Guidance and counselling

Guidance, in simple terms means, to direct or provide assistance to someone who needs help.

Counselling refers to professional services provided to an individual who is facing a problem

and needs help to overcome the problem. Counselling is considered to be an integral and

central part of guidance .The laymen use both these terms interchangeably but the fact is that

guidance is a broader term which includes many services and counselling is just one of them.

Guidance:

Guidance is provided at all levels of human beings by one person or the other. For example,

in a family, the head of the family may guide other family members to act in a certain

manner. Guidance can help a person to solve a personal, vocational, educational or any other

problem for which he is unable to find a solution on his own. “Guidance as assistance made

available to an individual by personally qualified and adequately trained men or women to an

individual of any age to 4 help him mange his own life, activities, develop his own points of

view, make his own decisions and carry his own burdens” (Bulus).

Types of guidance.

There are various different types of guidance out there in the world, and all of them are

appropriate to different situations.

 Parental Guidance

 Legal Guidance

 Educational Guidance

 Therapeutic guidance

 Vocational guidance

 Personal guidance
Parental guidance:

It falls to parents to teach their children not just basic skills like combing their hair or reading

a book for the first time. Parents also are responsible for guiding their children morally:

teaching them how to act in a way that is morally for the best. Parents also guide their

children emotionally, supporting them when they are sad and encouraging them to adopt a

healthy emotional attitude to life. All this and more falls under the remit of parental guidance.

Legal guidance.

The law needs to be obeyed and legal guidance helps us to do so. Especially when something

is laid down in the law, it is imperative for citizens to act accordingly. Lawyers and other

professionals can provide legal guidance about what is the best way to act with our finances,

jobs or purchases so that we stay in accordance with the law.

Educational guidance.

Some people may think that education is simply about teaching children what are the right

and wrong answers, or filling their heads with facts that they need to memorize. However,

much of education is about guiding children towards the resources that they need in order to

find out facts for themselves. Another type of educational guidance involves empowering

students to think independently and for themselves

Therapeutic guidance.

In the therapeutic context, for example when someone attends a counselling session with a

therapist, guidance can be provided about so many different aspects of life. A therapist can

guide their patients with respect to their romantic lives, with respect to how to deal with

stress, and with respect to how to manage a mental health condition. The therapist’s role is

very much about listening to their patients and helping them to understand their own situation
rather than prescriptively telling the patient what to do. As such, therapy can certainly be

described as a form of guidance

People are available to provide us with guidance in almost all aspects of our lives – if we are

ready to accept it.

Vocational guidance:

Vocational guidance is to assist the youths in choosing and preparing for an occupation. It

provides necessary knowledge about the characteristics and functions of different occupations

and gives information about the specific skills and abilities required by different occupations

such that he/she may make an appropriate choice of an occupation to suit him/her abilities.

Personal guidance:

Students face many personal problems related to themselves, their parents and family, friends

and teachers, etc. If their parents are expecting too much of them it leaves them with a feeling

of incompetence and insecurity leading poor self-concept and self-esteem. The objectives of

personal guidance are to help the individual in his/her physical, emotional, social, and

spiritual development.

Counselling:

Counselling is the heart of any guidance program. It is the process of assistance extended by

an expert to a needy person in an individual situation. According to Hahn and Mclean

“Counselling is a process which takes place in a one to one relationship between an

individual troubled by problems with which he cannot cope alone and a professional worker

whose training and experience have qualified him to help others reach solutions to various

type of personal problems”.

Counselling is a process involving responsibility and confidentiality. Counselling is an

interactive learning process in which the counsellor (sometimes termed therapist), helps the

counselee (those seeking help) to understand the cause(s) of difficulties and guides them to

sort out issues and reach decisions.

The goal of counselling is to help individuals overcome their immediate problems and also to

equip them to meet future problems.

Counsellors must:

 Act with care and respect for individual and cultural differences and the diversity of

human experiences,

 Must never take any step which is likely to harm the counsellee in any way,

 Respect the confidence with which the counsellee places trust in them by not talking

about their issues with other people,

 Encourage the counsellee to increase self – understanding

 Counselling process is structured around the felt needs of the counselee.

 Help the counsellee to increase and discover a range of choices and alternatives for

handling the crisis situations effectively

 Practice within the scope of their competence and refer cases that may need more

intensive therapy to experts who are trained to deal with these

 Be aware of all the services available for people in difficult circumstances so that

adequate guidance can be provided in case further referral is required.

 Difference between guidance and counselling

Guidance Counselling

Guidance is broader and comprehensive Counselling is an integral part of guidance.

It is in-depth and narrow

Advice or instructions on general problems Professional advice given by a counsellor

given by someone who is more qualified or based on personal or psychology related

experienced problems of the individuals

It can be individual as well as in groups Given individually not in groups

Face to face relation is not essential Face to face direct relation is essential

Guidance is usually education and career Counselling is mostly offered for personal
related and may also be for personal and social issues
problems
Open and less private Confidential

No deeper connectivity Builds relationships

Any person who has good knowledge and Needs to be done with a professional
experience can give effective guidance to counsellor with a recognized license to
others practice as a counsellor