Counselling plays a role of change and life enhancement. How far true is this statement?

Support your answer with practical examples.

Counselling involves a professional relationship between someone seeking help and someone
willing to help, Cormier and Hackeney, (1993). In this relationship various issues are
involved.
Cormier and Hackeney (1993) point out that counselling can perform three functions namely
change, prevention and life enhancement. As change function counsellors will be helping
clients in thie life challenges that has brought stress, unhappiness and dissatisfaction by
helping them to adapt and accept these life challenges. Thus counselling is useful because it
helps people solve life challenges.
Cormier and Hackeney,(1993) also argue that counselling can also function of prevention and
life enhancement. Through counselling, an individual is able to predict life events that can
produce stress such as death of a family member or friend and is able to prepare themselves
psychologically and will be able to adapt to the changing life forces.
Prediction of life events such as death or illness which is done in counselling is very useful
because it maintains the physical health of individuals. According to Gerhardt, (2004), there
is a close relationship between emotion and physical health. It is argued that an individual
who has emotional problems is vulnerable to disease attack because their immune system is
weakened. As such counselling plays a central role stabilising emotions to clients hence
boosting their physical health
Counselling involves responding to the feeling, thoughts and actions of clients objectively.
By responding to client’s feelings counsellors are able to separate their own beliefs and
values from those of the client and so they are able to be objective and see accurately what is
happening with the client. According to McLeod, (1996) working with a clients with drug
and alcohol abuse problems, the counselor will be exploring ways of living ‘more satisfying
and resourceful’.
Thus counselling is useful because it helps people to explore on their own ways of life that
are generally excepted by society in which they live and to live a life which is less harmful to
their physical health.
One of the important usefulness of counselling is empowerment. McLeod, (1996) points out
that counselling practice is not primarily focused on arriving at solutions to problems, but
instead directed towards the exploration of meanings and awareness. This means that when
counselling drug addict clients, the counselor creates an environment where the client is
empowered to explore the good and bad of their actions and can now be able to weigh in the
options which are more beneficial and advantageous.
The usefulness of counselling here is that the client is able to solve their own problems rather
than the counselor prescribing solutions to problems faced by clients.
According to Dallas and Draper,(2000) in systems thinking, a system is an entity with
interacting parts which mutually communicate, such that each part influences and is
influenced by the other in a coherent pattern. In counselling this principle can be applied to
humans as they interact with others. An individual in a family set-up can be viewed as one
part of a system whose behaviour-anger, rage, happiness and feelings can influence other
family members work colleagues and friends.
According to von Bertalanffy, cited in Burnham, (1993) a counselor should not concentrate
on the behaviour traits of individuals within families but look at the context of their relations
with families and friends as well as the environment they live. To an individual who is a
heavy drinker and smoker, counselling help to identify the context in which this behaviour is
taking place. For example it could be stress emanating from strained family relations.
From a systemic perspective, relations are interactive and complementary and as such it is
important to analyse this interactive relationship pattern. According to Burnham, (1993)
within any family pattern there are a set of ‘rules’ governing a relationship hence it is
important for counsellors to understand these rules. Hence for a couple presenting with a
domestic violence issue, counselling help to identify the relationship pattern between the
clients so as to find possible entry points to solutions to their problems.
The systems theory is premised on the principle that ‘no man is an island’ implying that an
individual is part of the system and any problem that the individual faces is linked to the
system and solutions also come from the same system. Schwartz, (1995) argues that when an
individual face constrains, the entry points of solutions could be various institutions outside
the family such as school, work or community which can offer support. Therefore
counselling can help a poor single mother with limited access to food, clothing or shelter to
get emotional support. The client may end up being referred to other systems of support such
as the church where she can get material support. This clearly shows how counselling can
play a role of change.
From a systems theory point of view, problems faced by family members should not be
viewed in isolation but in the context of a wider system. Shwartz, (1995) points out that
counselling experience with two clients in conflict has proved that there is often a third
member interfering, interjecting, taking sides, making faces and making boundaries around
the two members. Therefore c family ounselling it is important because it helps to understand
the context under which a problem is occurring.
From a systemic perspective, a system is composed of different components namely smaller
systems, (subsystems) and also large systems (supra systems). Counselling helps to
appreciate the source of problem. The same could also be entry point and solutions to the
problems. Sources of stress for most drug addicts have proved to be family as victims take
drugs as a negative coping mechanism to stress. Hence, counselling is important as it clearly
clients understand the negative effects of drugs which may help in behaviour change.
Conclusion
Counselling is an important aspect which helps transform people’s life. In these trying times
where people experience mental health challenges such as anger issues and depression, social
problems like family bereavement and divorce counselling can end up play a preventive
function on issues such as suicidal adiation.
References

Burnham J.B. (1986), Family therapy: First steps Towards a Systemic Approach, Tavistock
Publications, University of Michigan, USA
Cormier, S. and H.L. Hackeney,(1993), Professional counsellor: A process Guide to helping
(3rd Ed), Pearson Edu.
Dallos, R and Draper, R (2000), An introduction to Family Therapy. Systemic Theory and
Practice, Mc Graw-Hill House, Berkshire, England.
Mcleod, J (1993), An introduction to counselling, Open University Press, Buckingham,
Philadelphia.