MEANING, FUNCTIONS, SCOPE, PRINCIPLES AND AREAS

• Counseling Psychology

  A study that helps people improve their well-being, prevent and alleviate distress and maladjustment, resolve crises, and increase their ability to function better in their lives
• Counseling Psychology

  • Focuses specifically but not exclusively on normative life-span development, with a particular emphasis on prevention and education, addressing individuals as well as the systems or contexts in which they function
  • Focuses on the "emotional, social, vocational, educational, health-related, developmental, and organizational concerns" that normally impact daily lives
• Issues Counseling Psychology mostly addresses

  • School adjustment problems
  • Life transitions
  • Relationship difficulties
  • Learning deficits
  • Stress management
  • Organizational issues
  • Career moves
• Counseling Psychology


  For psychologically and emotionally healthy individuals, helps clients work through emotional, social, and physical stressors in their lives that aren't attributable to a diagnosed mental illness
• Counseling

  Professional service given by a counselor to an individual to help him in overcoming personal or psychological problems
• Guidance


  Advice or a relevant piece of information provided by a superior, to resolve a problem or overcome difficulty
• Guidance and Counseling

  Closely related and sometimes interchangeable
• Types of Guidance

  • Educational Guidance
  • Vocational Guidance
  • Personal Guidance
• Republic Act No. 9258 also known as "Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004" recognizes the importance of advancing and protecting the guidance and counseling profession by establishing preventive regulatory mechanisms and standards of practice
• Guidance Counselor


  A person who has been registered and issued a valid Certificate of Registration and a valid Professional Identification Card by the Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling and Professional Regulation Commission (PRC)
• Interim Accredited Professional Organization (IAPO)


  Refers to the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, Inc. (PGCA), an organization of guidance counselors granted by the Commission with a Certificate of Accreditation
• Qualifications of Applicants for Guidance and Counseling Registration

  • Holder of a Bachelor's Degree in Guidance and Counseling or in other Allied Disciplines and a master's degree in Guidance and Counseling from an institution in the Philippines or abroad recognized or accredited by the CHED
• Causes for Denial, Suspension, Revocation of a Certification of Registration, Cancellation of Special Permit


  • Conviction of an Offense involving moral, turpitude by a competent court
  • Finding of Guilt by the Professional Regulatory Board for immoral and/or dishonorable conduct
  • Declaration by the court of the applicant as being insane
• Prohibitions Against the Practice of Guidance and Counseling


  • Engaging in the practice of guidance and counseling without a valid Certificate of Registration and the valid Professional Identification Card or a special permit
  • Making representations to the public or to third person as a licensed Guidance Counselor during the time that the licensed has been revoked or suspended
  • Allowing anybody to use his/her license as guidance counselor to enable such unqualified individual to engage in the practice of guidance and counseling