Counseling Psychology

Rucha Sarwate
Agenda for the session

To explore:
 Experiential
 Intentions or goals
 Approach to the study
 Syllabus
Assessments and evaluations
1. Report writing (5 marks)
2. Group projects : Presentations on applications of counseling Psychology (25
marks)
3. 2 quizzes (Aggregates: 20 marks)
4. Mid- term exam: short notes (20 marks)
5. Final Exam: (30 marks)

Total = 100 marks

Brief overview of the chapter
Introduction to counseling

Definitions: counseling, guidance and psychotherapy

Differentiating Formal from Informal Helping

Different formats of counseling and roles of counselor

Counseling from historical perspective
Few concerns people might want to
share with another………
‘I get very anxious over exams.’
‘I’m extremely shy and have difficulty making friends.’
‘Our relationship is heading for the rocks.’
‘I have a poor relationship with my parents.’
‘I need to make my mind up about a career.’
‘I’m just recovering from a heart attack and need to develop a healthier lifestyle.’
‘I want to grow old successfully and go on having some meaning in my life.’
‘I’m feeling very depressed and useless.’
‘I feel under tremendous stress at work and am not coping well.’
‘I get angry far too easily.’
Formal versus informal helping
Who are Helpers?
People who offer counselling skills to other people, yet who are not
qualified and accredited counsellors, psychotherapists or their equivalent
For example, Counsellors working with specific population, Psychiatric
social workers, financial advisers, lawyers and undertakers may all use
counselling skills to provide the best possible professional service for
their clients.
These informal helpers usually have some of the personal qualities
associated with effective counselors, such as being caring,
nonjudgmental, and are able to utilize listening skills.
Helper Counselor

Usually have personal relationship with the individual Don’t have personal relationship with client

Personal biases may be present Objective, ideally free of personal biases

No formal code of ethics Follow a guided code of ethics, such as APA code of ethics

Nature of relationship may sometimes lead helpers avoiding Usually follow problem-solving approach, counselor may use
confrontation and may provide more reassuring and supportive various techniques such as confrontation, interpretation if
roles. needed.

May lack specific techniques and strategies to deal with specific Counselor has repertoire of counseling strategies and techniques
problems. Helpers usually rely on advice-giving as their main available to help the clients
method of helping. Are able to their systematically utilize these strategies and
techniques to promote client growth.
 Advice giving, Guidance and
Counseling
Advice giving Guidance Counseling
• Mainly one –way • Mainly one –way • A collaborative
exchange exchange exchange
• Giving an opinion • Showing the way • Facilitative
• Making a judgement • Educating • Supportive relationship
• Making a • Instructing aimed at enabling clients
recommendation • Encouraging to:
• Persuasive Explore and understand
their problems
Resolve or come to
terms with the problems
Guidance
Help or assistance.

“Guidance seeks to help each individual become familiar with a wide range of
information about himself, his abilities, this pervious development in the various
areas of living and his plans or ambitions for the future.” Chisholm

“Guidance is an assistance given to the individual in making intelligence choices &

adjustments.” A. J. Jones
Characteristics of guidance
 Guidance is a continuous process
 It is concerned with problem & choice.
 It is an assistance to the individuals in the process of development.
 It is both a generalized & specialized service
Psychotherapy and counselling
Psychotherapy: originated from the Greek word ‘therapeia’ which means
healing

based on ‘informed and planful application of techniques derived from

established psychological principles’

Both counselling and psychotherapy use the same theoretical models and stress
the need to value the client as a person, to listen sympathetically, to hear what
is communicated, and to foster the capacity for self-help and responsibility.
 Counseling and Psychotherapy
Counseling Psychotherapy

Focus Developmental—fosters coping skills to Remediative—aims at helping clients overcome

facilitate development and prevent existing problems, such as anxiety and
problems. depression

Client’s Problems Clients tend to have “problems of living,” Clients’ problems are more complex and may
such as relationship difficulties, or need require formal diagnostic procedures to
assistance with specific problems, such determine whether there is a mental disorder
as career choice.

Goals Short-term goals Short- and long-term goals.

(resolution of immediate concerns). Long-term goals can involve processes such as
helping the client overcome a particular mental
disorder.

Treatment approaches The treatment program can include Psychotherapeutic approaches are complex. They
preventative approaches and various utilize strategies that relate to conscious and
counseling strategies to assist with the unconscious processes.
client’s concerns.

Settings Varity of settings such as schools, organisations, corporate Typically offered in settings such
spaces, hospitals as private practice, mental health centers, and
hospitals.
 The art and science of counseling
Dynamic process

Professionally trained counselor assisting a client with a particular concern.

Can occur in individual, family or group settings

Outcomes can be in the various forms such as facilitating behavior change, enhancing coping skills,
promoting decision making, and improving relationships etc.

Counselor balances the subjective (being sensitive to client’s world) and objective aspects of counseling
process

Interrelationships between theory, research and practice.

Counselor as a scientist
In order to promote professional objectivity in the process, we need to develop skills
of:
 Observation
 Inference
 Hypothesis testing
 Theory building
Counseling also entails use of psychological tests, systematic approach to diagnosis
and research methods to assess the efficacy of the process.
Counselor as an artist
Counseling as a process is flexible, creative process.
Counselor adjusts approach to unique and emerging
needs of the client
Counselor need to be authentic and human in their
approach
According to the American Counseling Association
(ACA), professional counselling is “the process of
building relationships with individuals that empower
them to accomplish mental health and wellness,
education, and career goals. It is a collaborative
relationship between the counsellor and their client”.
 Personal Qualities of Effective Helpers
Personality Growth-
of the helper
facilitatin Specific Outcomes
Helping
g
skills conditions
 Personal characteristics of an effective counselor
Encouraging: Helps client to believe in their potential for growth and development

Artistic: Being creative and flexible while using therapeutic strategies

Emotionally stable

Empathetic: Sensitive to emotional needs of the others

Self-awareness

Self-acceptance: Being comfortable with oneself

Positive self-image: Allows counselor to deal with their own personal problems

Self-realization: Process of actualizing one’s own potential

Self-disclosure: Openness about one’s won feelings and thoughts

Courageous: to be authentic

Patient

Non-judgemental

Tolerance for ambiguity

 Core conditions of counseling
Suggested by Carl Rogers’ Person- centered counseling
Essential therapist characteristics that he believed would promote client self-esteem
and self-efficacy.
Also known as -the necessary conditions in which change could occur
 Empathy
 Unconditional Positive Regard
 Congruence
 Genuineness
 Having a shared vision of the treatment process and its goals
Characteristics of therapeutic relationship
Collaboration

Holistic
understanding
of clients, their
Trust
backgrounds
and
environments

Mutual
Positive
investment in
emotional
the therapeutic
feelings
process

Genuineness Shared respect

Professional counseling can take the form of:
Individual counseling is the most common type of counseling that focuses on the
growth and mental health of an individual.
Couples or marriage counseling focuses on assisting couples in overcoming conflict
and working towards a stronger relationship.
Family counseling involves the different familial dynamics and how they affect the
family structure.
Group counseling is the use of group interaction to facilitate growth.
Different formats of counseling and roles of counselor
Child counseling

School counseling

Family counseling

Marriage and/or couple counseling

Career counseling

Geriatric counseling

Sports counseling

HIV-Aids counseling

Health psychologist
 Counseling from historical perspective
Hippocrates (400 B.C.) developed a classification system for mental illness and personality types.

Socrates (400 B.C.) posited that self-awareness was the purest state of knowledge.

Plato (350 B.C.) described human behavior as an internal state.

Aristotle (350 B.C.) provided a psychological perspective of emotions, including anger.

St. Augustine (A.D. 400) suggested that introspection was necessary to control emotions.

Leonardo da Vinci (1500) described the human condition in terms of art and science.

Shakespeare (1600) created psychologically complex characters in his literary works.

Phillippe Pinel (1800) described abnormal conditions in terms of neurosis and psychosis.

Anton Mesmer (1800) used hypnosis to treat psychological conditions.

Charles Darwin (1850) proposed that individual differences are shaped by evolutionary events relating to the survival of the species.

Søren Kierkegaard (1850) related existential thought to personal meaning in life.

Some Eminent practitioners
PSYCHOANALYTIC SCHOOLS THIRD FORCE: HUMANISM

Work of Freud, Adler and Jung: Carl Rogers: Client-centered approach ,

established the current foundation of development of contemporary counseling
clinical practice approach.
Belief in dignity and worth of an individual
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL
THERAPIES RECENT TRENDS

Aaron Beck (cognitive therapy) Post modern therapies:

Constructivism
And
Albert Ellis (R.E.B.T.)
Brief solution-focused approaches
Key historic events

1908: Clifford Beers wrote a

1908: Frank Parsons, book, ‘A Mind That Found
Galton, standardised testing Alfred Binet developed first Itself’, beginning of the
Boston educator, vocational
movement intelligence scale in 1905 mental health movement .
guidance movement
Society for mental hygiene

World war I (1914-18) and

Testing became part of Introduction of Key
II(1939-43): mass 1952: Medications to treat
schooling system, mental legislative acts for mental
intelligence and ability serious mental disorders
health settings and so on health
testing
Counselling in India
1916 = First Master’s Programme in Psychology was started at Calcutta University
(Department of Experimental Psychology established. By N.N. Sengupta)
1922 = Girindra Shekhar Bose founded the Indian Psychoanalytic Societ, established
the Lumbini Park Mental Hospital in Calcutta in 1940.
1924= Formation of The Indian Psychological Association
1925= Publication of The Indian Journal of Psychology, the first psychology journal
in India
Mental health care in India
1912: Indian Lunacy Act

1950:Mental health Bill, finally implemented in 1993,

2013: Mental health care bill

2017: Mental health care act

Came into force from 29th May 2018.

Present trends
Research

Ethical issues: specially regarding the minor counseling

Multicultural counseling: appreciating the diversity, multicultural competencies

Positive psychology

Brief, solution-focused counseling

Cyber-counseling

Web-based counseling