional disability,
rehabilitative counselling helps them achieve personal and professional goals, and
lead their lives more freely.
 Mental health counselling: Mental health counselling is help provided by
professionals to people in need of emotional and psychological support. They help
their clients learn how to make healthy decisions about themselves, their
relationships, and their futures.
 Substance abuse counselling: Substance abuse counselling is support provided to
people with drug and alcohol addictions, eating disorders and other behavioural
issues.
 Educational Counselling: Educational counselling is meant for school students in a
school environment. Educational counselling helps children with their studies,
provide career counselling, based on the options available to students and also helps
students with their personal issues. The most important duty of an educational
counsellor is to understand the hopes, aspirations and dreams of a student. They
should know the strengths and weaknesses of the student, and handle them very
carefully. They also interact with parents, guardians, and other administrators
regarding a student’s behavioural, academic, and other problems.
In addition to the above types of counselling there are various other specialities or
types of counselling that depends on the needs of the clients. Some of them are:
 Child development counselling
 Eating disorder therapy
 Grief counselling
 Art therapy
 Musical therapy etc.
Techniques of counselling:
On the basis of techniques counselling could be
 Directive Counselling: Directive counselling is also known as prescriptive or
counsellor centred counselling. It is problem centred and not client centred. In it the
counsellor prepares the entire plans and sees through the process. According to the
 chief exponent of this viewpoint E. G. Williamson, following are the assumptions of
directive counselling:
o Efforts should we focus on the problem of the counselee
o The counsellor is more competent than the counselee. Therefore, he plays a
more active role than the client. He is the pivot or the leader
o As counselling is primarily an intellectual rather than emotional process,
therefore, intellectual aspect is given more weightage than emotional aspect
Steps according to E.G. Williamson:-
 Analysis: collection of data from a variety of sources. the data is needed for an
adequate understanding of the client
 Synthesis: summarizing and organising the data so as to reveal the client’s assets,
liabilities, adjustment and maladjustment
 Diagnosis: finding out the root cause of the problems exhibited by the client
 Prognosis: prediction of the future development of the client’s problems
 Counselling: the counsellor’s taking steps with the students to bring about adjustment
and readjustment for the students
 Follow-up: helping us students with new problem or with recurrence of the original
problem and determining the effectiveness of the counselling provided to him.
Advantages:
 economical in time
 emphasises the problem and not the individual
 lays more emphasis on intellectual rather than emotional aspect
 the method is direct, persuasive and explanatory
Limitations:
 make the counselee over-dependent on the counsellor
 the counselee does not gain any ability of self-analysis or solving new problems
 problems of emotional maladjustments are not solved.
Non-directive Counselling: non directive counselling is also called the permissive or client-
centred counselling. The chief exponent of this school of thought what is Carl Rogers. The
client is the pivot or the center in this type of counselling. He actively participates in the
process, gains insight into his problem with the help of the counsellor and takes decisions as
to the action to be taken. The following are the assumptions underlying this type of
counselling:
  direction and integration of the clients is more important than the problem
 emotional aspects are more significant than the intellectual aspects
 creation of an atmosphere in which the client can work out his understanding is more
important than cultivating self understanding in the client
 counselling leads to a voluntary choice of goals and a conscious selection of courses
of action.
Advantages:
 slow but sure process to make the individual capable of adjustment
 it removes the emotional problems
 no tests are used
Disadvantages:
 slow and time consuming
 the counsellor’s passive attitude or role may irritate the counselee and he may hesitate
to express his feelings
 the counselee is immature to make decisions himself, hence one cannot rely upon
him.
Eclectic counselling: Some psychologist like Bordin believe that Rogers and Williamson are
towards opposite ends of the pole and the counselling methods may be evaluated along a
continuum from non-directive to directive. When a counsellor deliberately tries to incorporate
in his practice both directive and non-directive techniques the result is eclecticism. F. C.
Thorne, who is the exponent of this view, finds that it is possible for a counsellor to alternate
between directive and non-directive methods even in the same interview without disrupting
the nondirective permissive relationship with the client.
Here the counsellor first studies the personality and needs of the individual. He then
selects the technique that would be most helpful for the individual. He can start with the
directive one but when the situation demands the counsellor my switch over to the non-
directive and vice versa. The attempt is made to adjust the techniques to the requirements of
the secretion and the individual.
No matter what method or view point is employed in the practice of interviewing and
counselling, it should have developmental, preventive and remedial values.

Qualities of a good counsellor:

  Counselling is helping people to make changes aimed at wellness, personal growth, or
career development, as well as personal social adjustment. To be a good counsellor one must
possess the following qualities:
 Counsellors must be confident and know their responsibilities
 Counsellors must have patience; s/he must have ample time for the client.
 Counsellors must be good listeners. S/he must not interrupt what the client has to say.
He must also be a good observer to be able to interpret non-verbal communication of
the client.
 Counsellors must be warm and accepting and most importantly non-judgemental.
 Counsellors must have sound knowledge of the field or area in which he is providing
help or counselling.
 Counsellors must try to understand the feelings of the client. They must be able to
display empathy.
 Counsellors must maintain privacy and confidentiality of the client.
 Counsellors must maintain a high degree of personal integrity, credibility and trust as
a counsellor.
 Effective counsellors should have excellent communication skills.
 Counsellors must have excellent problem-solving skills to be able to help their clients
identify and make changes to negative thought and other harmful behaviours.
 Counsellors must possess a strong set of interpersonal skills to help establish rapport
quickly with clients and develop strong relationships.
 Flexibility is another important attributes of a professional counsellor. Flexibility in
counselling is the ability to adapt and change the way of responding to meet the
clients' needs. Counsellors must not stay rigid and stick to a predetermined treatment
path when the clients require a different approach.
 Counsellors help people from all walks of life. They must display multicultural
competency and adopt a multicultural worldview. Multicultural competency refers to
the ability to relate to and understand the clients regardless of their race, ethnicity,
religious or political beliefs or socioeconomic background.
 Counsellors must have self awareness. They must be aware of their own feelings so as
not to react defensively to what a client shares.
 Counsellors hear all kinds of private information and encounter all types of people. It
is important that the client understands that the counsellor is not personally judging
them but working on improving the outcomes of their behaviours.
 Finally, the competent Counsellor recognises personal limits, boundaries and actively
seeks to sustain a life of personal care.