THE DISCIPLINE OF

COUNSELING
 COUNSELING
• Giving advice to (a person) on social or
personal problems, especially
professionally.
• A talking therapy that involves a trained
therapist listening to you and helping you
find ways to deal with emotional issues
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. They may, however, be
required by law to disclose information if they believe that
there is a risk to life.
THE DISCIPLINE OF
COUNSELING
 Is a relationship characterized by the
application of one or more psychological
theories and a recognized set of
communication skills appropriate to a
client's intimate concerns, problems, or
aspirations.
TWO PERSONS INVOLVED IN
COUNSELING
COUNSELOR
• A person, especially a licensed professional, who
treats people with mental, emotional, and behavioral
disorders and problems.

CLIENTS
• Are individuals or a group of people in a
demoralized, distress, or in a negative state of
mind about their situation.
 GOALS OF
COUNSELING
 Enhancing Coping Skills

We will inevitably run into difficulties in the process of growing

up. Most of us do not completely achieve all of our
developmental tasks within a lifetime. All of the unique
expectations and requirements imposed on us by others will
eventually lead to problems. Any inconsistencies in development
can result in children learning behaviour patterns that are both
inefficient and ineffective. Learned coping patterns, however,
may not always work. New interpersonal or occupational role
demands may create an overload and produce excessive anxiety
and difficulty for the individual.
 Improving Relationships

Many clients tend to have major problems relating to others

due to poor self-image. Likewise, inadequate social skills cause
individuals to act defensively in relationships. Typical social
difficulties can be observed in family, marital and peer group
interaction (e.g., the troubled elementary school child). The
counselor would then strive to help the client improve the
quality of their lives by developing more effective interpersonal
relationships.
 Promote Decision-Making

The goal of counseling is to enable the individual to make critical

decisions regarding alternative courses of action without outside
influence. Counseling will help individuals obtain information, and
to clarify emotional concerns that may interfere with or be related
to the decisions involved. These individuals will acquire an
understanding of their abilities and interests. They will also come to
identify emotions and attitudes that could influence their choices
and decisions.
 Facilitating Client Potential

 Counseling seeks to maximize an individual’s freedom by

giving him or her control over their environment while
analyzing responsiveness and reaction to the environment.
Counselors will work to help people learn how to overcome,
for example, excessive substance use and to better take
care of their bodies.

Counselors will also assist in overcoming sexual dysfunction,

drug addiction, compulsive gambling and obesity, as well as
anxiety, shyness and depression.
Facilitating Behaviour Change
 Most theorists indicate that the goal of counseling is
to bring about change in behaviour that will enable
the client to be more productive as they define their
life within society’s limitations.

 According to Rodgers (1961), behaviour change is a

necessary result of the counseling process,
although specific behaviours receive little or no
emphasis during the process.
SCOPE OF COUNSELING

 Counselling can be educational, personal/social, and/or

vocational. Educational counselling assists students in making
right decisions about their educational choices such as the
courses they want to take up, and decide on what interests and
skills they want to develop.
Counselling is for everyone. This service is not only for those
people with special handicaps but also for normal ones. It
knows no age, a child, a teen or an adult may receive this if
they want to.

Counselling is concerned with the need and development of a

person. It is a way to identify the needs of individuals and help
them know the ways to meet such needs.

Counselling ensures human dignity and worth. It encourages

client for life satisfaction, potential realization, and self
awareness. In counselling, every client must feel that he/she
is significant.
Counselling is methodical, sequential, continuous, and
development. A person does not only receive counselling in one
time or in one day hence the counsellor must monitor his/her
client’s condition. In school counselling, for example, the service
is not only given in primary but until tertiary education or even
after that.
 Counselling is a relationship between a counsellor and the client,
therefore it helps enhancing human development throughout
the life span;
 Honor diversity and embracing a multicultural approach in
support of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of
people within their social and cultural contexts;
CORE VALUES
OF
COUNSELING
Respect for human dignity

This means that the counselor must provide

a client unconditional positive regard,
compassion, non-judgmental attitude,
empathy, and trust.
Partnership
A counselor has to foster partnerships with the various disciplines
that come together to support an integrated healing that
encompasses various aspects such as the physical, emotional,
spiritual, and intellectual. These relationships should be of
integrity, sensitivity, and openness to ensure health, healing, and
growth of clients.
Autonomy

This entails respect for confidentiality and trust in a

relationship of counseling and ensuring a safe
environment that is needed for healing. It also means
that healing or any advice cannot be imposed on a
client.
Responsible caring
This primarily means respecting the potential of
every human being to change and to continue
learning throughout his/her life, and especially in the
environment of counseling.
Personal integrity

Counselors must reflect personal integrity,

honesty, and truthfulness with clients.
Social justice
This means accepting and respecting the diversity of the
clients, the diversify of individuals, their cultures,
languages, lifestyles, identities, ideologies, intellectual
capacities, personalities, and capabilities regardless of
the presented issues.
PRINCIPLES OF
COUNSELING
Advice
Counseling may involve advice-giving as one of the
several functions that counselors perform. When this is
done, the requirement is that a counselor makes
judgments about a counselee’s problems and lays out
options for a course of action. Advice-giving has to avoid
breeding a relationship in which the counselee feels
inferior and emotionally dependent on the counselor.
Reassurance

 Counseling involves providing clients with reassurance,

which is a way of giving them courage to face a problem or
confidence that they are pursuing a suitable course of
action. Reassurance is a valuable principle because it can
bring about a sense of relief that may empower a client to
function normally again. 
Release of emotional tension

Counseling provides clients the opportunity to get

emotional release from their pent-up frustrations and
other personal issues. Counseling experience shows that
as persons begin to explain their concerns to a
sympathetic listener, their tensions begin to subside.
They become more relaxed and tend to become more
coherent and rational. The release of tensions helps
remove mental blocks by providing a solution to the
problem. 
Clarified thinking

 Clarified thinking tends to take place while the counselor

and counselee are talking and therefore becomes a logical
emotional release. As this relationship goes on, other self-
empowering results may take place later as a result of
developments during the counseling relationship. Clarified
thinking encourages a client to accept responsibility for
problems and to be more realistic in solving them. 
Reorientation

Reorientation involves a change in the client’s emotional

self through a change in basic goals and aspirations. This
requires a revision of the client’s level of aspiration to
bring it more in line with actual and realistic attainment.
It enables clients to recognize and accept their own
limitations. The counselor’s job is to recognize those in
need of reorientation and facilitate appropriate
interventions. 
Listening skills

Listening attentively to clients is the counselor’s attempt to

understand both the content of the clients’ problem as they see
it, and the emotions they are experiencing related to the
problem. Counselors do not make interpretations of the client’s
problems or offer any premature suggestions as to how to deal
with them, or solve the issues presented. Good listening helps
counselors to understand the concerns being presented.
Respect

In all circurmstances, clients must be treated with

respect, no matter how peculiar, strange, disturbed,
weird, or utterly different from the counselor. Without
this basic element, successful counseling is impossible.
Counselors do-not have to like the client, or their values,
or their behavior, but they have to put their personal
feelings aside and treat the client with respect.
Empathy and positive regard

 Carl Rogers combined empathy and positive regard as two

principles that should go along with respect and effective
listening skills. Empathy requires the counselor to listen
and understand the feelings and perspective of the client
and positive regard is an aspect of respect. For Rogers,
clients have to be given both “unconditional positive
regard” and be treated with respect.
Clarification, confrontation, and
interpretation

Clarification is an attempt by the counselor to restate

what the client is either saying or feeling, so the client
may learn something or understand the issue better.
Confrontation and interpretation are other more
advanced principles used by counselors in their
interventions
Transference and
Countertransference.

Other advanced principles deal with transference and

countertransference. When clients are helped to
understand transference reactions, they are
empowered to gain understanding of important
aspects of their emotional life. Countertransference
helps both clients and counselors to understand the
emotional and perceptional reactions and how to
effectively manage them.
"Happiness can be found even in
the darkest of times, if one only
remembers to turn on the light.“

— Albus Dumbledore.