The Discipline of Counseling

Every child you pass in the hall has a story that needs to be heard.
Maybe you are the one meant to hear it.
-- Bethany Hill
Discipline of Counseling
Counseling is a field of study or a discipline that
is involved in the provision of advice or guidance
in decision-making, in particularly in emotionally
significant situations. Counselors help their clients
by counseling them. Counselors help clients
explore and understand their worlds and so
discover better ways of thinking and living.
Characteristics of Counseling
 Counseling is a conversation with someone regarding some
problem.
 Counselors draws out the facts from the pupils through
counseling process.
 Counseling helps the pupil in making selections and
following those selections.
 Counseling is assistance to the persons in their behavior
related problems in which their emotions and motivations
are main.
 Counseling is a professional service.
 Counseling involves interactions in which the counselor
accepts the responsibility of positive contribution in the
development of other people’s personality.
 Counseling is a learning oriented process.
 Counseling is a face to face relationship with a person.
 Counseling is democratic.
 Counseling is problem-oriented.
 Counseling is based on the appropriateness of counselor’s
prediction.
 Best counseling is in the form of the decision made by the
counselee.
 Counseling is possible in humorous and cooperative
environment only.
 Counseling is completely based on self-guidance
Counseling Core Values
 The potential of every human being to change and to
continue learning throughout the lifespan, in formal and
informal settings, and especially in the environment of
counseling and psychological services.
 Strong relationships as the primary vehicle in helping others
to learn new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving,
including collaboration within the university community
and partnering with other offices to provide
comprehensive mental health services to students.
 Training new professionals and support for on-going
training of staff.
 An emphasis on prevention of mental health problems via
education, intervention and outreach into the University
community.
 Respect for diversity of individuals, their cultures, languages,
lifestyles, identities, ideologies, intellectual capacities,
personalities, and capabilities, to expand our learning
opportunities and understanding of global connections.
Goals of Counseling
GOAL DESCRIPTION
Developmental Goals The client is assisted in meeting or
advancing his/her anticipated human
growth and development.
Preventive Goals The counselor helps the client avoid
some undesired outcome.
Enhancement Goals If the client possesses special skills and
abilities, enhancement means they can
be identified and further to be improved
with the help of the counselor.
Remedial Goals It involves helping the client to treat an
undesirable development.
Exploratory Goals Exploration represents goals appropriate to
the examining of options, testing skills, and
trying of new and different activities,
environments, relationships and etc.
Reinforcement Goals Used when clients need help in recognizing
that what they are doing, thinking and/or
feeling is okay.
Cognitive Goals Involves acquiring the basic foundations of
learning and cognitive skills.
Physiological Goals It involves acquiring the basic
understandings and habits for good health.
Psychological Goals It helps in developing good social
interaction skills, learning emotional
control, developing a positive self-
concept, and so on.
Basic Principles of Counseling
Process
According to Mc Daniel and Shaftal, the counseling process is based
on some basic principles:
 Principles of Acceptance:
According to this principle, each client must be accepted as an
individual and dealt with as such. The counselor should give, due
regard to, the rights of client.
 Principle of Permissiveness:
Counseling is such a relationship which develops optimism and the
environment shapes according to the person. All the thoughts accept
the relative relationship of counseling.
 Principle of Respect for Individual:
All the schools of thoughts of counseling advocate for the
respect of the individual i.e.. respecting an individual’s feelings must
be an integral part of counseling process.
 Principle of Thinking with the Individual:
Counseling emphasizes thinking with the individual. It is essential
to differentiate think for whom and why to think. It is the role of
the counselor to think about all the forces around the client’s
thought process and to work collectively with the client
regarding his problem.
 Principle of Learning:
All the assumptions of counseling accept the presence of
learning-elements in the counseling process.
 Principle of Consistency with Ideals of Democracy:
All the principles are associated with ideals and democracy. The
ideals of democracy desire to accept a person and want to respect
the rights of others.
Types of Counseling
Types of Counseling Description
Supportive Counseling Is most often used with people who have difficulty
standing alone amid their problems. At frequent
intervals, these persons may need sustained
guidance. In supportive counseling, the goal is not to
create a chronic dependency upon the counselor,
but to give temporary support and help the person
gain strength and the resources to cope.
Confrontational Counseling Seeks to point out to the client his or her actions. The
counselor guides the counselee into seeing what
misdeeds were committed and to realize the hurt that
might have been caused to others. The idea is that
hiding one’s immoral actions only creates guilt,
frustration, and anxiety. As a Christian, the counselor
must help the client to confess, forsake sins, and
accept the forgiveness of a loving Savior.
Educative Counseling Focuses on teaching the client. Undesirable learned
behavior may have to be unlearned. The counselor in the
case is a teacher. People may come to the counselor with
questions on social issues, religious issues, or even career
problems. Often some clients may need help in making
certain decisions.
Preventive Counseling Is used to develop problems before they start or prevent
things from getting worse. Areas like “How to Keep
Healthy”, “How to Prepare for Retirement”, or sessions of
premarital counseling are examples of preventive
counseling.
Spiritual Counseling Is a great necessity, and the Christian often seeks the
opportunity to show persons the way to Christ. Sometimes
those will be persons who want to find spiritual answers.
People may be seeking for a purpose in life. This is a
chance for a Christian counselor to lead them to the Bible
and to pray with them. Sometimes, through spiritual
counseling, the counselor
 May discover that the client also has some psychological
issues that need to be dealt with.
Depth Counseling Is a long-term relationship in which deep-seated
problems of the counselee are uncovered and dealt with
in detail. The counseling process is extended and
demands the skills of a counseling professionals. This type
of counseling is not for the layperson. Do not with depth
counseling if you are not a professional therapist!