Definition of Counseling - Essay Example

Personal Rationale of Counseling It is a bit challenging to provide a good comprehensive definition of counseling even by most counseling professionals. This has made different associations and individual try and come with definitions that try to cover this vital area compressively. The British Association for counseling was among the first professional association to acclimate the definition of professional counseling in the world. They publish their definition in 1986 putting it as the skilled and principled use of relationship to facilitate emotional acceptance, self-knowledge, of personal resources and growth. The aim is to provide a chance to work toward living a more satisfyingly and resourcefully life. Counselling relationships vary depending on the clients need, but may be related with developmental issues, decision making, crisis improving relationships with others, developing personal insights and knowledge, running through feelings of inner conflict or coping with. The above bring one of the roles of counselling as to facilitate the client work in ways that respect their values, capacity and personal resources and an opportunity to achieve self- determination. Counselling provides an opportunity for people to talk about disturbing and troubling issues in their life.it also help them explore their feelings in a way that is free from intrusion, dependable and confidential. A counsellor should respect an individual’s view point, helping him deal with his definite problems, improve relationships and cope with various crises. As we have seen here, counselling covers a broad spectrum; it usually comes from a professional counsellor to the patient. In simple can be referred to as a talking therapy involves talking, listening, reflecting back to what the patient says or clarifying. Counselling does not involve the counsellor giving advice, but it offers a good professionally induced environment for a patient to gain insight into his behaviour and feelings and change if necessary. People usually go through different transitions in life. When sudden changes occur to unprepared people, it leaves them devastated and lost. The aim of counselling is to help people go through those difficult or discouraging transitions in life. Another aim is to help people talk about thoughts and emotions that they have never talked about before. This helps in bringing a relief to the involved people. By this, it helps people face the realities life and stop avoiding it making them move forward forgetting what is unnecessary. To bring change into a person’s life is a process that involves a lot of steps and considerations. For one to achieve total change, one has to consider the cause of the problem before he treats it. Counselling gives a heads start in defining some problems which may have started as a snowball. It helps include exploring the dynamics for one’s personality and maintain cycles that define how to recreate situations. The counsellor does this by helping one know what is reactive, in his control and what can work in your life. This includes the meanings one has made in his life, exploring your feelings, the perception one have on what matters, beliefs, dreams, aspirations, imaginations and values. After knowing the cause for the problem, counselling then helps the patient to discover and explore the hindrances that are there in his life. Discovering the hindrances helps one to achieve full control of his life and hence achieve complete change. Counselling helps one explore hindrances that he was not even aware of as well as those that are clear. With a fresh insight, one can understand life in another way and in the process, a new meaning may emerge. Counselling helps in change of attitude to word things and people it gives one a positive attitude. It helps one realise that some problem may never go away, but the attitude to them and the relationship that we establish with them are the one which should change. Feeling better and defining a new meaning makes the problem feel less dominating. The main reason why clients go to therapy sessions is to get a solution to their problem whether it exists or not. The counsellor has to define a way to satisfy these needs of the customer otherwise there will be no reason to have the session. However, it is vital for the client and the counsellor to appreciate that some things cannot be changed. This is vital when counselling people suffering from incurable diseases or physical illness. In such circumstances, the counsellor helps the patient to come to terms with reality and find a way to explore ways of coping. Problem solving helps patients in changing something from the current state to something that is close to what they desire. Counselling helps in managing information in the patient’s mind by trying to change it to be positive. The counsellor helps the client to identify the problem first. The counsellor does this by letting the patient “talk out” his mind, and in doing so, he realises the main issue at play. After this, problem will be half solved. To solve a problem, counselling takes several steps including; establishing the problem, exploring it, eliminate it and finally evaluate the problem solving process. The main function of a counsellor is to help the client develop his own solution for is dilemmas while showing genuine compassion and concern. He individualises the interaction with the client depending on the client’s personality. This helps to capture the different unique characteristic of each patient. Some patients may be too sensitive while others seem introverted. A counsellor can also be face by a situation when he is dealing with a client that is excessively talkative or in other cases not talkative at all. In all this situations, the counsellor has to design a strategy to personalize each and every one of them to suit the need of the clients. A client may articulate a goal he wants to achieve. It is upon the counsellor, and the client to define the objective behind it. They explore other options that may be used to achieve the ultimate objective and the issues behind the goal. The counsellor may also decide to discuss the issue of holistic health and its benefits with the client. In addition, it is advisable for the counsellor to address the issue of self-responsibility and help the client to develop an identity. As mentioned earlier, the counsellors do not enforce ideas into clients nor give them the direction they should take in their life. Instead, they let and encourage clients to draw their own conclusion and find their own solutions. This helps them make a decision on the way they wish to take to solve their issues. The counsellor may help in challenging the client to formulate a goal that addresses the main objective. He enquires from the client how comfortable they feel in pursuing a certain dream or a dream. The ultimate role of a counsellor is to help clients in understanding themselves so that they live a fulfilled life. For someone to deliver an effective and comprehensive counselling session, there are some basic techniques that he must employ. These techniques are helpful in ensuring that the client benefits to the maximum in the minimum time possible. These include; patter of sessions, active listening, body language, asking questions, paraphrasing/tone, summary and note taking. In counselling, there is usually a defined pattern of sessions. It usually involves an introduction, gathering information, the actual discussion, conclusion and homework. The first impression is crucial and last for long and hence it is essential to be friendly and timely. It the introduction takes place within the first ten minutes of the first meeting with the client. It is necessary to greet the clients warmly as this helps to create a conducive environment for counselling. One is encouraged to escort the client to your office and offer a chair. This, however, does not make the client less nervous, he still is due to the expectation he has on the whole process. You are encouraged to briefly to him what he may be wondering about. Active listening is another technique used in counselling. This happens when the counsellor listen for meaning. The listener usually says little but conveys acceptance, empathy and geniuses. The counsellor only speaks when he wants to confirm that something he something heard correctly. Active listening can be supported by reading the body language of the client. Counsellors usually encourage the body language as it helps to bring the true fillings and attitude of the client. In reading the body language, counsellors use the SOLERF method. It is rear to find a single counselling session that can end without the counsellor asking some question. Open questions are usually used to help in information gathering. The counsellor asks these long questions with the purpose of getting a long answer. In some cases, a counsellor may use closed questions when he wants to get some information. These questions can usually be answered with a short phrase or a single word. Open ended questions are also used in counselling. This question demands no specific or correct answer and requires an explanation of sort. The type of strategy used depends on the type of counselling, the age nature of the client. When dealing with children, one should use a strategy that is easy to comprehend and help in exploring the problem yourself. This is because children are subject to fear and they need to gain trust and confidence in the counsellor before they give information. The first strategy used in counselling is to express empathy. Empathic listening is vital to all forms of counselling as it helps in building trust to, which on helps to open a possibility for change. Empathy indicates that the counsellor is able to understand the client’s circumstances and hence likely to develop a good solution to it. Develop discrepancy: the discrepancy between a person’s present behaviour and in essential personal goals, values and beliefs helps to motivate positive change to an individual. The counsellor should try to draw attention to these discrepancies and encourage talks about change in the course of bringing transformation to a client. Rolling with resistance is another strategy used in counselling. The counsellor should avoid arguing for change by avoiding resistance talks. This type of takes reduces the tendency to change. Instead of encouraging resistance talks, the counsellor should try and use a strategy that motivates self-confidence. This is done by giving the client emotional supports and ensuring there is small successes in the counselling. In counselling being curious is a strategy by itself. This is done by asking questions that reflect genuine curiosity. These questions should be directed to what may be inhibiting the client from change and also what motivates him to look forward for a positive change. In counselling, for you to gain a full understanding about the client’s state you have to explore all the causes for the state itself. This information is not always given by the client and one may tend to look for it from friends and close relative. Although the counsellor can do this for the advantage of the client, he is bound to ethics, not to because it violates the privacy of the client. Close examination the client can lead to fast progress towards change. The patient the maximum can be pushed to the maximum limits in order to reveal some information that may help in quick change. This strategy is not permitted as counselling involves the patient giving information at his own will and pace. Every problem is unique in and is addresses different issues one client to another. People may go to a counselling session with a specific problem, to try and fix their marriage, to help them go through difficult times, healthy coping skills, to raise personal awareness or gain self-esteem and confidence. For patient’s going through a rough time, it may be difficult to go through counselling, and they have a tendency to give up even before they begin their sessions. The counsellor has to gain an understanding of the client and try to fine the best strategy to handle the situation. The session’s length and frequency should be adjusted to suit with the clients specific needs. A good example of a specific problem is when a client is dealing with an emotional trauma. Emotional trauma is very challenging to the client and they need to be handled with great care and special consideration. Although the patient is always encouraged to call whenever they have an issue that cannot wait till the next session, the counsellor can call now and then to know the progress. We acknowledge counselling as a vital tool in bringing positive change to people in all different levels and state of life. However, counselling is sometimes not the best option to some extreme cases of patients. A person that is having a current an acute mental illness is an example of these extreme cases. A parson at that level should be encouraged to seek medical solution to solve the issue. Others that need special treatment offered in combination with counselling includes: a person who is actively psychotic, a person who has a recent history of violence or anyone whose needs have not been addressed specialist like drug addiction. The method mindful therapy is the best in counselling clients. This is because it tries to address the basic need of the client putting all the circumstances into consideration. This is done by active listening and expressing empathy to the patient during the sessions. Work Cited Read More