Guidance vs Counseling

Psychology, the study of behavior and of mental processes, is a diverse field. It involves
the process of understanding the reasons why people behave and think as they do and
applies scientific methods in observing and gathering information, in order to come up
with an applicable principle of behavior and motivation.
It is subjective and is applied according to the specific requirements of an individual.
Among the many branches and applications of psychology are the fields of Guidance
and

Counseling.
Guidance and Counseling both involve helping an individual in making choices about
the different things that might confront and confuse him. They are totally different fields
though and to help distinguish between the two, here are some of the things that are used
to describe them:

Counseling
Counseling is a psychological specialty that deals with research and applied work in
supervision, training, career development, prevention, and health. It focuses on a
persons strengths, assets, environmental interactions, educational background, career
development and personality.
Counseling started as a result of WWII. Since then, it has been used by individuals,
institutions, families, rehabilitation agencies and other organizations. It utilizes
psychological methods in the collection of case history data through personal interview,
testing and aptitude.
It helps clients to choose the best solution to a problem, through the process of listening
and questioning. It is important to note that counseling is not a giving of opinion and it
is based on a wellness model rather than a medical one.
A counselors basic concern should go beyond treating dysfunction or pathology. It
should deal with a clients self awareness which should help him towards personal
growth and wellness.

Guidance
Guidance is defined as the act of guiding, giving leadership, supervision, direction or
professional guidance for future actions. It is usually provided to students in preparation
for a vocation.
Guidance helps a person discover and develop his psychological, vocational and
educational potential in order to be happier and more useful in society. Each person is
responsible for his decisions and actions, but when he is young he will need someone
more mature and experienced to guide him through life and towards making the right
decisions for himself.
Like counseling, it assists clients towards a decision or an appropriate course of action.
It may be used as therapeutic aid in the treatment of minor emotional disturbances and
disorders.

Summary
1. Counseling is a psychological field that deals with research and applied work to
provide training and supervision, while Guidance is a psychological field that deals with
assisting clients in their need to choose the right course of action.
2. While both are being used in organizations and by individuals, counseling has a
broader reach, while Guidance is usually being used in schools to guide students
towards proper actions.
3. Both can help in the treatment and rehabilitation of a person suffering from a mental
illness or disorder, but counseling is more extensive than guidance.
4. Counseling encompasses several other fields of psychology, while Guidance tends to
be more specific.

The Meaning of Guidance

The word guidance is explained in different ways by various/many writers, but all,
having the same meaning. Shartzer and Stone (1976) defined guidance to mean to
direct, pilot or guide. Bakare (1996) refers to guidance as a more directive or
prescriptive form of assistance. Idowu (1998) sees it as a family name for all the helping
service within the general educational and community systems. To make the meaning to
be more explicit, Akinade (2002) remarked that some specialists assert that guidance is a
broad term used to cover a number of specialist services available in schools. Such
services include the information service, testing service, placement service, follow-up
service and counseling service. But looking at the modern day global world, the
provision of specialist services are no more limited to the school, it now includes the
community in general.
From the above, guidance can be summarily defined as a cognitive educational services
(within or outside the school system) that help people understand themselves, provided
the client reveals accurate, reliable and valid information about himself and his
environment.

The Meaning of Counselling
Counselling is a process of helping individuals or group of people to gain self-
understanding in order to be themselves. Burker and Steffler (1979) see counseling as
a professional relationship between a trained Counselor and a client. Olayinka
(1972) defined it to be a process whereby a person is helped in a face-to-face
relationship while Makinde (1983) explained counseling as an enlightened process
whereby people
help others by encouraging their growth. Counselling is a process designed to
help clients understand and clarify personal views of their life space, and to learn to
reach their self-determined goals through
meaningful, well-informed choices and a resolution of problems of an emotional
or interpersonal nature. It believes that every human individual has the potential for
self-growth, self-development and selfactualization.

Types of Counselling
There are two major types of Counselling, namely: individual counselling and
group counselling.
(a) Individual Counselling: This is referred to as one-to-one
counselling. It occurs between the professionally trained
Counsellor (Therapist) and his client (Counsellee). The goal of
this is to help the client to understand himself, clarify and direct
his thought, in order to make a worthwhile decision. Through this, clients
problems are alleviated. Frumboltz and Thoreson (1967) as cited in Ojo (2005)
remarked that it is mainly to bring about change in the client either by altering
maladaptive behaviour, learning the decision making process or preventing
problems.
(b) Group Counselling: This is a counselling session that takes place between the
professionally trained counsellor and a group of people. Number of this group
should not be more than seven, or at least ten, in order to have a cohesive group
and an effective well controlled counselling session. Members of the groups are
clients/counselees whose tasks or problems that are meant for resolution are
similar.During group counselling, a free atmosphere is allowed and freedom of speech
is encouraged. The counselees are free to express themselves individually as
counselling progresses so that encumbrances surrounding the tasks or problems to be
resolved would be open for all to consider and benefit from. All counselees are expected
to participate
and express their feelings. The responsibility of the counsellor during group
counselling is to help remove the marks covering the problem. He helps open up
the problem with the professional competence and knowledge he possesses. The
counsellor is not just a member of the group; he is to direct the affairs and
situations.

Classification of Counselling
Counselling can be classified according to different spheres of life in which
human beings could encounter problems. These are:
(a) Educational Counselling: problems that could be of learning, teaching and that
of education generally are handled here.
(b) Marital Counselling: problems that could emanate from married life beginning from
spouse selection are resolved here.
(c) Personal Social Counselling: problems including personality and life in general are
taken care of here.
(d) Rehabilitation Counselling: problems emanating from life
disruptions such as accidents, retrenchment and natural mishaps
are handled here.
(e) Vocational Counselling: problems from work and training, career choice making
and adjustment are handled here.
Only three of the above types of counselling will be mainly practiced in the school
setting. These are Educational, Vocational and Personalsocial counselling which
will be the full responsibility of the school counsellor. However, a counsellor in
private practice might need to engage in the other types of counselling depending on
the needs of his
clients.

Differences Between Terms

Guidance Counselling vs. Counselling/Psychotherapy

Guidance approaches situations from the perspective that the guidance counsellor has
more information or better ways to reach decisions than the person receiving the service.
Guidance provides the client with expert advice and solutions, which the client may or
may not follow.
Those who provide guidance counselling services use counselling skill-sets, but their
intentions tend to be more focused on helping clients make a decision(s) about specific,
important issue(s) (course selections, jobs, school choices) in their lives.
Counselling and psychotherapy are processes that seek to help people improve their
well-being and increase their ability to solve problems and make decisions for
themselves both in and beyond the current situation. Therefore, counselling and
psychotherapy are considered more holistic than guidance. In contrast, guidance focuses
on assisting a person to make decisions that are usually time- and context-limited. Of
course, such decisions can, and usually will, have longer-term effects for a person's life.
Counselling vs. Psychotherapy

Both counselling and psychotherapy focus less on the content of a specific decision than
does guidance. Instead, both counselling and psychotherapy focus on helping a person
reach the decision that fits best for them with regard to their own values and desires.
Shorter-term work focused on dealing with a specific situation (marital breakup, loss of
job, etc.) is more likely to be called counselling than therapy (but this is not always
true).
Persistent and pervasive patterns of maladaptive behaviour are likely to require longer-
term service provision, which is more likely to be called therapy. Such situations also
assume the need for greater expertise by the provider.
Services provided by social workers, pastoral care counsellors, nurses, vocational
guidance personnel, and school psychologists are more likely to be labelled counselling
than psychotherapy/therapy. Sometimes the employer mandates this nomenclature, and
sometimes the service provider prefers this designation.
Psychiatrists and (some) psychologists are more likely to call their services therapy than
are other care providers. This might be due to history, licensure, specific training, etc.
Service providers who use diagnostic systems, such as the DSM, are more likely to call
their services treatment (yet another term). Sometimes this term is mandated by the
institution they work for and sometimes the practitioner views the service as treatment.
Those who view themselves as providing treatment are more likely to call what they do
therapy (possibly because this fits with the medical model).

GUIDANCE:- The word Guidance has its root in the word "Guide" which means to
direct, steer,inform and to guide. In the society of ours, many people encounter, problem
because of lack of guidance. They lack information and direction. It is essential for the
purpose of good living that adolescents have enough information to direct them to avoid
a wrong step in their endeavor in life.

COUNSELING:- This is a process of assisting a client who is sad, discouraged,
disorganizedand need assistance from a professional, who is trained in psychotherapy to
identify hisproblem and adjust so he can live an effective life.
Perez(1965) says a counseling is a processcoloining a client who is in trouble as a result
of which he is now sad, disorganized and a counsellor who is trained to assist him to
become happt and live an effective life.
Makinde (1985) defines counseling as a process whereby people helped people to
adjust, be happyand live effective life. Effective life is a life that is apparently devoid of
troubles.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING.

Guidance is for all, everyone need it while counseling is for those who have problems
and need assistance. Guidance can be offered by anybody e.g teachers, pastors, parents,
even counselor,through media (flayers) SMS, internet,prospect, radio jingles, TV
announcement while Counselingcan only those trained in psychotherapy. Guidance is a
public thing,it can be done in an open field, assembly hall while counseling is private
and confidential.

THE UMBRELLA TERM GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING
The term Guidance and Counseling are like two sides of a single coin.They are
inseparable. Man needs both to survive in life. According to Nwagu (1985), it takes both
a man and a woman to bring forth a child. In the same vein, it takes both guidance and
counseling to bring forth an effective personality. This is why the umbrella term is used
for this course - The two are indispensable.

Both Guidance and Counseling are process used to solve problems of life. The basic
difference is in the approach. In the process of guidance, the client's problems are
listened carefully and ready made solutions are provided by the expert where as in the
process of counseling the client's problems are discussed and relevant information are
provided in-between. In the end of the counseling process, the client himself/herself
have a insight to the problem and he/she become empowered to take own decision.

Since ready made solutions (taking decision for others) were provided in guidance, the
client may or may not follow it but most often decision taken in the process of
counseling are followed sincerely. The set of decisions comes out from guidance and
counseling process may be same but in the first process the decision is taken by the
guide where as the client take own his/her own decisions in the later process.

Counseling vs Guidance
Most people often interchange the words guidance and counseling. This is primarily
because we are so used to the term guidance counselor from our schools. These
professionals we know from childhood usually help students in their way to college,
often giving them advices involving personal or educational problems as well as
showcasing options for college and future careers. Guidance counselors often function
to guide children and young individuals to become mature and responsible members of
society by developing the persons way of thinking and motivating them to prepare for
their chosen careers and vocations.
Guidance and Counseling are both processes that are done to help solve a persons
problems in life, however the way these problems are dissected and tackled vary. The
way the problems are tackled could ultimately depend on the way the person in need of
advice or help may be more comfortable with.
Guidance involves listening carefully to the problems of the burdened individuals and
discussing possible readymade solutions that could help solve or at least alleviate the
problem discussed at hand. In this way, the person who is in dilemma can choose
whether or not to accept the said solution and carry out the solution with him. Most
often than not, the solutions that are given out sincerely and thus are often followed and
carried out.
Counseling, on the other hand, involves a series of talking and listening, discussing the
problem at hand and sharing relevant information that could help the person understand
the problem and make his or her own decision or course of action. The process of
counseling usually ends with the advisee having with him an insight of the problem and
a more empowered self that could help the person make future decisions. This way the
advisee can be more intuitive in the future and can learn to dissect and understand future
problems.
Some people state that guidance is only a part of counseling wherein the act of listening
to the problem and discussing solutions can be done repeatedly until the problem is well
understood by the advisee and possible ways or solutions can be extracted from the
repetition.
Difference between Counseling and Guidance
- Guidance is broader and comprehensive whereas counseling is in-depth, narrowing
down the problem until the advisee understands his/her own problem.
- Counseling help people to understand themselves, it is an inward analysis. Alternative
solutions are proposed to help understand the problem. Focus on counseling is not on
solution but on understanding the problem. Adviser may be able to bring emotional
change or change in feeling.
- Guidance on the other hand is more external, help a person understand alternative
solutions available across him and makes him understand his personality and help him
choose the right solution. Here the focus is on finding solution. The guidance may bring
attitude change on the advisee.
- Guidance is generally education and career related, it can be on personal problems too,
but commonly it is impersonal whereas counseling mostly on personal and social issues.
A lot of people are familiar with guidance and counseling but are often ashamed to see a
counselor for guidance or attend group counseling to help them understand their
problems and discuss possible solutions. It is often difficult to see solutions to problems
when one is burdened and having to talk to a person with no bias or pre-judgment is a
great way to cope with the obstacles in life. Guidance and counseling, therefore, are
great ways to help people handle their problems themselves.
Of course, a little help will no doubt cause problems as long as the advisee is open
minded and is willing to accept his or her own faults and flaws. Problems can be solved
with the right amount of dedication, contemplation and understanding.

GUIDANCE - The help given by one person to another in making choices and
adjustments and in solving problems.COUNSELING - Helping relationship, that
includes(a)someone seeking help,(b)someone willing to give help who is capable or
trained to help,(c) a setting that permits help to be given and received.
Leads Help (move) What show the waysDirection G &C? Interaction/ Assist
relationship
GUIDANCEAccording to Crow & Crow Guidance is assistance made available by
personally qualified and adequately trained personnel to an individual of any age to help
him manage his own life activities, to develop his own points of view, make his own
decisions and carry his own burdens.In other word It is a continuous educational process
which goes on from whomb to tomb.Educational point of view It is an educational
service designed to help students make more effective use of the schools training
programme.
inner resources
Assistance to the individual in the process of development rather than the direction of
around
the needs and aspirations of students.
Guidance
Guidance is pre-problem, there is no specific problem that is identified in an individual.
Guidance program is a system of services designed to improve the adjustment of each
and every person for whom it was organized.
Guidance is the act of making decisions for another person to help them get somewhere
or help them to have a better future by showing them how to do it themselves.
The Need for Guidance Services
The Family Situation
Family life has changed. Within the family, the physical intellectual, emotional, social,
and spiritual needs of children are initially met and nurtured. It is within the family that
questions are answered, errors are corrected, problems are heard and dealt with. If in
past, the home was a place of refuge and a source of strength, this no longer seems to be
the case.
SOME CONDITIONS THE FILIPINO FAMILY HAS TO CONTEND WITH TODAY
The Disappearing Family
The Unready Family
Pathological Family
The Complexity of Living
Besides the pressures on the family, there are other conditions in the Philippines that
make day-to-day living more complex.
Increased of Mobility of Filipinos
Increasing Course Options and educational Attainment
New Job Titles
Lack of Job Possibilities
Lack of Job Possibilities
New trends in Permanency and Tenure
Increased Financial Difficulty
Increasing Possibilities of Experiencing Crisis
All human beings go through crises at some points in their lives, brought about by their
developmental stages. For this reason, the guidance goals and programs attend to the
persons developmental needs. But there are also unforeseen critical situations which
may traumatize a person.
Calamities
Crimes
Learning and Other Disorders
Parents and educators today are intrigued by the behavioral or learning disorders found
in children autism, ADHD, dyslexia, which seemed minimal or remained undetected
in the early years of Guidance movement. The adults concerned go into crisis upon
discovery, especially when they do not have the skills needed to handle such cases.
Educational Guidance
Process of helping students to achieve the self-understanding and self-direction
necessary to make informed choices and move toward personal goals. Guidance, a
uniquely American educational innovation, focuses on the complete development of
individual students through a series of services designed to maximize school learning,
stimulate career development, and respond to the personal and social concerns that
inhibit individual growth. Although guidance activities are usually associated with
educational professionals known as counselors, educational guidance is actually a
cooperative enterprise involving the participation of teachers, administrators, other
educational specialists, and parents.
Counseling
Counseling is post-problem, meaning a problem has already been identified and
therefore the counselor helps to address the problem but not to solve it.
Counseling is the act of steering another's thoughts till they come up with the correct
answer or behavior themselves. Neither is foolproof
The Heart of the Guidance Program.


uidance is a continuous process of helping the individuals to understand themselves and
their world.
integral part of the school environment designed to promote the development of students
his
interests
given by someone
someone who aims to assist him to communicate and meet his immediate needs and
g is not
giving of information, advise, it is not brainwashing, it is not forcing beliefs or behavior
by persuasion or coercion. Rather it is providing conditions which facilitates voluntary
change.