What is councelling, aim and objectives of councelling and difference between councelling, guidance and psychotherapy

1. Counselling
Dr. Sushma Rathee
assistant clinical psychologist
PGIMER, Chandigarh
email: sushmaratheecp@gmail.com

2. What is Counselling:
• Counselling: is an interactive learning process contracted
between counsellor and client, be they individuals, families,
groups or institutions, which approaches in a holistic way,
social, cultural, economic and emotional issues.
• Counselling is a type of therapy which helps the individual
overcome their problems. Moreover, it helps them gain their
lost confidence. Therefore, counselling refers to the process of
helping a person face their problem and overcome it.

3. Characteristics of Counselling:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

4. Cont. ….
• Counselling is not:
1. Giving advice.
2. Being judgemental.
3. Attempting to sort out the problems of the client.
4. Expecting or encouraging a client to behave as the counsellor
would behave if confronted with a similar problem in their
own life.
5. Getting emotionally involved with the client.
6. Looking at a client’s problems from your own perspective,
based on your own value system.

5. Counselling Skills:
1. There are a number of skills that are required by
counsellors. Perhaps the most important are
good communication skills
2. Counsellors need to be particularly able to listen effectively,
giving their full attention to the client. They need to be aware
of body language and other non-verbal communication.
Clients will often communicate far more non-verbally than
verbally, so this is an important area of skill.
3. Questioning is an important skill for counsellors, just as it is
in coaching. Counsellors use questioning both to improve
their understanding (as a form of clarification), and also as
an active way to help expose the client’s feelings and
emotions. They will also use reflection to show that they
have heard the client, and to validate the client’s feelings and
words.

6. Cont….
4. Counsellors also need to be able to build a certain amount
of rapport with their client, but not to an extent that would allow
them to become emotionally involved.
5. They also need to be empathetic. This means that they are
aware of their client’s feelings and emotions. Empathy goes
beyond being sympathetic (which is basically feeling sorry for
someone), because the root of the word means to ‘feel with’.
Empathy therefore means that the counsellor understands how the
clients feels and can therefore ask appropriate questions and lead
the client to positive conclusions. The nature of empathy is rooted
in helping others, and particularly in empowering them to help
themselves, so this is an essential skill area for counsellors.

7. Types of Counselling:
• The most common types of counselling:
1) Marriage and Family Counselling: People often face a lot of
problems in their marriage and family life. Sometimes, these troubled
people find it hard to cope up with their life. This results in constant
fights with their partners or family members. Marriage and family
counselling comes in here. In other words, it helps people with these
problems. They take them into confidence and prescribe solutions that
will help them overcome their problems.
2) Educational Counselling: A student who is fresh out of school or
college is often clueless as to which career to choose. This is
completely normal for kids of that age to feel like that. Furthermore,
sometimes even working individuals feel like that in the midst of their
careers. This is nothing to worry about. Educational counselling helps
these people in choosing their career path. They conduct seminars and
orientations or private sessions where they discuss the interest of their
client and offer solutions accordingly.

8. Cont….
3. Rehabilitation Counselling: This type of counselling refers to a
practice where the counsellor helps people with their emotional
and physical disabilities. Furthermore, these counsellors teach
these people ways to live independently and maintain gainful
employment. It evaluates the strength and limitations of their
patients. In short, they help people in guiding them and assisting
them to lead independent lives.
4. Mental Health Counselling: Mental illnesses have become
very common these days. Awareness has helped people identify the
symptoms of it and visit mental health counsellors. Mental health
counselling helps people deal with issues that impact their mental
health and well-being. Some of the mental illnesses are depression,
PTSD, ADHD, Bipolar disorder, and more. This counselling
focuses on these issues and helps in resolving them for a healthier
life.

9. 5. Substance Abuse Counselling: Substance abuse counselling is a
form of counselling which helps people in treating them and
supporting them from breaking free from their drug and alcohol
addiction. It helps people discuss the cause of this addiction and
reach to the root of it. The counsellor thereby suggests coping
strategies which make a positive impact on their lives. Moreover,
they also provide them with practicing skills and behaviors which
helps in their recovery.

10. Aims and Objectives of Counseling:
• Counseling aims at helping the clients understand and accept themselves
“as they are”, and counseling is to help the student to help himself.
The main objective of counseling is to bring about a voluntary change in
the client. For this purpose the counselor provides facilities to help achieve
the desired change or make the suitable choice.
According to Dunsmoor and miller, the purpose of student counseling are :-
1. To give the student information on matters important to success.
2. To get information about student which will be of help in solving his
problems.
3. To establish a feeling of mutual understanding between student and teacher.
4. To help the student work out a plan for solving his difficulties.
5. To help the student know himself better-his interests, abilities, aptitudes,
and opportunities.
6. To encourage and develop special abilities and right attitudes.
7. To inspire successful endeavor toward attainment.
8. To assist the student in planning for educational and vocational choices.

11. Counseling Goals:
1. The goal of counseling is to help individuals overcome their immediate
problems and also to equip them to meet future problems. Counseling, to
be meaningful has to be specific for each client since it involves his
unique problems and expectations.
2. The goals of counseling may be described as immediate, long-range, and
process goals. A statement of goals is not only important but also
necessary, for it provides a sense of direction and purpose. Additionally it
is necessary for a meaningful evaluation of the usefulness of it.
3. The counselor has the goal of understanding the behavior, motivations,
and feelings of the counselee. The counselor has the goals are not limited
to understanding his clients. He has different goals at different levels of
functioning. The immediate goal is to obtain relief for the client and the
long-range goal is to make him ‘a fully functioning person’. Both the
immediate and long- term goals are secured through what are known as
mediate or process goals.

12. Cont….
4. Specific counseling goals are unique to each client and involve a
consideration of the client’s expectations as well as the environmental aspects.
Apart from the specific goals, there are two categories of goals which are
common to most counseling situations. These are identified as long-range and
process goals. The latter have great significance. They shape the counselee and
counselors’ interrelations and behavior. The process goals comprise facilitating
procedures for enhancing the effectiveness of counseling.
1. The long range –goals are those that reflect the counselor’s philosophy of
life and could be stated as:
1. To help the counselee become self-actualizing.
2. To help the counselee attain self-realization.
3. To help the counselee become a fully –functioning person.
2. The immediate goals of counseling refer to the problems for which the
client is seeking solutions here and now. The counselee could be helped to
gain fuller self- understanding through self – exploration and to appreciate
his strengths and weaknesses. The counselor could provide necessary
information but however exhaustive, may not be useful to the client unless
he has an integrative understanding of himself vis-a-vis his personal
resources and environmental constraints and resources.

13. Some of the major goals of counseling generally
accepted by the counselors are given below:-
1. Achievement of positive mental health: It is identified as an important goal of
counseling by some individuals who claim that when one reaches positive
mental health one learns to adjust and response more positively to people and
situations. Kell and Mueller (1962) hold that the “promotion and development
of feelings of being liked, sharing with, and receiving and giving interaction
rewards from other human beings is the legitimate goal of counseling”
2. Resolution of Problems: Another goal of counseling is the resolving of the
problem brought to the counselor. This, in essence, is an outcome of the former
goal and implies positive mental health. In behavioral terms three categories of
behavioral goals can be identified, namely, altering maladaptive behavior,
learning the decision – making process and preventing problems (Krumboltz,
1966).
3. Improving Personal Effectiveness: Yet another goal of counseling is that of
improving personal effectiveness. This is closely related to the preservation of
good mental health and securing desirable behavioral change(s).

14. Cont….
4. Counseling to Help Change: Blocher (1966) adds two other goals. The
first, according to him, is that counseling should maximize individual
freedom to choose and act within the conditions imposed by the
environment. The other goal is that counseling should increase the
effectiveness of the individual responses evolved by the environment.
Tiedeman (1964) holds that the goal of counseling is to focus on the
mechanism of change and that the counselee should be helped in the process
of ‘becoming’ – the change which pervades the period of adolescence
through early adulthood during which the individual is assisted to actualize
his potential. Shoben (1965) also views the goal of counseling as personal
development.
5. Decision – Making: Some counselors hold the view that counseling should
enable the counselee to make decisions. It is through the process of making
critical decisions that personal growth is fostered. Reaves and Reaves (1965)
point out that “the primary objective of counseling is that of stimulating the
individuals to evaluate, make, accept and act upon his choice”.
Sometimes the counselees have goals which are vague and their implications
are not fully appreciated. It is perhaps one of the primary functions of a
counselor to help clarify a counselee’s goal.

15. Cont….
• 6. Modification of Behavior: Behaviorally-oriented
counselors stress the need for modification of behavior, for
example, removal of undesirable behavior or action or
reduction of an irritating symptom such that the individual
attains satisfaction and effectiveness. Growth-oriented
counselors stress on the development of potentialities
within the individual. Existentially-oriented counselors
stress self-enhancement and self-fulfillment. Obviously the
latter cannot be realize without first securing the former,
namely, symptom removal or reduction as a necessary pre-
condition for personal effectiveness.

16. What is Guidance?
• Guidance is advice given to an individual concerning matters
such as career. An expert in the field in question, say career
choices, advises individuals on how to go about everything.
Guidance aims at making people know the pros and cons of their
decisions. It enlightens individuals on how to make the right
choices. The experts make individuals know that choices have
consequences, especially in the future.
• Guidance is the approach used to help learners choose their
courses or career paths wisely. It aims at helping the person
develop themselves for their future. It serves individuals with
ready solutions.

17. The Differences Between Guidance and Counseling:
1. Guidance is preventive, while counseling is curative. You may
seek guidance before choosing careers, but you seek counseling
to save a problematic marriage.
2. Guidance helps an individual make the best choices, while
counseling helps them change their perspective. Guidance gives
clients ready answers, while counseling helps them come up
with their well-informed solutions.
3. Guidance uses an external approach to tackle the issue at hand
while counseling uses an in-depth approach to establish the root
causes of the problem before tackling it.
4. Guidance is the best approach for tackling educational and
career problems while counseling is best employed in tackling
socio-psychological and other personal problems.

18. Cont….
5. Guidance is provided by an expert in the field at hand or anybody
superior. It does not require professional training. Counseling is
given by people who have been trained professionally to handle
psychological problems.
6. Guidance provides ready answers and decisions for clients while
counseling empowers individuals to create the most appropriate
solutions to tackle an issue.
7. In guidance, confidentiality is not a guarantee. It can be
conducted for an individual or a group. In counseling, you are
guaranteed confidentiality since the sessions are always one to one.
8. Guidance can be in group but counselling mostly individual
based.

19. Counselling and Psychotherapy
• ‘Psychotherapy’ and ‘counselling’ are very similar, but not exactly the
same. Both describe a process of helping someone to come to terms
with and work out solutions to their problems.
• However, they vary in the approach used, and underpinning model
and thinking.
• Counselling is a helping approach that highlights the emotional and
intellectual experience of a client: how a client is feeling and what
they think about the problem they have sought help for.
• Psychotherapy, however, is based in the psychodynamic approach—
it encourages the client to go back to their earlier experiences and
explore how these experiences affect their current ‘problem’.