THE DISCIPLINE

OF
COUNSELING
Discipline of Counseling
 Is a relationship characterized by the
application of one or more psychological
theories and recognized set of communication
skills appropriate to a client’s intimate
concerns, problems, or aspiration. These clients
are individuals or a group in a demoralized,
distressed, or in a negative state of mind about
their situation or context. Therefore, counseling
can be for one person or a group and may be
delivered through a number of methods such as
through face-to-face dialog, group work,
telephone, email, or other written materials.
Definition of Counseling
 Collins Dictionary of Sociology define
counseling “the process of guiding a
person during a stage of life when
reassessments or decisions have to be
made about himself or herself and his or
her life course.”
 Counseling is wide considered the
HEART of the guidance service in
schools.
 Counseling also utilizes appraisal and
assessment to aid counseling by gathering
information about client through the use
of psychological test and non-
psychometric devices. Psychometrics is a
branch of psychology that deals with the
design, administration and interpretation
of quantitative test for the measurement of
psychological variables such as
intelligence, aptitude, interest, and
personality traits.
Context and the Basic Concepts of
Counseling
Counseling is affected by the context and
the surrounding factors.
PEERS AS CONTEXT
 Friend’s attitudes, norms, and behaviors
have a strong influence on adolescents.
Many personal issues are often introduces
to the individual by their peers. Parents
can have much influence over their
adolescent children.
Neighborhood as Context
 The interactions between the family and its
neighborhood as immediate context are also
important to consider. A family functions
within a particular neighborhood. The
behavioral problems in this particular
neighborhood require that families work
against crime and social isolation that may
impact them. This is much easier in
countryside communities where a community
network of parents, teachers, grandparents
and civic leader forms part of shared ethos.
• Culture as Context
 Culture provide meaning and coherence
of life of any orderly life such as
community or organization. Various
sectors of community families, peers and
neighborhood are all bound together by a
cultural context that influences them all as
individual members. Culture is the source
of norms, values, symbols and language
which provide the basis for the normal
functioning of an individual.
Counseling as Context
The National Institute of Health
recognizes counseling itself as a context.
Regardless of a therapeutic approach in
use, the counseling situation in itself is a
context. There is a deliberate specific
focus, a set of procedures, rules,
expectations, experiences, and a way of
monitoring progress and determining
results in any therapeutic approach.
From the counseling context, other success
factors such as client factors, counselor factor,
contextual factors, and process factors should
be managed well so as to contribute toward
the success of the engagement.
1. Client Factors
 The client factors are everything that a
client brings to be counseling context. He or
she is not a passive object receiving
treatment in the manner of a traditional
doctor-patient situation.
2. Counselor Factors
The personality, skills and personal
qualities of a counselor can
significantly impact the outcomes of
the counseling relationship. The
counselors personal style and
qualities can make the interventions
successful.
3. Contextual Factors
The context in which counseling takes
place can define the outcomes.
Counselors are therefore concerned
with the environment and atmosphere
where to conduct the sessions. There
are ideal contents and not ideal ones.
For example, physical noise and
distance trigger the feeling of emotional
safety of the client. A noisy place can
be a distraction that prevents healing.
4. Process factors. As counseling undertaking.
Vellemean present the following six stages,
which for him apply to all problem areas in the
process of counseling.
a. Developing Trust.
 This involves providing warmth, genuineness
and empathy.
b. Exploring problem areas
 This involves providing a clear and deep
analysis of what the problem is, where it
comes from, its triggers and why it may have
developed.
C. Helping to set goals
This involves setting and managing goal
directed interventions.
d. Empowering into action
 This means fostering action to achieve set
goals
e. Helping to maintain change
 This mean providing support and other
techniques to enable the client to maintain
changes
f. Agreeing when to end the helping
relationship
This implies that assurances are there
that guarantee the process is being
directed by the client and toward
independence.
Goals and Scope Counseling
 Counseling is aimed to empowering a
client.
 The general goal is to lead an individual
client or group to self-emancipation in
relation to a felt problem.
 The scope of counseling is wide
 It involves application of some
psychological theories and recognized
communication skills.
Principles of Counseling
1. 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 feel
inferior and emotionally dependent on the
counselor
2. Reassurance
counseling involve providing client
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.
3. Release of emotional tension
counseling provides client the
opportunity to get emotional release from
their pent-up frustrations and other personal
issues.
4. Clarified thinking
clarified thinking tends to take place while
the counselor and counselee are talking and
therefore become a logical emotional release.
5.Reorientation
Reorientation involves a changes in the
client’s emotional self through a change in basin
goals and aspirations.
6. Listening Skills
Listening attentively to client 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.
7. Respect
In all circumstances, client must be
treated with respect, no matter how
particular, strange, disturbed, weird, or
utterly different from the counselor.
8. Empathy and positive regard
Carl Rogers combine 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.
9. 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.
10. Transference and countertransference
When clients are helped to understand
transference reactions, they are empowered
to gain understanding of important aspect of
their emotional life.
CORE VALUES OF COUNSELING
1. Respect for human dignity
2. Partnership
3. Autonomy
4. Responsible caring
5. Personal Integrity
6. Social Justice
Counselors Shall:
1. Act with care and respect for individual
and cultural different and the diversity of
human experience
2. Avoid doing harm in all their
professional work.
3. Respect the confidences with which they
are entrusted
4. Promote the safety and well-being of
individual, families and communities
5. Seek to increase the range of choices and
opportunities for client
6. Be honest and trustworthy in all their
professional relationships
7. Practice within the scope of their
competence
8. Treat colleagues and other professionals
with respect.