Chapter 1 — Counseling

• Guidance


  A broad term usually applied to a school program of activities and services aimed at assisting pupils to make and carry out adequate plans and to achieve satisfactory adjustment in life. Counseling is usually viewed as one part of guidance services; it is one service within guidance rather than a synonym.
• Counseling


  A professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.
• Psychotherapy


  Implies deeper involvement with the individual's personality and is more concerned with the amelioration (to improve) of a more serious condition. Guidance programs and counseling usually deal with situational, environmental conditions. Counseling, as well as the total guidance program, stresses rational planning, problem solving and support in the face of situational pressures.
• Recipients of counseling vs psychotherapy

  • Counseling - "normal" individuals rather than those who exhibit abnormal or extreme modes of adjustment
  • Psychotherapy - Individuals with psychological disorders
• Counseling approaches


  • Based more on emphasizing present, conscious material (available within the individual's awareness)
  • Psychotherapeutic approaches tend to emphasize historic and symbolic material, relying heavily on reactivation and consideration of unconscious process
• Settings for counseling vs psychotherapy

  • Counseling services are usually located in schools, universities, community service, agencies, and pastoral organizations
  • Psychotherapeutic services are usually found in clinics, hospitals, and private practice
• Counselors vs therapists


  • Counselors tend to stress positive individual strengths and their use in personal and social situations
  • Therapists stress diagnosis and remediation
• The word guidance first appeared around the 1600s and was defined as "the process of guiding an individual." Early guidance work by vocational counselors involved giving moralistic and direct advice.
• With the development of psychoanalysis near the end of the 19th century, came the word psychotherapy, "Caring for the soul," the word was derived from the Greek words psycho, meaning spirit or soul, and therapeutikos, meaning caring for another.
• During the early part of the 20th century, vocational guidance counselors became increasingly dissatisfied with the word guidance and its heavy emphasis on advice giving and morality, Consequently, the word counseling was adopted to indicate that vocational counselors, like the psychoanalysts who practiced psychotherapy, dealt with social and emotional issues.
• As mental health workers became more prevalent during the mid-1900s, they too adopted the word counseling rather than use the word guidance, with its moralistic implications, or psychotherapy, which was increasingly associated with psychoanalysis.
• In the training of counselors today, the word guidance has become distinct from the word counseling, while the words counseling, and psychotherapy are generally used interchangeably in textbooks.
• Comparison of Guidance, Counseling, and Psychotherapy


  • Guidance - To increase understanding and thereby enable a person to be an intelligent and responsible agent in making an immediate decision
  • Counseling - To help a person increase his/her ability to relate in ways that satisfy his/her basic personality needs, to facilitate growth and minor adjustment through enhanced self-awareness and constructive changes in behavior
  • Psychotherapy - To heal a person who is suffering from incapacitating distress due to unmet needs and deep conflicts
• Comparison of Guidance, Counseling, and Psychotherapy (continued)


  • Guidance - Comprehensive and Extroverted, Deals with Education and career related issues, Provided by Any person superior or expert
  • Counseling/Psychotherapy - Remedial and Curative, In-depth and Introverted, Deals with Personal and sociopsychological issues, A person who possesses high level of skill and professional training
• Comparison of Guidance, Counseling, and Psychotherapy (continued)


  • Guidance - Open and less private, Decision making By guide
  • Counseling - Confidential, Decision making By the client
• Counselors' training is broad, and they do individual, group, and family counseling, administer and interpret educational and psychological assessments, offer career counseling, administer grants and conduct research, consult on a broad range of educational and psychological matters, supervise others, and present developmentally appropriate guidance activities for individuals of all ages.
• Social workers provide counseling and psychotherapy for all types of clients in a wide variety of settings, including child welfare services, government-supported social service agencies, family service agencies, private practices, and hospitals.
• Psychologists practice in a wide range of settings, including agencies, private practice, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), universities, business and industry, prisons, and schools, and they specialize in areas such as counseling, clinical, school, cognitive & perceptual, community, developmental, educational, engineering, environmental, experimental, industrial/organizational, neuro, quantitative, social, and sports.
• Psychiatric-mental health nurses (PMHNs) are skilled in the delivery of mental health services, with the Registered Nurse-PMHN doing basic mental health work related to nursing diagnosis and nursing care, and the Advanced Practiced Registered Nurse (APRN) having a master's degree in psychiatric-mental health nursing and assessing, diagnosing, and treating individuals with mental health problems.
• The American Counseling Association (ACA) is the world's largest counseling association, with the mission of enhancing the quality of life in society by promoting the development of professional counselors, advancing the counseling profession, and using the profession and practice of counseling to promote respect for human dignity and diversity.
• The American Psychological Association (APA) a association with the mission of advancing the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
• The Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, Inc. (PGCA) is a non-stock, non-profit organization with the mission of being in the forefront in the development of counselors who are professional, goal-driven, committed advocates responsive to the needs of their clientele in the promotion of their well-being to make them proactive contributors in the pursuit of a just and humane society.
• The Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) is an organization committed to the promotion of excellence in the teaching, research, and practice of Psychology, and its recognition as a scientifically oriented discipline for human and social development.
• Characteristics of Effective Helpers

  • Empathy
  • Acceptance
  • Genuineness
  • Wellness
  • Cultural Competence
  • The "It" Factor
  • Compatibility with and Belief in Theory
  • Competence
  • Cognitive Complexity
• Empathy


  A skill that can build rapport, elicit information, and help the client feel accepted. "The therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that the client is experiencing and communicates this acceptant understanding to the client."
• Acceptance


  An attitude that suggests that regardless of what the client says, within the context of the counseling relationship, he or she will feel accepted.
• Genuineness


  The counselor's ability to be authentic, open, and in touch with his or her feelings and thoughts within the context and parameters of the helping relationship.
• Cultural Competence


  Effective counselors need to be culturally competent if they are going to connect with clients.
• Competence


  Competent counselors have a thirst for knowledge, continually want to improve and expand their expertise, and have both an ethical and legal responsibility to be competent.
• Cognitive Complexity


  The ability to reflect on what you are thinking and doing, and consider if your approach is working well for your client.