Understanding Counselling and Psychotherapy

Understanding Counselling

• Counselling involves interaction and understanding between the client and professionals to overcome psychological issues.
• The solutions to an individual's problems lie largely within that person, according to Carl Rogers in Counselling and Psychotherapy (1942)
• Counselling is characterized as a partnership where counsellors assist clients in understanding themselves, their problems, and their resources for change.
• Key changes resulting from counselling include behavior, belief, and level of emotional distress

Counselling vs. Giving Advice

• Counselling is a more in-depth process than simply giving advice.
• Advice/Giving Advices is often a one-way communication

Psychotherapy

• Psychotherapy is a long-term process that focuses on a person's feelings and past experiences.

Importance of Counselling

• Mentally healthy people can give love, consider others' interests, respect differences, and meet life's demands, states Newstrom in 2007
• Key counselling functions include advice, reassurance, communication, release of emotional tension, clarified thinking, and reorientation.

The Counsellor

• A counsellor is a trained professional serving clients through therapeutic communication.
• Counsellors encourage disclosure, listen, and give advice.
• Key attributes include a desire to help the client, acceptance of and respect for the client, and an ability to understand the client's psychological pain.

The client

• Clients bring several components to counselling.
• These components include personal pain, help-seeking by choice, and personal issues.
• Personal pain may be a reaction to adversity or chronic low self-esteem.
• Counselling assumes the client voluntarily seeks help.
• Clients inevitably bring their problems, which may affect their behavior during sessions.

The Working Alliance Between Counsellor and Client

• Counselling and psychotherapy can be understood as an alliance between the counsellor and client who work together, according to Ed Bordin (1979)
• This relationship is called the therapy/counselling bond.
• Empathy, respect, and genuineness are several components of the counselling bond and three core conditions.
• Empathy is when counsellors put themselves in the place of the client
• Rogers (1957) called respect unconditional positive regard (UPR), which involves caring for the client without setting conditions.
• Genuineness involves consistency in one's feelings, thoughts, and behavior in the relationship.
• Alvin Mahrer articulated in his book "The Goals of Psychotherapy (1967)", argued that there are two types of goals: amelioration of psychological distress and promotion of psychological growth
• Counsellors increase their chances of helping clients when they agree to pursue goals that are within the client's direct control, realistic and achievable, set by the client, positively and clearly stated, uncontaminated by psychological disturbance, based on the present state, and reflective of effort.
• The Counsellor and Client need to perform certain tasks to achieve their goals.
• Tasks are broad, self exploration, or more specific, including the Socratic dialogue.
• The Counsellor and Client need to work into their views.
• Views are about the problem and how therapeutic counselling can give assistance.

Outcome Goals and Process Goals

• Outcome goals are the intended results of counselling.
• Process goals are the objectives that must be achieved during sessions and in the counsellor's office.
• Counselling leads to change in personal growth or towards resolving problems
• Change can include behavior change, improved coping and decision-making skills, altered beliefs/values, and reduced emotional distress.
• Behavioral change is overt and observable.
• Counselling enhances individual ability to cope with life's realities.
• Counselling can lead to relief from emotional distress.

The Stages of the Counselling Process

• Counselling has a set sequence that should be followed.
• The counsellor and client must establish a contract and define where the client is in their life and difficulties.
• A deeper understanding with interpersonal relationships and mutually acceptable diagnosis follows.

The First Stage: Initial Disclosure

• Counsellor and client do not initially know each other well.
• Counsellor allays fears and encourages self-disclosure.
• Empathy involves understanding another's experience.
• Congruence/genuineness includes having actions reflect thoughts and feelings.
• Unconditional positive regard means caring for the client without conditions.
• Concreteness involves using clear language to describe the client's life situation (Patterson and welfed 2000).

The Second Stage: In-Depth Exploration

• The client should gain understanding of life concerns and develop hope and direction, a new sense of hope and direction
• A broad outline of desired change emerges.

The Third Stage: Commitment to Action

• The client decides how to accomplish the goal defined in the second stage.
• The client identifies possible courses of action and aims for the best outcome.
• The client comes up with courses of action with help from the counsellor.

Types of Counselling

• Directive Counselling involves planning to solve and motivating a client to act on their problems.
• This type mostly accomplishes advice but may also reassure, communicate, give emotional release, and clarify thinking.
• Reorientation is seldom achieved.
• Nondirective Counselling or client-centered counselling involves listening and encouraging a client to explain his or her issues

Participative Counselling

• Participative counselling, also called cooperative counselling, is a mutual counsellor-client relationship.
• Goal is to establish a cooperative exchange of ideas to help solve a client's problems.

The Ethical Dimensions of Counselling

• Informed consent means the counsellor informs the client of what to expect in the counselling process and they give consent to participate.
• Confidentiality means the counsellor does not disclose confidential information.
• Protection and Development includes protecting the welfare of his or her client and self.
• Counsellors require supervision.