GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING (EDU 413)

NATURE OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING

Among the operators of a profession of guidance and counseling and even

among those who are outside the profession, the two terms guidance and

counseling are mostly interchangeable list to mean the same thing. For professional

a dividing line has been created within the two concepts. Guidance ordinarily

means the efforts made by someone to stir or guide an individual or group of

people towards a particular direction. Professionally, however guidance means a

systematic process of which is embark upon by a counselor to pilot, guide, stir a

client or a group of them toward a direction where they become very much aware

of themselves and their environment in order for them to attain self-identity and

self-fulfillment in life. Arburku et al counseled of guidance as;

1. An educational institution construct.

2. As a point of view.

3. As a set of specialized services with which guidance and counselor is

charges through the establishing guidance programme in his/her domain of

operation.

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GUIDANCE AS AN EDUCATIONAL CONCEPT

Guidance is regarded as an educational concept in the sense that most

guidance programme, experiences are provided for the client or counselor who

happen to be a beneficiary of such a programme when they are provided with such

experiences one expect them to gain new insight to become more aware of

knowledgeable and so often open themselves to desirable modification which is

brought upon them by the new experiences they have acquired.

Such modification are expected to effect changes in the outlook of the

counselee as well as their behavior. The occurrence of this could be likely to what

occurs in the school system whereby experiences provided for students are

expected to make them become learned-relatively permanent change in the

behavior of organism which is brought about through previous experience.

GUIDANCE AS A POINT OF VIEW

Philosophical point as well as psychological view point can bring about

desire change to people behaviours.

GUIDANCE AS SPECIALIZE SERVICES

A number of services abound under the umbrella of guidance. There are

various aspect of guidance programme. They are the services which the counsellor

has to provide in whatever setting he/she found himself/herself. These services

include the following;

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 - The orientation services

- The appraisal services

- The information services

- The counseling services

- The evaluation services

- Placement and follow up services

THE ORIENTATION SERVICES: This is a kind of service with which

guidance and counselor organizes for individuals who have newly come into a

situation or a place so that they can be more familiar with such a new place or

situation. The rational behind organizing an orientation service is to make it easy

for the new entrance to be able to adjust very well in the new situation. To do this,

the counselor takes them to all the important areas in such a place. E.g an

orientation for newly admitted students in the university, they are shown the

important areas within the university community e.g. lecture rooms, clinic, sports

ground, library, different lecturers and the courses to take and their offices of

location. Ones this is done, it will be easy for every student to be able to locate

himself/herself at any point within the university community.

APPRIASAL SERVICE: This is an important services which the counselor has to

dispense. It makes it possible for the counselor as well as the client to get more

information about themselves and the situation in which they found themselves

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through appraisal, the counselor provides information to all the client which would

make them to know themselves better and to be able to define them. As a person,

once they have this information of themselves, they understand than more strength,

weaknesses, capability are known. This understanding would lead them to become

aware of those situation where they are likely to operate successfully and those

situation where they cannot effectively operate. Self-understanding also leads to

possible health interpersonal relation among members of a group. It also leas to

effective assignment of task when an individual strength and weakness are

understood, the tendency to him to choose those task which are commenstrate to

the level of the ability of the individual.

INFORMATION SERVICES: Information service is an important factor in the

development of an individual personality. Every munite individual desire certain

information which are likely to bring to them the opportunities to develop

themselves, advance their knowledge and become aware and understand better

certain existing situation in their environment. E.g. a school system, a lot of

information is desireable from individual situation. It is the information that will

help individual to solve problem of education, life problem, different occupation

and some problem of life. It becomes a necessity for a counselor to make available

desires information which are recent accurate and usable to the client.

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COUNSELING SERVICE: This is provided in a set in other to resolve problems

which may have been existing be it in a personal or vocational area of operation of

the individual. It is believed that in counseling that when people have a lot of

emotional service such problem prevent them from functioning effectively and not

only this, it becomes a problem for them to become adjustment to their different

areas of operation that need them for counseling service.

THE PLACEMENT SERVICE/FOLLOW UP: In the different contest of

human operation, there is the need to appropriately placed individual in such

situation where the roles that are assigned for them will be successfully carryout,

and where the individual himself will derived maximum satisfaction from what

he/she is doing. In placing people, both the position to which an individual is to be

put and the individual who is to be put in such position should be thoroughly

examined whether congress exist between and the condition in which he is to be

put. If there this congress it means that a round bell pet has been put in a round

hole. But there is also the need to monitor the activity of the individual who have

just been put in a new position so as to be able to determined how well he is coping

in the new situation. If he/she is not adjusting well, further assessment could be

made to facilitate better performance. Even when an individual perform very well

in a position, there is still the need to monitor his acitivies so as to foster the true

performance in him.

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EVALUATING SERVICE: This is a service when by the organizer of a guidance

programe evaluates all his activities as the related to the typical programme. To

facilitate successful evaluation. The programming must have been initially draw up

a number of objective which he ought to have attained at the end of the

programme. To adequately evaluate, the programmer compares the result of his

finding at the end of the programme with the objective that have earlier been

drawn. Such a comparism will lead him to make a valued judgment on the success

of other works of the programme.

WHO IS QUALIFY TO HELP

An individual who is qualify to help should be that kind of person who is

highly confidential and be able to keep secret, jealously to avoid scandal and

should also be accommodative and be understanding or if an individual is not

confidential many people may not want to consult with him/her for any assistance.

He should be very empathic that means he/she should feels the way a problem

owner feels at that time when he/she has the problem/ by sympathetic can

aggravate the problem situation of the client but with empathy alternative towards

the resolution of the problem are offered.

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DEFINITION OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM

The different life situation, individual come face to face with different

occurrences and differences in a given situation. A number of people are expose to

a particular situation or experience the individual are going to perceive such a

situation differently. This different in perception is a function of their biological

make up as well as their earlier experiences. The same thing occur in a problematic

situation. If individuals are exposed to a difficult situation that the degree of

difficulty or amount is not worth make the difficult a problem but the way each

individual is set to acquire such a difficult situation and given interpretation to it

individually are expected when people are in problem situation they show certain

signs which could be taken as indices of their been faced with a problem. Such

could be as squishing the face, spontaneous perspiration, anxiety etc.

psychologically, a problem is a problem when the individual who faces the

problem situation can no longer bring his/her adjustive capacity to withstand the

problem or difficulty that he/she has to confront e.g a child who failed as

examination may still withstand it by going to study the cause of his/her failure.

The adjustive capacity comprises the;

(a) Biological make up.

(b) Other life experiences

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 Psychosis is a complete damage to the brain. This is not a psychological

problem. Social disorder and the adjustive capacity are notable for psychological

problem when individual can no longer cope with it.

GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING AS A HELPING PROFESSION

In order to capture guidance and counseling, we need the qualified helping

profession. There is the need for us to understand the helping profession.

According to helping profession. It is that profession whereby individual interact in

a way that the personal growth and development of the help-seeker is guarantee or

facilitated, to do this, the helping professional who may be a counselor, a social

worker, a psychologist, a clinical psychologist helps the help-seeker to have a

comprehensive understanding of the totality of his behaviours in the different areas

of life. The aim of this understanding is to make it possible for the help-seeker to

try as much as possible to enrich his behavior for him to become more productive

in his area of operation to assess himself as the person that he is and for him to

forge meaningful interaction with others in his environment as well as other

resources a bring about his self-fulfillment in life.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A HELPING PROFESSION

1. MEANINGFULNESS: One of the property that marked out a helping

profession apart from other profession is that the focus of the interaction is

meaningful to both the help-seeker and the help-giver.

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2. AFFECT: There is a kind of affection which flow between the individual to

be helped and the person who want to help.

3. INTEGRITY: In the encounter between the helper and the helpee, the

volume and dignity of the two parties must be respective. The helper should

not see himself/herself to be superior to the help-seeker and vice-versa.

4. MUTUAL INTERACTION BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM: This is

a kind of friendly interaction, a cooperative within the couple, the

collaborative is that whatever they discuss must not be heard by anybody.

5. THE NEED OF THE CLIENT: The tread of the relationship directed on

the need of the particular client, it is what the client need that the counselor

supposed to give to him/her.

6. COMMUNICATION: Between the help-seeker and the helper, it include

two level one in verbal and the second one is non-verbal.

7. STRUCTURE: There is a structure in the content of one helping. Individual

structure must be well arranged, well sited, well arranged and the role the

client must play.

8. APPROACHERBILITY OF THE COUNSELOR: The counselor should

be approachable, confidence, friendly to be able to discuss without bias.

9. CHANGE: The focus of an encounter is to influence change in the

behavior.

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 Guidance and counselor share the totality of all these characteristics and

apart from that, it is a way through which care and help are given to individuals

who feel that they cannot cope with the adjusting problem of life that they have.

Guidance and counselor therefore can confidently said to be one of the

helping profession since it satisfy the condition of a helping profession.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A COUNSELOR

From the previous degree of who is qualify to help, certain characteristics

had been outline. For example, for an individual to qualified to help others, he

must be somebody who is accommodating and condescending. He must also be

able to keep secret, he should be ready to entertain other people ideas, believes,

opinions as well as their characteristics way of life. He should be tolerant and such

an individual should be well above intelligent. If all the characteristics the

counselor should poses would lead to the outline the list of the characteristics

which is concerned the majority of the people.

1. A counselor should be friendly: An individual who rose to become a

professional counselor should be able to cultivate friendship easily, if he is

unable to do this, the client coming to him may find it difficult to relate with

him.

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2. Confidentiality: A counselor who cannot keep secret of other people has betray

other people ethics and ethics of his profession. Such undesirable traint in him

may keep off other client from coming to him.

3. Relative Freedom from Emotion Problem: An individual who is out to help

others should be far from emotional problem himself/herself because is he/she

has own problem to content with, it will be a problem with him to help others.

4. Empathic Understanding: A counselor should be able to make the client feel

that he understand the client’s problem and so he is ready to put in everything

he could in assisting the client to get solution to his/her problem. We should

note that empathy is different from sympathy. In an emphatic situation what is

obtainable is that, the counselor having shown the client that he is aware of his

problem, he also re-assure him/her and make the client further understand that

he (counselor) shares the problem with the client. This is not the case in

sympathetic situation. In emphatic situation, alternative solutions to the existing

problems are offered where there is no solution before. In sympathetic situation,

what is obtainable is that the concerned individual is made to fell that we share

with him is brief.

5. Personal Grooming: A professional counselor should exhibit an altitude of

been well good from his outward appearance. This concern the manner of dress,

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 the sanity, situation of the environment where the counselor is living as well as

the functioning of his biological processes.

6. Level of Intelligent: A professional counselor must be well above average in

intelligent. This is so because the situation where the counselor will found

himself or herself demands that the counselor generate solution to people’s

problem at all the time. This means that a counselor must be highly creative

without adequate mental magnitude, the counselor may not be able to find

solution to the problem at hand.

THE COUNSELLOR AND OTHER HELPING PROFESSIONS

From the definition of helping professions, these are set of people who by

virtue of their profession engage in professional relationship with trouble

individual to facilitate their total growth and development. It is not only the

counselor that dispense this type of services other helping professions include

psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, social workers, psychotherapist and school

psychologist. All these people by one way or the other help individual to overcome

the variety of personality problems that they have such problem may range from

those that are classified as normal or simple adjustive problems to those that are

labeled as deep sited environmental problems like psychosis and acute

schizophrenia.

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 Distinction can be made among helping professionals e.g. profession like the

psychiatrist, psychotherapist, the clinical psychologist, they attend to acute

adjustive problem which takes longer time to heal and are often treated in hospital

centers. Settlement people that benefited from the sanity of these set of people are

referred to as patients. In converse, social workers and counselors attend to minor

adjustive problems which border on day to day relationship of concerned

individual and also educational vocational and those personal problem which was

tagged as normal.

SOME PRINCIPLE AND TECHNIC OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING

The way a counselor counsel in totality is different from the way a lay man

practice counseling. The totality of counseling itself warrants that the process of

counseling is systematic. This the essence which gives it the scientific image that it

has a result of counseling encounters. There are structures or growth which the

parties to the interaction or relationship are expected to play. Some of the

techniques that are used include;

STRUCTURING: This is to tell the client the expectation of the relationship. Ask

if he has met a counselor before and the conversation must be secret. Let the client

realize that the counselor is not a magician and that the client should be keeping

appointment and should be ready to undertake the assignment given to him nor by

the counselor.

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LEAD: In the course of discussion with the relationship. The counselor gives

certain ones which are going to encourage the individual to speak more about

his/her problem e.g. Tell me more…… You mean……, Is that all.

FACILITATING: During relationship, both the client and the counselor are

expected to be sensitive to each other mode of communication.

COMMUNICATION: There verbal and non-verbal communication. Each time an

individual talk to the counselor about a particular problem, the message that is

putting across in words is regarded as verbal communication. When the client is

talking, there are certain signs that accompany such speech which either

corroborate or not. Whatever message is being putting across. This kind of sign are

regarded as non-verbal communication e.g. Tone of the voice, weeping-Counselor

should be able to understand the verbal and non-verbal behavior of the client

before proceeding.

REINSTATEMENT: This means saying what an individual tell you in another

way either to make individual knows that you are following him. What the client is

saying may need certain clarification.

REASSURANCE: The ability of a counselor to make client feel that all is not lost

yet and certain preparation could still be made if a client is with a problem, it could

be helped through application of self-disclosure.

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ACCEPTANCE: Giving unconditional regard and respect to the client as a person

he should not be seen by the counselor as a person who is suffering from a

particular ailment but as somebody who still had control or grip of himself/herself.

INFORMATION GIVEN: The kind of information that individual needs of

which are relevant the client situation should be giving by the counselor.

ADVICE GIVING: Although this is part of counseling, this technique is hardly

used due to the fact that counselors are not supposed to be held responsible for

other people’s action as a result what they do rather than given advice is to put

forward all possible alternatives to solution to the problem with the client making

the decision of choosing the best alternative when the client does this, he can easily

be held responsible for his decision.

COUNSELOR’S PREPARATION

To become a professional, some training facilities have to be endowed so

that the trainee or would be professional would be sound enough to profess the

occupation for which they have been trained by giving individual training their

personal development as well as professional development are facilitated to do

this, the content of the training that has to be given must be in consonant with the

type of professionals that has to be produced with respect to this, counselor

education should involved a lot of training in human relations skills of knowing

how to start a conversation, being accommodating, generous, keeping social

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distance, being assertive in situation that warrant such, maintain eye-eye contact,

apart from that a lot of technical skills has to be heard of of an individual to be

qualify as a counselor such technical skills include acquiring skills of practical

counseling like structuring, clarifying issues from the client, re-assuring, attending

behaviours, responding behavior, designing test-not relying on people’s test alone,

skill of analyzing, interpreting. There is the need to learn conceptual skill of

learning about the different theories of counseling and the different situation in

which they are applicable. Nowadays, there are a lot of programme that have been

mentioned by different institution of learning with respect to counselor preparation

such universities such as Ibadan, Nsuka, Ife, UNILAG and some other state and

Federal Colleges of Education of Late however it was discover that the product of

the Colleges of Education do not pass as quality trained professional counselor. In

view of this, such programme were canceled even in the higher or tertiary

institution where counselor education is still given due consideration is not given

to the most objective process of selective of training whereas a would be counselor

should be tested in the area of personality, intellect and interest. Only the

intellective function is given due consideration whenever consideration whenever

counselors are to be selected for training i.e. all the afore mentioned would eb

considered by various institutions.

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TESTING IN COUNSELING

NATURE OF TEST: A test is a task or a set of stimula which is systematically

presented to obtain a sample of an organism behavior so that in general situation of

that behavior in the organism could be made from the sample that was obtained.

Test in psychology should be administered in conformity with certain laid down

rules and regulations. A test whose administration does not conform with the

standard principles does not pass for a test.

TYPES OF TEST

Test could be classified using about four criteria.

(1) The domain that has to be tested: e.g. a test which is cognitive in

orientation i.e. which test the intellectual power is regarded as COGNITIVE

test. A test which is given to test the emotion of the individual is regarded as

an AFFECTIVE test and a test which is given to collect samples of an

individual behavior with respect to muscles manipulation is regarded as

PSYCHOMOTOR test.

(2) The purpose of Testing: The purpose which is propelling individual to

construct and designed the test is used to categorized the test. Using this

criteria, we can have the following; achievement, aptitude and General

Ability Test G.A.T (INTELLIGENCE). An achievement test is a test which

be given to determine how much of a course content has been learnt by the

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 testees after a specify period of instruction has been given. E.g. a semester

examination. The aptitude test is a test which we use to determine who will

perform well or best in feature training or assignment. Most often, such test

are aptitude test, an example is testing some typist to know who to employ

as a secretary. General Ability Test is a kind of giving to determined how

all round an individual is performing in a particular set of task such a test is

always a battery i.e it includes all sorts of tests in it i.e. General Ability Test

(GAT) Cognitive Test (C.T).

(3) Approach of Testing: Tests are classified according to approach that the

tester use in administering the test with a paper and pencil – The question as

well as the test that the tester are going to use are writing in paper.

(4) Oral Test: In this type of test, the question are given verbally and the

answer are expected in verbal also.

(5) Performance Test: Individuals are expected to perform certain task

especially practical.

(6) Situational Test: The individual to be tested is put in a restricted

environment without the tester specifying any specific action to be

performed. Whatever the testee emit or display in such a situation will be

taken as a direct sample of his behavior.

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 (7) Standardized and Non-standardized Test: Standardized test is a kind of

test where all testees are subjected the same kind of treatment in the course

of taking the test also all trainees or testees are expected to give or write the

same answer to a particular question. The test author write a manual in

which the test is describe and the procedure of administration is also

specific. Also, a report of psychometric properties of the test is made. Lastly,

the ‘NORM’ or the performance of a representative sample of the test has to

be taken. Non-standardized test is a test in which all the “paraphernelia’ of a

standardized test are absent. This means all the properties of standardized

test are absent.

WHY DO WE TEST

We test because of the following;

1. We test for intelligence.

2. To know the individual ability.

3. We test in order to appropriately place an individual (placement).

4. We test for promotion and selection.

5. We test in order to take decision on the testee.

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