Counseling: ch 1

CH 1: NATURE AND SCOPE OF COUNSELING

**Introduction to Counseling (Lecture) \n **BS Psychology 3-1 | SEM 1 (Prelims)

• Professional relationship established voluntarily by an individual who feels the need of psychological help, with a person trained to provide that help (Patterson, 1962)

• Helping people to learn how to solve their own problems (Williamson)

•  Structured relationship which allows the client gain an understanding of himself to a degree of taking positive steps in the light of his new orientation (Carl Rogers)

• Counseling is a Central or Foundation part of guidance services
• The focus is not solving problems for the individual, rather helping them solve their own problems.
• helps in coping with reality problems rather than internal personality conflicts

• service provided by the school to assist young people in making intelligent choices and adjustments to develop potentialities as individuals and as contributing members of society.
• helping services
• Education:  change for growth and development

• Academic Work
• Career Goals
• The way an individual gets along with their fellow students
• Adjustments

• School
• Give and Interpret Psychological Tests
• Interview
• Observe those who come for help
• Offer practical suggestions for resolving the problem

• Alleviate behavioral disorders (mental illness, adjustment problems) through psychological means

• suggestions, psychoanalysis, counseling interviews, play activities, and changes in the patient’s environment

• treats maladjustment or mental disorders that are psychogenic 

• originates/caused psychologically rather than physically

• application of specialized techniques in the treatment of mental disorders or to the problems of everyday adjustment.

• Not merely a knowledge of, but the practice of principles of good human relations

Relationship: for the sole purpose of improving/restoring the mental health and adjustment/functioning of a client

1. Like psychotherapists, counselors recognize and respect the client as a unique, autonomous individual, worthy of acceptance as a human being, a person.

• the attitude of treating the client as a worthy person
• emphatic understanding and the communication of this to the client

* Emphatic Understanding is seeing the world how the client sees it.

* Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place.

'empathy' is when you understand and share the feelings of another.

sympathy' is feeling sorry/sorrow for someone’s misfortune; don’t share their feelings

1. Purposes and patterns in counseling

2. Client readiness

3. Dynamics of adjustments

Initial step in studying the actual interview which gives meaning to counseling.

• A counselor should have a goal to be supplemented with different criteria and to increase the client’s feeling of personal adjustment and his effectivity to society

Patterns include:

• good working relationship
• free talking
• absence of resistance
• taking responsibility in directing the interview
• words of insights and plans
• good judgment on the characteristics of the counselee

Counseling takes place when the client is ready and interested in dealing with their problems, attitudes, insight into the problems, and process of thinking and adjustments.

Factors of motivation and insight, effective counseling is dependent on the client’s feelings and the conferences between the client and the counselors.

1. Possess superior academic ability
2. has a genuine interest in and understanding of people, respect for others, and emotional stability and maturity
3. has sufficient knowledge of various theories of personality to understand what different kinds of overt behavior may mean in terms of adjustment.

The counselor has the obligation to handle information about the clients in professional ways no matter how delicate or simple the information is.

• the information should never be let loose in social conversations or in non-professional settings.

Confidentiality involves a commitment to

retain information that is always relative

rather than absolute.

• 'Relative' means partial or transient, dependent on circumstances or point-of-view.

Level 1: Professional Use of Information

• Includes all kinds of information forwarded to the personnel office
• this level of confidentiality is simply good professional practice.
• it is objectionable to give information to a clearly unethical or unprofessional person even with the client’s consent.

Level 2: Counselor-Client Relationship Information

• The client has the right to expect that the information obtained by the counselor will only be used for his welfare.
• The counselor should not normally accept a counselee who is receiving psychological assistance from another professional worker unless an agreement has been reached as to the respective areas of help being offered.

Level 3: Complete Holding of Confidential Information

• The information  should not be shared without the client’s consent even though the counselor feels strongly that it would be in the client’s best interest, except in case of some clear immediate danger to human life.

A communication is judged to be confidential if it is not intended to be disclosed to a third person other than those reasonably involved in the treatment procedures- possible family members- or someone under the doctor’s supervision or direction.

General Rule

• the patient, not the doctor, has the privilege to refuse to disclose or to prevent anyone else from disclosing, communications to or from the therapist that are made for purposes connected with treatment.

The privilege is the client’s exceptions being guardians, conservators, representatives of a deceased client, or a

judge-ordered examiner when the person’s condition is used as an element of legal defense or claim.

the relationship between the counselor and client represents a unique association and as such the counselor has to follow certain standards which are:

1. sessions are to be conducted in a setting that assures the client of privacy.
2. assures the client that information gathered (through psychological tests for diagnosis and analysis)  *will be used in a professional manner.*
3. maintains a professional relationship with the client, avoiding any emotional involvement that would be detrimental to the client’s well-being.
4. A therapeutic/ counseling relationship should be terminated when the psychologist/counselor is quite sure that they can no longer render help.

• recommend alternative courses of action to the client after carefully explaining the reasons necessitating termination.

Counseling is about teaching people:

• The importance of forgiveness both self and others
• The price of hatred both toward self and others
• Developing faith to believe in oneself being able to see some light at the end of a dark tunnel
• Seeing the power of understanding and acceptance

1. Take time to solve problems and make decisions
2. Let the counselee develop his own insight
3. Consider most individuals as normal beings
4. Problems arise from situations
5. Problems are interrelated
6. Integration of efforts is essential
7. Guidance service must be an integral part of the organization

Counselor: “You seem to be worried about your performance at school, your relationship with your parents, and your lack of money. I know all these problems concern you. I was wondering if you would

like to focus on one of these areas, or is there something else that you haven’t mentioned that you would like to talk about?”

• this example shows active listening skills kasi inenumerate ni counselor yung mga issues na nabanggit ni client in the past, meaning nakikinig talaga sya and gives importance to helping the client

1. Private Practice

2. Community & Mental Health

3. Employment

4. Employee Assistance

5. Correctional

6. Rehabilitation

7. Marriage and Family

8. Pastoral

9. Gerontology Counseling

10. Genetic Counseling

Level 1

Training: Appropriate educational and/or experience background

Responsibility: Advising; information giving

Level 2

Training: Master’s Degree in Counseling and Guidance

Responsibility: Developmental and normal adjustment counseling

Level 3

Training: Doctorate in counseling and guidance, clinical mental health, or counseling psychology, or M.D. with a specialty in psychiatry

Responsibility: Counseling for serious

personality disorders

• The tendency to guide is instinctive in most of us
• Guidance is necessary because of human needs and desires
• Guidance is organized and administered in a more or less systematic manner

Guidance does not solve the problems for an individual but it helps the individual to solve them

Guidance is focused on the individual not on the problem because its purpose is to promote the growth of the individual toward self-development

It aims at: self-understanding, self-appraisal, self-direction

1. Numerology: is the predicting of future outcomes or events in terms of lucky or unlucky numbers.

Numerologists based their techniques on the vibrations surrounding us which are supposed to emanate from numbers.

2. Astrology: is associating one’s fate with the course of the stars and other heavenly bodies; an individual’s personality traits are said to have relationships with the hour, day, month, and year of their birth.

some believe in being guided by the stars when choosing a life partner.

3. Graphology: analyzing one’s character in terms of one’s penmanship pattern.

An individual’s personality is analyzed based on the intensity of strokes, the shape and slant of the letters

EXAMPLES OF GRAPHOLOGY

v-wedges for m, n-bottom baseline intersections = analytical thinking

• sorts and separates information in assessing their value, evaluates information and supporting patterns

increasingly heavy downward and forward middle final = blunt

• brings matters to a conclusion and thrusts it upon others

wide e-loop =  broadminded

• liberal self-viewpoints, free of bigotry

small writing = concentration

• focuses attention on one activity ignoring all other influences

1. Palmistry: the belief that lines on one’s hand tell the fate and destiny of an individual.

Form and shape of hand reveal personality traits or types; even the shape of fingernails; the lines on the palm of one’s hand change with time.

5. Phrenology: whereby an individual’s traits such as honesty, sympathy, love, mathematical ability, or musical talent can be determined by the size, shape, and bumps of the head, the form of the forehead.

6. Physiognomy: an ally of phrenology, it predicts personality traits through facial characteristics, bodily structure, or muscular set, like the size of the head, nose, eyes, ears, chin, or the texture of the skin and hair.

Plato – the first Greek Counselor and recognized as one of the first to organize psychological insights into a systematic theory; used a dramatic method in which profound questions are dealt with through the dynamics of very real human interactions, a method in which the characters are as important as the things they say.

Aristotle – the second great counselor of the early civilizations who made many significant contributions to what was to become the field of psychology. One of these was his study of people interacting with their environment

Luis Vives (1492-1540) – a philosopher and educator who recognized the need to guide persons according. to their attitudes and aptitudes. He also demanded that girls should be prepared for useful occupations

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) – began to study the human body as an organism that reacted or behaved in response to various stimuli.

Horace Mann – the most famous U.S educator of the 19th century, included in his Twelfth Annual Report a notation of the advantages of the American common school system, advantages led to the development of counseling and guidance programs in U.S

Herbert Spencer – set forth his concept of adjustment. This biological concept held that forms of life that do not adapt to their environment eventually become extinct. Perfect life consisted of perfect adjustment

Frank Parsons – Father of the Vocational Guidance Movement. 

He organized the Breadwinners’ Institute in 1905 with a planned program for vocational guidance.

Then, he organized the Vocational Bureau of Boston and for the first time, “vocational counselor” and “vocational guidance” were used.

1932 – Psychological Clinic was started by Dr. Sinforoso Padilla which concerned itself with cases of student discipline as well as emotional, academic and vocational problems. The clinic was in operation until 1941.

1934 – counseling tests were administered to the convicts in Bilibid Prison and to the inmates at Welfareville in 1939

1939 – psychological tests were also used for guidance purposes in private schools

1945 – the first Guidance Institute was opened. The Bureau of Public Schools started to send teachers as “pensionados” for observation and study of guidance services abroad.

1951 – Congress proposed the establishment of a functional guidance and counseling program to help students select their course, activities, occupations, friends, and future mates; to guide them in their work, both at home and in school, and to help them solve their personality problems

1952 – division superintendents of schools recommended the establishment of guidance services in the public schools

1945 – the National Teachers College was chosen by educators to be the site of the first Guidance Institutes. Since then Guidance Association of the Phils. has been organized

1953 – the Philippine Association of Guidance Counselors was organized in order to study the needs, interests, and potentialities of our young people, and to establish a Testing Bureau