Please note: This is only the outline of the unit.

This does not include comprehensive

information. Please refer to the resource maps and pdf on teams to see the reference
material. Kindly do not rely on this document only to make notes or prepare for
examinations.

Unit 1- Introduction to Counselling

Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and

groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.

The key assumptions that underpin, and are implied by, this definition include:
1. Counselling is an activity that can only happen if the person seeking help, the client, wants it
to happen. The person seeking counselling is regarded as actively engaged in finding ways of
overcoming his or her problems, and as a co- participant in the counselling process, rather than
as a passive recipient of interventions.
2. A person seeks a counselling relationship when they encounter a ‘problem in living’ that they
have not been able to resolve through their everyday resources, and that has resulted in their
exclusion from some aspect of full participation in social life. The concept of ‘problem in living’
can be understood to refer to any situation or perceived difficulty or impediment that prevents a
person from getting on with his or her life. Counselling is not focused on symptom reduction, but
on enabling the person to live their life in a way that is most meaningful and satisfying to him or
her.
3. Counselling is fundamentally based on conversation, on the capacity of people to ‘talk things
through’ and to generate new possibilities for action through dialogue.
4. Counselling depends on the creation of a relationship between two people, which is suffi
ciently secure to allow the person seeking help to explore issues that are painful and troubling.
5. The person seeking counselling possesses strengths and resources that can be channelled
in the service of resolving a problem in living. The act of seeking counselling is not viewed as an
indicator of personal deficiency or pathology
6. The person in the role of counsellor does not necessarily possess special training of
psychotherapy– counselling is grounded in ordinary human qualities such as a capacity to
listen, sensitivity to the experience of others, personal integrity and resourcefulness in solving
the diffi culties that arise in everyday life.
7. The person seeking counselling invites another person to provide him or her with time and
space characterized by the presence of a number of features that are not readily available in
everyday life: permission to speak, respect for difference, confidentiality and affirmation.
a. Encouragement and permission to speak. Counselling is a place where the person can tell
their story, where they are given every encouragement to give voice to aspects of their
experience that have previously been silenced, in their own time and their own way, including
the expression of feeling and emotion.
b. Respect for difference. The counsellor sets aside, as far as they are able, their own
position on the issues brought by the client, and his or her needs in the moment, in order to
focus as completely as possible on helping the client to articulate and act on his or her personal
values and desires.
c. Confidentiality. Whatever is discussed is confidential: the counsellor undertakes to refrain
from passing on what they have learned from the person to any others in the person’s life world.
d. Affirmation. The counsellor enacts a relationship that is an expression of a set of core
values: honesty, integrity, care, belief in the worth and value of individual persons, commitment
to dialogue and collaboration, refl exivity, the interdependence of persons, a sense of the
common good.
8. Counselling represents an arena for support, reflection and renewal that is unique within
modern societies. Within this arena, the client and counsellor make use of whatever cultural
resources come to hand (conversation, ideas, theories, rituals, altered states of consciousness,
problem-solving algorithms, discourses, technologies) to achieve a satisfactory resolution of the
initial problem in living that initiated the decision to engage in counselling.
9. The potential outcomes of counselling can be understood as falling into three broad
categories:
a. Resolution of the original problem in living. Resolution can include: achieving an
understanding or perspective on the problem, arriving at a personal acceptance of the problem
or dilemma and taking action to change the situation in which the problem arose.
b. Learning. Engagement with counselling may enable the person to acquire new
understandings, skills and strategies that make them better able to handle similar problems in
future.
c. Social inclusion. Counselling stimulates the energy and capacity of the person as someone
who can contribute to the well-being of others and the social good.
10. Counselling always exists within a social and cultural context: ‘counsellor’ and ‘client’ are
social roles, and the ways in which participants make sense of the aims and work of counselling
are shaped by the broad cultural and specifi c community and organizational contexts within
which they live. The practice of counselling is informed by awareness and appreciation of social,
cultural, historical and economic factors. The meaning of ‘counselling’, and the forms of practice
associated with this term, continually evolve in response to social and cultural change.
11. Counselling is readily accessible. It is a ‘frontline’ service, this is located within the
community or organization where the person lives, works or studies. There is minimal
‘gatekeeping’ that needs to be negotiated in order to see a counsellor.

Goals of Counselling:

●​ Insight- The acquisition of an understanding of the origins and development of emotional

difficulties, leading to an increased capacity to take rational control over feelings and
actions.
●​ Relating with others- Becoming better able to form and maintain meaningful and
satisfying relationships with other people: for example, within the family or workplace.
●​ Self-awareness- Becoming more aware of thoughts and feelings that had been blocked
off or denied, or developing a more accurate sense of how self is perceived by others.
 ●​ Self-acceptance- The development of a positive attitude towards self, marked by an
ability to acknowledge areas of experience that had been the subject of self-criticism and
rejection.
●​ Self-actualization or individuation- Moving in the direction of fulfilling potential or
achieving an integration of previously conflicting parts of self.
●​ Enlightenment- Assisting the client to arrive at a higher state of spiritual awakening.
●​ Problem-solving- Finding a solution to a specific problem that the client had not been
able to resolve alone. Acquiring a general competence in problem-solving.
●​ Psychological education- Enabling the client to acquire ideas and techniques with which
to understand and control behaviour.
●​ Acquisition of social skills- Learning and mastering social and interpersonal skills such
as maintenance of eye contact, turn-taking in conversations, assertiveness or anger
control.
●​ Cognitive change- The modification or replacement of irrational beliefs or maladaptive
thought patterns associated with self-destructive behaviour.
●​ Behaviour change- The modifi cation or replacement of maladaptive or self- destructive
●​ Systemic change- Introducing change into the way in that social systems (e.g., families)
operate.
●​ Empowerment- Working on skills, awareness and knowledge that will enable the client to
take control of his or her own life.
●​ Restitution- Helping the client to make amends for previous destructive behaviour.
●​ Generativity and social action- Inspiring in the person a desire and capacity to care for
others and pass on knowledge (generativity) and to contribute to the collective good
through political engagement and community work.
Counselling should be flexible enough to make it possible for the client to use the therapeutic
relationship as an arena for exploring whatever dimension of life is most relevant to their
well-being at that point in time.

Historical Background
•​ Before the 1900s, most counseling was in the form of advice or information.
•​ In the United States, counseling developed out of a humanitarian concern to improve the
lives of those adversely affected by the Industrial Revolution of the mid- to late 1800s.
•​ The social welfare reform movement (now known as social justice), the spread of public
education, and various changes in population makeup (e.g., the enormous influx of immigrants)
also influenced the growth of the profession.
•​ “Counseling emerged during a socially turbulent period that straddled the ending of one
century and the beginning of another, a period marked by great change that caused a major
shift in the way individuals viewed themselves and others”

Significant Individuals in the History of Counselling

•​ Frank Parsons, often called the founder of guidance.
•​ Had a colorful life career in multiple disciplines, being a lawyer, an engineer, a college
teacher, and a social worker before ultimately becoming a social reformer and working with
youth.
•​ Founded the Boston’s Vocational Bureau in 1908, a major step in the
institutionalization of vocational guidance.
•​ Theorized that choosing a vocation was a matter of relating three factors: a knowledge of
work, a knowledge of self, and a matching of the two through “true reasoning.”
•​ Published “Choosing a Vocation” (1909).
•​ Jesse B. Davis was the first person to set up a systematized guidance
program in the public schools.
•​ Suggested in 1907 that classroom teachers of English composition teach their students
a lesson in guidance once a week, to accomplish the goal of building character and preventing
problems.
•​ Influenced by progressive American educators such as Horace Mann and John Dewey,
Davis believed that proper guidance would help cure the ills of American society.
•​ What he and other progressive educators advocated was a forerunner of counseling:
school guidance (a preventive educational means of teaching students how to deal effectively
with life events).
•​ Clifford Beers, a former Yale student - hospitalized for depression several times during
his life.
•​ Found conditions in mental institutions deplorable and exposed them in his book, A Mind
That Found Itself (1G08), which became a popular best seller.
•​ Advocated for better mental health facilities and reform in the treatment of people with
mental illness
•​ Built relationship with and solicited funds from influential people,
such as the Fords and Rockefellers.
•​ His work had an especially powerful influence on the fields of
psychiatry and psychology.
•​ Beers’s work was the impetus for the mental health movement in the United States, as
well as advocacy groups that exist today. His work was also a forerunner of mental health
counseling.

Significant Events in the History of Counseling

•​ Increased interest in the study of individual differences.
•​ E.g. Binet’s theory of intelligence encouraged psychometric development in vocational
and aptitude
measurement.
•​ During world war I “counseling became more widely recognized as the military began to
employ testing
and placement practices for great numbers of military personnel” (Hollis, 2000, p. 45).
•​ The U.S. Army commissioned the development of numerous psychological instruments,
among them the Army Alpha and Army Beta intelligence tests.
•​ Several of the army’s screening devices were employed in civilian populations after the
war, and psychometrics (psychological testing) became a popular movement and an early
foundation on which counseling was based.
•​ 1913: The National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA) founded. Forerunner of the
American Counseling Association (ACA).
•​ Offered guidance literature and united those with an interest in vocational counseling for
the first time.

•​ Mental health movement

•​ Human-centred approach to mental illness.
•​ Mental hygiene
•​ Non-medically specific variables identified as therapeutic. Eg. a good therapeutic
relationship.
•​ Clifford Beers – ‘A mind that found itself’ – Sensitized the public to the inhumane
treatment conditions.
•​ First Theory of Counselling-•​ Williamson and his colleagues at the University of
Minnesota - modified Parsons’s theory and used it to
work with students and the unemployed.
•​ Several names—for example, as the Minnesota point of view and trait-factor counseling.
•​ One premise of Williamson’s theory was that persons had traits (e.g., aptitudes,
interests, personalities, achievements) that could be integrated in a variety of ways to form
factors (constellations of individual characteristics).
•​ Counseling was based on a scientific, problem-solving, empirical method that was
individually tailored to each client to help him or her stop nonproductive thinking/behavior and
become an effective decision maker.
•​ Task of the counselor was to ascertain a deficiency in the client, such as a lack of
knowledge or a skill, and then to prescribe a procedure to rectify the problem.
•​ Pragmatic, direct and counsellor centred approach emphasized the counselor’s
teaching, mentoring,
and influencing skills.
•​ Person-centered therapy-•​ Carl Rogers – a non-medical and non-psychiatric approach
to treatment-•​ Non-directive approach - respect, privacy and dignity of the individual
•​ Psychotherapy can be practiced by non-medical professionals.
•​ Shift from assessment and diagnosis – to incorporate counselling in practice.
•​ The Wars, The Great Depression, Changes in the Educational/Vocational system
•​ Society and Governmental alarm – in response to the threat to marriage
due to modern life.
•​ Response to social breakdown and crisis – rape, bereavement, gay and
lesbian issues and child abuse.
•​ Volunteers set up counselling services.
•​ Mostly led by Church groups.
•​ Forerunner of the National Marriage Guidance Council.
•​ Western Electric Company – Employee counselling scheme
•​ Counsellors available to employees to discuss issues (work/personal)
that might be affecting their ability to do their job.
•​ APA Division 17 – Division of Counselling Psychology (1952)
•​ Working with a more ‘normal’ population – distinction from clinical psychology.
•​ New Theories
•​ Psychoanalysis; Trait-factor or Directive theories; Humanistic; and Behavioral Theories –
existing approaches.
•​ Systematic desensitization; Cognitive therapies; Transactional Analysis.
•​ Events: Vietnam war; civil rights movement; women’s movement. Shift from
•​ Developmental needs to special needs.
•​ One-on-one encounter to small group encounters (group therapy)
•​ Educational settings to community mental health centres.
•​ Code of Ethics C Training Standards
•​ Helping Skills Programs
•​ Concentrated on relationship and communication skills (Truax and Carkhuff (1967) and
Ivey (1971)).
•​ Taught basic counseling skills to professionals and nonprofessionals alike. The
emphasis was humanistic and eclectic.
•​ Assumed that certain fundamental skills should be mastered to establish satisfactory
personal interaction.
•​ Counselors could teach these skills to others rather easily. Counselors could now consult
by teaching some of their skills to those with whom they worked, mainly teachers and
paraprofessionals.
•​ Licensure and Standardization of Training and Certification
•​ Diversification of counselling
•​ Education; private and agency counsellors. Individuals, couples, working professionals
and families.
•​ Broader emphasis
•​ Life-span; gender issues C sexual preferences; moral development; cultural groups.
•​ Multi-cultural competencies and standards
•​ Current trends
•​ Dealing with violence, trauma and crises
•​ Promoting wellness
•​ Social justice and Advocacy
•​ Use of technology
•​ Leadership

Models of Counselling

Truax - Carkhuff Model of Counselling

The pioneering work of Rogers greatly influenced Truax and Carkhuff (1967) who developed
reliable scales to measure the core ingredients of the psychotherapy relationship. Their work
generated a renewed interest on interpersonal therapist skills and served as an impetus for
further research.
One of the issues that concerned Truax and Carkhuff (1967) was that research tended to focus
predominantly on the dynamics of personality and psychopathology.
The emphasis was on whether or not the client made changes in therapy and on the mode of
therapy used. Very little attention was given to the interpersonal skills of the therapist in
promoting therapeutic change.
The question they then asked was "what are the essential characteristics or behaviours of the
therapist or counselor that lead to constructive change in the client" (Truax C Carkhuff, 1967
p.24).
In order to answer this question Truax and Carkhuff conducted and evaluated a large number of
outcome studies. Their findings supported their hypothesis of the importance of the therapist
qualities such as empathy, respect, genuineness, and concreteness in effecting client change
(Truax C Carkhuff, 1967).

Carkhuff and Berenson (1977) outlined the core dimensions of a helping relationship; these
being
emраthy, respect, genuineness, and concreteness.
They developed 5 point scales to assess these core dimensions, with level 3 being the
minimally
facilitative or effective level of functioning.
The helping relationship in this instance does not necessarily refer to what takes place in
counselling or psychotherapy but in any situation where one person has exhausted his or her
own resources and comes to another person for help.
The core dimensions are shared by all interactive processes regardless of theoretical
orientation. The levels in which an individual functions with others reflects his or her attitudes
and understanding.

Phases of Helping- Client Learning

The helping process constitutes the basis of a helping model.
The first component of the helping process is client learning (Carkhuff C Berenson, 1977).
Client learning involves three phases, that is, 1) the clients' exploration of where they are in
relation to their world, 2) their understanding of where they want or need to be, and 3) finally, the
action required to achieve where they want to be.
A feedback loop is in operation i.e. they receive feedback from their action, which encourages
further exploration, increased understanding or awareness thereby leading to more effective
action.

Phases of Helping- Helper Skills

The second component of the helping process is helper skills.
The helper serves to guide the client through the phases of learning.
A number of helping skills are required to facilitate the client's learning. Helper
skills of atttending, responding, personalising. and initiating.
Scales

•​ To measure the effectiveness of the counsellor’s ability to provide the core therapeutic
conditions: empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard.
•​ Eg. Empathy scale,
Genuineness etc.

Gerald Egan Skilled Helper Model

Gerald Egan is a professor of organisational psychology who developed the Skilled Helper
Model.
It provides a structured framework for guiding clients through problem-solving, self- awareness,
and personal growth.
The model is divided into three stages, each with a specific goal and set of skills that the helper
uses to facilitate the client's progress.

Stage 1​ Exploration
Questions​ What are the key issues?
Helper Skills​ Active Listening, Empathy, Summarising, Probing
Stage 2​ Understanding
Questions​ What would better outcome look like?
Helper Skills​ Summarising, probing, building insight, challenging, negotiating
Stage 3​ Action
Questions​ What steps will help you achieve your goal?
Helper Skills​ Summarising, probing, building insight, challenging, negotiating

Allen Ivey Model-Developmental Counseling and Therapy

•​ Oriented to multiple seeing – recognize that there are multiple truths in the counselling
process.
•​ Special attention to multi-cultural considerations.
•​ Uses a language system borrowed from Piaget’s idea that children develop knowledge
at four different levels: Sensorimotor, concrete, formal and post-formal.
•​ Assumes ‘we metaphorically repeat Piaget’s developmental stages again and again’
throughout the lifespan.
•​ Important tenet – ‘multiple strategies of counselling can be organized
into meaningful holistic presentation. E.g. Developmental sphere.

•​ The Developmental Sphere

•​ Four styles of counselling associated with the four cognitive- emotional developmental
styles.
•​ Spiral represents the movement of client meaning-making styles through 4 types of
counselling and the psychotherapy environments.
•​ Task of counsellor – to assess where client is in terms of meaning making style and then
match the language and therapeutic environment.
•​ Sometimes deliberate mismatch to help clients develop new ways of thinking and
behaving.
•​ Indicates we all operate at multiple levels of experience. Change in one part
reverberates and influences the entire developmental sphere.

Outcome Goals of Counselling

•Change must occur
•​ Makes it different from ‘just a nice conversation’
•​ Sets tone for the hard and painful work in counselling.
•​ Change is irrespective of intent of counselling (e.g. developmental or remedial)
•​ Overt and dramatic OR perceived only by the client. E.g. Someone with a fear of flying
becomes a qualified pilot OR someone who has difficulty taking credit for accomplishments
begins to take pride in these achievements.
•​ Requires commitment from both parties for change to occur.
•​ Change can occur on multiple domains – feelings, values, attitudes, thoughts and
actions.
•​ Change necessary on at least one domain for counselling to be successful.
•Categories of possible change
•​ Behavior change
•​ Easiest type to change to be observed. E.g.
•​ Role of cognition (early behaviorists– can’t be certain Vs modern behaviorists – cognition
as mediators)
•​ Ability to cope
•​ Difficult life events – painful C impossible to change events – learn to manage – lead to
sense of accomplishment and enjoyment. E.g. Terminal illnesses
•​ Depends on ability to identify questions to be resolved – alternatives available – likely
results of each alternative OR
•​ Learning to live with what one cannot change.

•​ Decision making
•​ Clients helped to self-assess, use relevant information and arrive at conclusions.
•​ E.g. Career counselling. Can happen across life stages. Not a single decision.
•​ Change in beliefs
•​ Beliefs = Personal constructs – individual’s view of reality and what they believe. E.g.
Self- concepts.
•​ Leads to behavior change. E.g. A student who begins to believe in her capacity to
perform academically – leads to greater engagement. OR A parent who sees his daughter’s
mildly rebellious behavior as normal rather than pathological – leads to better parenting.
•​ E.g. Ellis – Irrational beliefs (Musturbatory thinking); Beck – Effect of negative core
beliefs on thoughts, feelings and behavior (I’m worthless); Meichenbaum – Stress inoculation
training (modify dysfunctional internal dialogue).

•Relief from emotional distress

•​ Distress – interfere with daily functioning – difficult emotions. E.g. Sad, anger, etc.
•​ Safe space to vent and be understood.
•​ Sometimes emotional release is just one piece of change – other changes required for
lasting effect.
•​ Other times, emotional release leads to considerable change. E.g. Trauma. Once
expressed, pre-existing coping skills adequate to manage.

•​ Free and responsible behavior

•​ Freedom is the power to determine one’s own actions, to make own choices and
decisions.
•​ However, own freedom limited by the freedom of others.
•​ Counselling tries to attain a more balanced sense of freedom.
•​ Culture places differential emphasis on autonomy and freedom.
•​ Conflicts between parents and children – younger children given lesser autonomy.
•​ No clear rules regarding this.

•​ Understanding and managing negative feelings

•​ Rather than eliminate, understand and reduce debilitating emotions.
•​ Situation appropriate levels of negative feelings.
•​ Difficult emotions arising from loss and pain – clients need permission to experience,
capacity to express and share and cope with it.

Process Goals of Counselling

Events within the counselling sessions.

Counsellor considers helpful or instrumental in bringing about outcome goals.
Counsellor’s actions or changes experienced by client.

•​ Counsellor behavior as a model to follow. E.g. Response to frustration; disappointment

etc.
•​ Common process goals. E.g. Trust
•​ Specific process goals. Client profile e.g. Avoidance of topic.

Characteristics of Effective Counsellors

Effective counselors are skillful at reaching out.
•​ Through their demeanor and underlying views about others, effective counselors are
able to encourage others to communicate openly and honestly with them.
•​ By actively listening for the client’s feelings, beliefs, assumptions about self, significant
others, and life circumstances, effective counselors avoid responding in ways that create
defensiveness and block communication.
•​ They are able to concentrate fully on what a client is communicating to them, not only to
understand the content of what the client is saying but also to appreciate the significance of that
verbalization to the client’s present and future well- being.
•​ They are able to control their own feelings of anxiety while hearing of another person's
concerns and anxieties.
•​ They are also able to vary their communication patterns based on the client’s
personality,
interpersonal style, and sociocultural background.

•​ Effective counselors inspire feelings of trust, credibility, and confidence from people they
help.
•​ ​ In the presence of effective helpers, clients quickly sense that it is safe to risk
sharing their concerns and feelings openly and that they will not be ridiculed, embarrassed, or
criticized for their disclosures.
•​ ​ Effective counselors are also credible. What they say is perceived as believable
and honest, free of hidden agendas or ulterior motives. They are viewed as honest, straight-
forward, and nonmanipulative, again supporting the general belief that they can be trusted
•​ ​ Clients who perceive their counselors as expert, attractive, and trustworthy are
more likely to gain from counseling than those who fail to see these qualities in the counselors
(Cormier C Nurious, 2002).
•​ Conversely, clients who experience their counselor’s behavior as blaming,
rejecting, or ignoring them are less likely to reach their goals for change.

Effective counselors communicate care and respect for the persons they are trying to help.
•​ By their demeanor, effective counselors communicate to their clients the following
unspoken statement: “It matters to me that you will be able to work out the concerns and
problems you are facing. What happens to you in the future also matters to me. If things work
out well for you and you achieve success, I shall be happy about it. If you encounter frustration
and failure, I shall be saddened.”
•​ Effective helpers are not indifferent to the present and future of the people they try to
help. On the contrary, effective helpers agree to offer time and energy to others because the
future well-being of the people to whom they are reaching out matters to them.
•​ To respect another person means to hold that person in regard and esteem. It means to
have a favorable view of that person to acknowledge his or her talents and not think less of that
person because of human limitations.
•​ Applied to effective helping, respect means believing that the client is capable of
learning, of overcoming obstacles to growth, and of maturing into a more responsible,
self-reliant individual. With this perspective, effective helpers communicate regard for others by
offering their time and energy and by active, attentive listening that show involvement.
•​ They respect the role of social factors and cultural heritage in the client’s experience and
actively work to express their caring and respect in ways that are consistent with the client’s
cultural and social background.
•​ Effective helpers are neither arrogant nor conceited and thus do not act in a
condescending way toward the people they are helping.

Effective counselors are able to reach in as well as to reach out.

•​ Effective helpers do a lot of thinking about their actions, feelings, value commitments,
and motivations. They show a commitment to non-defensive, continuous self- understanding
and self-examination.
•​ Effective helpers also like and respect themselves and do not use the people they are
trying to help to satisfy their own needs.
•​ Counselors who are under great stress in their personal lives are at risk of focusing on
their own needs rather than the client’s needs during counseling sessions. Thus, they ought to
monitor carefully their effectiveness with clients.
•​ A counselor who is needy and unable to focus on the client’s best interests is commonly
referred to as an “impaired” counselor or a “wounded healer”. Under such circumstances
counselors can do more harm than good. These helpers have either temporarily succumbed to
overwhelming stress or have long-standing emotional difficulties that prevent them from relating
positively to others.
•​ Even counselors who have worked through their own emotional difficulties or who are
not overwhelmed by stress in their personal lives are at some risk for impairment. They can
develop burnout, an experience of emotional depletion, alienation from clients, and a sense of
futility in their work (Maslach, Jackson, C Leiter, 1996). To avoid burnout, counselors must take
time away from work to care for themselves, nourish their own personal support system, and get
a clearer perspective on their accomplishments as professionals.

Effective counselors manage conflict between client and counselor effectively.

•​ Because counselors must often encourage clients to face painful emotions, irrational
thoughts, and counterproductive behaviors, conflict of strain in the relationship may arise in the
course of the process.
•​ Clients sometimes feel angry at their counselors for this focus or because the counselors
are safer targets for their anger than other people in the clients’ lives. The ways in which
counselors navigate this conflict are important for achieving a positive result from counseling.
•​ Theorists refer to these conflicts as “therapeutic ruptures” and suggest that counselors
skilled in dealing with these conflicts directly, but sensitively, are the most likely to resolve them
and continue making progress on the client’s therapeutic goals.
•​ If these ruptures are avoided or mishandled, the risk that a client will drop out of therapy
increases greatly. The keys to effectively managing such conflicts are
•​ (1) the counselor’s awareness that clients who develop negative feelings are likely to
have difficulty expressing them directly,
•​ (2) the counselor’s skill in initiating discussion about such feelings with clients, and
•​ (3) the counselor’s openness and non- defensiveness in response to such client
disclosures.

Effective counselors attempt to understand the behavior of the people they try to help without
imposing value judgments.
•​ People have a tendency to make value judgments about the behavior of
others to judge the behaviour of others by one’s own standards.
•​ Effective helpers work hard to control the tendency to judge the values of their clients.
Instead, they accept a given behavior pattern as the client’s way of coping with some life
situation, and they try to understand how the pattern developed.
•​ The helper will develop opinions about whether the behavior pattern is effective or
ineffective in serving the client’s goals but will refrain from classifying the client’s values as good
or bad.

Effective counselors recognize clients’ self-defeating behaviors and help them develop more
personally rewarding behavior patterns.
•​ People frequently do things that are counterproductive and goal disruptive rather than
goal enhancing.
•​ Effective counselors are capable of seeing such patterns and of assisting clients in
developing
alternative patterns.
•​ Effective helpers have a model or image of the qualities and behavior patterns of a
healthy and effective, or fully functioning, individual. Included in this model is an elaborate image
of effective and ineffective ways of coping with the stressful situations of life.
•​ Effective helpers are skillful at helping others look at themselves and respond
nondefensively to the question, Who am I?” It is easy to describe aspects of self that are likable
and admirable. It is difficult and painful to look at aspects of self that are not admirable. Yet
self-improvement and growth require an honest, open awareness of those aspects of oneself
that a person would like to change.
•​ Effective counselors are also able to help others to look at themselves, at both their
likable and less admirable aspects, without debilitating fear, to identify personal changes that
would promote growth and improvement, and to develop approaches to bring about those
improvements.

Effective counselors have expertise in some area that will be of special value to the client.
•​ If counselors do not have some special competence, they have no business offering
their services to clients. When people need help, they turn to people whom they believe have
knowledge about and expertise in the problem of concern.
•​ Counselors have a responsibility to develop expertise in areas where their clients need
help and to update their knowledge through continuing education and consultation with other
professionals.
•​ They also have a responsibility to practice within the boundaries of their competence and
to avoid trying to deal with client concerns for which they have no training or experience. For
example, only those with a background in career counseling should try to help clients with
career problems, and only those with training in counseling young children should offer their
services to this population.

Effective counselors are able to reason systematically and to think in terms of systems.
•​ A system is an organized entity in which each component relates to the others and to the
system as a whole. Examples of systems include the human body, the organizational setting in
which a person works, and the family unit.
•​ In high-entropy systems, components work cooperatively with each other and contribute
favorably to the goals of the total system. In low-entropy systems, components do not work
cooperatively and sometimes work against each other.
•​ Effective counselors are aware of the different social systems of which clients are a part,
how clients are affected by those systems, and how they, in turn, influence those systems. In
other words, effective helpers are aware of the forces and factors in a client’s life space and the
mutual interaction between the client’s behavior and these environmental factors.
•​ Effective helpers realize that a client’s concerns and problems are influenced by many
complex factors that must be identified and understood as an inherent part of the helping effort.
•​ E.g. Wheel of privilege and power.

Effective counselors are culturally competent; they are able to understand the social, cultural,
and political context in which they and all other people operate.
•​ Counselors are aware of important present-day events in all the systems
affecting their lives and the lives of their clientele.
•​ They are aware of the significance and possible future implications of these
events.
•​ The counselor has a thorough understanding of current social concerns and an
awareness of how these events affect the views of clients especially their views about the
future.
•​ Among the important contemporary issues to which a counselor must attend is how bias
and discrimination against some groups in society affect their personal well- being and progress
toward self-actualization.

Ethical Issues in Counselling

•​ Counsellor’s behavior is defined as unethical –
•​ when the best interests of the client is not the highest priority and in instead serving
some other purpose – usually self-interest.
•​ negative effects when counsellor’s self-interests placed above the client’s
welfare.
•​ Two broad ethical obligations:
•​ To be loyal to the institution that employs them.
•​ To promote the good reputation of the counselling profession.

Code of Professional Ethics

•​ Set of behaviors – expected of all professionals (e.g. keeping records confidential)
AND prohibited to all members (e.g. inaccurately advertising one’s credentials).
•​ Set of aspirational principles that professionals can use to guide their actions.
•​ Helps to sensitize counsellors-in-training to situations that are ethically problematic.
•​ Ethical dilemmas are usually oblivious to the other party (client, colleague or supervisor).
•​ Therefore counsellor must be able to independently identify an ethical dilemma as soon
as it rises.
•​ Sensitive counsellors – less likely to choose inappropriate alternatives.

Code of Ethics and Standards of Practise

•​ Code of ethics clarifies the nature of ethical responsibilities held
in common by it’s members.
•​ Standards of practice represents minimal behavior statements of the code of ethics.

American Counselling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics

•​ Section A: Counselling Relationship
•​ Section B: Confidentiality and privacy in counselling
•​ Section C: Professional responsibility
•​ Section D: Relationships with colleagues, employers and employees.
•​ Section E: Evaluation, assessment and interpretation.
•​ Section F: Supervision, training and teaching
•​ Section G: Research and publication.
•​ Section H: Distance Counselling, technology and social media
•​ Section I: Resolving ethical issues.

Situations where code of ethics lack clarity

•​ Changing nature of the helping professions limits the usefulness of the codes.
•​ New interventions in counselling practice.
•​ Diversity in the population of clients.
•​ Professional associations take several years to revise a code.
•​ No code can address every complicated situation that a counsellor will encounter.
•​ No ‘blueprints for action’ but signposts that identify the most obvious and frequently
occurring ethical problem.
•​ Best interests of the client not always clear.
•​ Code of ethics are an incomplete resource.
•​ Conflict in codes if part of more than one professional organization.
•​ Counsellor needs to choose between the codes while adhering to them.

Ethical Principles
Provide rationale for the content of code of ethics. Primary value system for professionals.
Ethical codes – focus on what behaviours are ethical.
Ethical principles – focus on why they are ethical.
Principles are broader than codes – help in situations where codes don’t give clear guidance.
Ethical Principles
1.​ Beneficence – doing good and preventing harm
2.​ Non-maleficence – not inflicting harm
3.​ Autonomy – respect freedom of choice and self-determination
4.​ Justice – fairness
5.​ Fidelity – faithfulness or honoring commitments and promises
6.​ Veracity – truthfulness

Respect for Autonomy

•​ An individual’s right to self-determination – even when others disagree.
•​ Two restrictions:
•​ 1. Rights of an individual ends where others’ rights begin.
•​ 2. Assumption of ‘the capacity to understand the implications and consequences of the
choices they make’ (called as ‘competence’)
•​ E.g. Children (developmental level); Severe organic brain damage (not oriented to
reality) – temporarily unaware of the consequences of their choices.
•​ Avoid imposition of values by counsellor.
•​ Paternalistic – role of a parent who ‘knows better’ than the client.
•​ E.g. Women’s rights; abortion rights; social justice.
•​ Client’s beliefs can change but who’s agenda is it?

Beneficence
•​ Doing good for others – Counsellors have a deeper ethical responsibility than ordinary
friends or confidants who receive no payment for their trust and support and who don’t claim to
have any special training in helping people.
•​ Counsellors – publicize self as ‘expert helpers’ – clients come for help when loved
ones aren’t able to help OR when clients are not able to cope.
•​ Counsellor’s role is inconsistent with their status of a paid professional if clients are
left in the same place as when they began.
•​ Is it possible for counselling to have negative outcomes or not benefit the client?
•​ Yes, but necessary to check if counsellor did all within their control to assist the client.
•​ Ǫ: “Is this course of action likely to benefit the client?”

Non-maleficence
•​ The responsibility not to make the client worse by intention, reckless action or
incompetence.
•​ The most fundamental ethical principle guiding all human service professions. E.g.
Biomedical ethics.
•​ In the past, scholars thought that counselling was not a risky activity; agreed that it did
not always help but suggested that it could not really hurt a client either.
•​ Recent evidence against this view: Counselling and therapy are powerful tools –
therefore used in client’s
advantage or disadvantage.
•​ Practising within the limits of one’s competence – dealing with problems for which one
has received training or using strategies with which one is skilled unless under supervision.
•​ Counsellor: assess client’s problems accurately, choose counselling strategies wisely
and monitor impact of
counselling.
•​ Clients should not be exposed to research or experimental treatment with high risk and
little hope of real benefit.
•​ Ǫ: Is the client at risk for harm? (use alternative methods if that is the case)

Justice or Fairness
•​ All persons be treated equally – core of democratic societies.
•​ Judgement about goals and strategies should be based on individual characteristics of
the client rather than discriminatory attitudes towards groups.
•​ Stereotyping and bias – unethical because it is unjust even if it is
unconscious.
•​ Need to display respectful and unbiased attitudes when counselling clients from different
cultures, background, lifestyle or gender.
•​ Use techniques appropriate to the culture of the client.
•​ Ǫ: Is this action based on any factor other than the individual’s unique needs?

Fidelity
•​ Promise keeping
•​ Counsellors skilled to build trust and encourage self-disclosure.
•​ Self-disclosure and trust are critical to success of counselling process.
•​ Implicit promise to not divulge what a client tells unless there is some
overwhelming reason that is ultimately in the client’s or society’s best interests.
•​ Need to explain limits to confidentiality to clients before self-disclosure
begins.
•​ Loyalty
•​ Counsellors be loyal to clients, employers and the profession.
•​ Not abandon clients in the midst of counselling.
•​ Faithful to employer’s mission unless in conflict with client’s ethics.
•​ Ǫ: Is this choice (of action) in keeping with the promises I have made, either implied or
explicit?

Common Ethical Violations

•​ Dual relationships with clients – sexual and non-sexual dual relationships.
•​ Unprofessional conduct
•​ Unethical billing practices
•​ Incompetent practices
•​ Fraudulent application for license
•​ Violations of confidentiality
•​ Misrepresentation of competence
•​ Violation relating to reporting of child abuse
•​ Who commits these violations?
•​ Male therapists > Female therapists
•​ Unfamiliarity with code of ethics
•​ Self-interest / or find code of ethics unnecessary for themselves
•​ Distraction by personal difficulties e.g. a personal crisis like divorce.