What is Counselling? Definitions, Scope, Importance, Purpose, Goals

What is Counselling?

Counselling is a professional process where a trained counsellor helps individuals explore and resolve personal, emotional, psychological, or professional challenges. It provides a safe, confidential, and supportive space to talk about thoughts, feelings, and concerns to promote mental well-being, self-awareness, and personal growth.

Definitions of Counselling

There is no limitation to the problem for counsellor in providing counselling so let us see some definitions of counselling to know what counselling is.

‘Counselling is an interaction process which facilitates meaningful understanding of self and environment and result in the establishment of and or clarification of goals and values for future behaviour’. – Shertzer and Stone

‘Counselling is an accepting, trusting and safe relationship in which clients learn to discuss openly what worries upsets them,to define precise behaviour goals to acquire and share social skills and to develop the courage and self confidence to implement desired new behaviour’. – Merle Ohlsen

‘Counselling is a process by which a troubled person (client) is helped to tell and behave in a more personally satisfied manner through interaction with an involved person (counsellor) who provides information and reaction which stimulate the client to develop behaviour which enable him to deal more effectively with himself and his environment’. – Edwin Lewis

‘Counselling is a form of interviewing in which the client is help to understand himself more correctly in order to correct an environment or adjustment difficulty.’ – Wolberg

‘Counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore difficulty a client has, distress that the client might be experiencing or perhaps the client’s dissatisfaction with life or loss of sense or direction or purpose.’ – British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (2002)

If all the definitions are analyzed we can come to the following conclusions.

• Counselling is a two way process.
• It involves two individuals.
• There is mutual relationship between the two individuals.
• It deals with personal, social, vocational and educational concerns.
• It takes place in structured setting.
• It helps to gain self understanding, self acceptance and self realization.
• It helps an individual to become happier and better adjusted.

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Scope of Counselling

The scope of counselling is vast. In fact counselling is required in various areas and aspects of life such as:

Depression

Living with despair can be very hurtful and troublesome place to be. Low spirit leaves people intensely exhausted. People often feel detached and in this situation counselling aids to boost their morale and enhance self esteem. It benefits people to deliberately reconstruct and steadily put their lives well organized, well balanced and well adjusted.

Low self esteem and confidence

Low self esteem and confidence leads to low dignity. This means that people lack determination and self respect. This is often the consequence of what they have suffered in the past. Counselling can guide people begin to rely in themselves. It can cooperate people in prospering and acquiring.

Relationships

Relationships can often be intensely problematic and challenging.Many a times couples come for counselling because they have controversies about closeness between them or their sex life is being afflicted. Sometimes one mate has been disloyal and people want to be able to work through with a non committed person.

A counsellor can surely cure couples to initiate listening to one another repeatedly, to perceive and sense each other and to shape up their way of relating. Counselling can also be profitable if individuals or couples are going through divorce and they want someone to guide them through this.

Stress and anxiety

Stress plays a substantial part in many peoples’ life. Sometimes jobs, commitments, property, health issues can cause people to feel lot of stress and anxiety. Stress can often precede to phenomenal fitness dilemmas and impulsive outbreaks.

Stress makes the life of the person miserable and counselling can offer an avenue for this to come out of that stressful situation.

Trauma

An outcome of traumatic event makes the person feel devastated and affect their mental state. They may experience upsetting memories, fantasies and restlessness. People can often feel disconnected from what has happened and find them recapturing the event repeatedly.

Counselling can comfort people to manage with shocking experience and cooperate them to to conceive what they have gone through.It can also lay hand to them in dealing with the signs of illness that they may have grown.

Post Traumatic stress disorder

Post traumatic stress disorder originates from intensely scary experiences. There may be an acute sensitivity of apprehension and sense of being upset. This can lead to confinement, a feeling of apathy and extended shock.

Insomnia and mood swings can also be consequences of this mental disorder. In this situation cognitive behaviour therapy technique works best as this can inspire an individual to alter undesirable thoughts and feelings.

Eating disorder

Eating disorder can seize peoples’ lives and existence and often they find themselves struggling with issues around food, body size, shape and obesity. Eating disorder is not just about food and activity, they have lot to do with affairs, belief in oneself. Counselling can help people to change the manner they eat and exercise. It can also benefit people to flourish and raise all other scopes of their lives.

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Need and Importance of Counselling

With the present increase in anxiety level, complexities in daily life and more impersonal attitude of the people there is need for some formal counselling.

Complexities in everyday life

Living in 21st century is indeed living in a very complex era. Life has become so much governed by technical advancement. Urban area is full of complex gadgets, rush of work, distance to be covered, tension and open to more hazards, may be accidents or may be crime.

In such complex and strenuous living an individual is more like to break down with stress. People have lesser time for others and even the intentions to be helpful to others are fast dwindling. In such circumstances one needs formal help which can be had through counselling.

Uncertainties

When people are living in rural background and in more or less joint family, there was a greater economic security and social support. Now a days there are nuclear families in big towns when both the husband and wife go to work, their children face a lot of insecurity.

Besides divorce has become legally so easy that even for minor reasons there may be break up in the family. This leads to further uncertainty in living. In this situation formal counselling can be helpful in preventing a home from breaking up.

Increase in Anxiety

With increasing complexities and uncertainties, anxiety is bound to be there. There is a limit upto which one can tolerate anxiety and stress beyond which breakdown is possible. The fast tempo of living, the rat race for material possessions and accelerated achievement, cut throat competition, more ans more impersonal ans selfish relations are all facilitates anxiety. A counsellor can help professionally in setting goals, making life meaningful and reduce anxiety.

Advancement in science and technology

In earlier days, occupation of an individual was by and large inherited by his forefathers. The skills required could be taught by the parent to the child and thus could be pass on. In the present era each occupation has become so complex and specialized due to the rapid advancement of science and technology that creates lots of tension and stress at workplace.

Proper training is required to get adjusted with the job. Besides training one should have the ability in terms of intelligence and aptitude and also the right personality make up, interest and motivation which.

Educational Growth

Education has grown in its height, breadth and depth. More and more people are going for higher studies devoting 15-16 years of their most dynamic years of life to this cause. Proper guidance is therefore must at a right age.

Problems of school adjustment are bound to occur with this expansion in educational opportunities. Guidance is required for the proper placement and adjustment in classroom. Therefore, counselling may again be needed in such cases.

Bragdon has mentioned the following situations where counselling is required:

• When the counsellor has to access those facilities which can help in resolving the pupils problems.
  
  
• When the pupil requires not only reliable information but also an interesting interpretation of those information which can solve his personal difficulties.
  
  
• When the pupil needs intelligent listener who has more experience than the pupil with whom he can express his difficulties and seek suggestions for his working plan.
  
  
• When the pupil has some problem and he is unaware of the problem and he is to made aware of that problem.
  
  
• When the pupil is aware of the problem and difficulties arise out of that problem but he finds difficult to define that problem and understand it.
  
  
• When the pupil suffers from mal adjustment and which needs careful diagnosis by an expert.

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Purpose of Counselling

Through counselling, individuals are encouraged to think about their problems and thus come to know the better understanding of the causes of the problems. As a result of this understanding individual commit himself to take action that will solve his problem. The kind of action taken will be person’s own decision although it may be guided by the counsellor.

Counselling means choice, not force. Counsellor may think that his advice is seems reasonable, but sometimes it may not be appropriate to the particular circumstances of the person receiving advice. With counselling, it the concerned person who takes the decision so that the solution adopted are likely to be appropriate. An appropriate solution will be one that the person can follow with successful results.

Following are some of the purposes of counselling:

• To assist client in becoming aware of their emotional state so that they can better understand their emotional state.
  
  
• To assist client in learning to express their emotions safely (to themselves and to others) so that they can become aware of and protect their boundaries.
  
  
• To work with clients in separating their past from the present on an emotional level, so that they can experience their emotional response to the world based on their present needs rather than past trauma being re- triggered and replayed.
  
  
• To teach clients to address their present and genuine needs which will involve in turn them feeling satisfied, frustrated and negotiating as opposed to repressing their needs.
  
  
• To provide information on matters that help the individual to do better adjustment in the society.
  
  
• To establish the feeling of mutual understanding between the counsellor and client.
  
  
• Help the individual to make wise choices.
  
  
• Help in adapting to the changes or new environment.
  
  
• To encourage special talents and develop right attitude.
  
  
• To help individuals through temporary crisis during the different stages of life.

Successful counselling relies on the counsellor client relationships. So the purpose of counselling is to develop the relationship between counsellor and client which they never had.

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Goals of Counselling

Counselling goals may be simply classified in terms of counsellor goals and client goals, immediate and long range goals or therapy. Broadly speaking counselling goals can also be separated in the following categories.

Developmental goals

These are those goals where the client is assisted in meeting or advancing his/her anticipated growth and development (i.e social, personal, emotional, cognitive, physical wellness and so on).

Facilitating behaviour change, improve client’s ability to establish and maintain relationships, enhance the client’s effectiveness and ability to cope, promoting decision making process are some of the examples of developmental goals.

Preventive goals

These are the goals which are meant to help the client to avoid undesirable outcomes. Preventive goals has the main focus on anticipation and avoidance of conflicts and problems for those facing stress in the future.

Preventive counselling is used to stop problems before they start or to prevent things from getting worse. Areas like ‘How to keep healthy’, ‘How to prepare for retirement’, or sessions on pre marital counselling are examples of preventive goals.

Enhancement goals

These goals identifies the special skills and abilities of the individual and counsellor helps the individual to enhance those abilities and skills for individuals development. These goals focuses on intrinsic motivation by raising awareness of a problem, adjusting self defeating thoughts regarding the problem, and increasing confidence in ones’ ability to change are some of the examples of enhancement goals.

Instead of identifying the problem and telling the person in therapy what to do about it, the counsellor encourages the person what to do about it. Therapist encourages the person in therapy to make self motivating statement that display a clear understanding of problem and resolve to change.

Remedial goals

Remediation involves assisting the client to overcome and / or treat an undesirable development. Remedial goals involves assisting a client to overcome and / or treat an undesirable development.

Exploratory goals

Exploration represents goals appropriate to the examination of options, testing of skills, and trying new and different activities, environments, relationships and so on. In this goal counsellor helps the client to see themselves objectively, help them to see the pattern and why they respond to it in certain way, and make discoveries about themselves. Counsellor takes the client to the point where they see their problem, why its a problem and that they can change it.

Reinforcement goals

It is used in those instances where clients need help in recognizing that what they are doing, thinking and / or feeling is okay. Reinforcement of the behaviour means the goal is to get individual to do more of a desired behaviour. It is strengthening of a new response by its repeated association with a stimulus.

Cognitive goals

It involves acquisition of the basic information about learning and cognitive skills. These goals includes promotion of self awareness and emotional intelligence by teaching clients to ‘‘read’’ their emotions and distinguish healthy from unhealthy feelings.

It helps the clients to understand how distorted perceptions and thoughts contribute to painful feelings. 8. Physiological goals Physiology involves acquiring the basic understanding and habits for good health. Getting benefits of physiological counseling can help sort a diverse range of problem you face in your regular life. It will help you overcome the emotional problems you go through better. In many cases, the counseling can provide relief faster compared to taking medication.

Psychological goals

Psychology aids in developing good social interaction skills, learning emotional control, developing a positive self-concept, and so on. The goal of the counseling is to enable the individual to make critical decisions regarding alternative courses of actions without outside influence. Counseling will help individuals obtain information and to clarify emotional concern that may interfere with or be related to the decision involved.

Different individuals have different perceptions of what can be expected of counseling. However there are five commonly named goals of counseling.

Facilitating behaviour change

The goal of counselling is to bring about change in behaviour that will Enable the client to be more productive.Goals can be measurable so that client can measure that program. According to Rogers behaviour change is necessary result of the counselling process. All the specific behaviour receive little or no emphasis during process.

Improving relationship

Many clients tend to have major problems relating to others due to poor self image. Inadequate social skills cause individuals to act defensively in social relationships. The Counselor would then strive to help the client Improve the quality of their lives by developing more effective interpersonal relationships.

Facilitate client’s potential

Counselors help individuals to cope with new situations and challenges. Individuals will inevitably run into difficulties in the process of growing up. Most of them do not completely achieve all over their development tasks within a life time. All of the unique expectations and requirements imposed on individuals by others will eventually lead to problem. Learning coping patterns, however may not always work.

Promote decision making

The goal of the counseling is to enable the individual to make critical decisions regarding alternative courses of actions without outside influence. Counseling will help individuals obtain information and to clarify emotional concern that may interfere with or be related to the decision involved.

These individuals will acquire an understanding of their capabilities and interests. They will also come to identify emotions and attitudes that could influence their choice and decisions.

Enhance potential and enrich self development

Counselling helps individuals to cope with new situations and challenges. It seeks to maximize an individual freedom by giving him or her control over their environment while analyzing responsiveness and reach to the environment. Counselors help people to learn how to overcome problems and issues. Counselors also assist in overcoming sexual dysfunction, drug addiction, gambling and obesity as well as anxiety, shyness and depression.