What is Counselling?
Counselling is an ethical, professional process whereby counsellors walk with clients on their journeys to address questions or concerns around personal growth, wellness, healthy relationships, mental health, and/or career objectives. Counselling uses a variety of techniques based on clients’ goals, styles, and preferences, and is primarily based in clients' relationships with themselves, others, and their environments. The relationship between the counsellor and client is also paramount to the counselling process. Metaphorically, a counsellor can be envisioned as someone who joins the client on his or her path through the wilderness for a particular stretch of his/her journey. In this model, it is the client’s journey and she/he chooses the direction, who comes along, and for how long. The counsellor’s role may be to help the client notice some interesting features, to reflect on where the client has been, and/or where he/she is headed. The counsellor-guide can also assist the client to learn survival and safety skills.
Counselling is distinct from other sub-specialties of psychology through its focus on the counsellor’s high-quality working relationship with the client(s), and on the client-centred approach used to address clients’ concerns. In counselling, client change is achieved primarily through a healthy and effective working alliance with the therapist. Moreover, there is no central emphasis on assessment, physiology, making a diagnosis, or treatment through medications. Counselling is based in theory, and draws from theorectical multimodal methods that encompass expressive, somatic, spiritual, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of human experience. According to the American Counselling Association, counselling can be useful to high-functioning individuals, as well as for those with more serious concerns. Clients usually have concerns that require short-term counselling assistance in order to adjust or change; however, sometimes counsellors can also help on a long-term basis with clients who have more critical issues.
Counselling is distinct from other sub-specialties of psychology through its focus on the counsellor’s high-quality working relationship with the client(s), and on the client-centred approach used to address clients’ concerns. In counselling, client change is achieved primarily through a healthy and effective working alliance with the therapist. Moreover, there is no central emphasis on assessment, physiology, making a diagnosis, or treatment through medications. Counselling is based in theory, and draws from theorectical multimodal methods that encompass expressive, somatic, spiritual, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of human experience. According to the American Counselling Association, counselling can be useful to high-functioning individuals, as well as for those with more serious concerns. Clients usually have concerns that require short-term counselling assistance in order to adjust or change; however, sometimes counsellors can also help on a long-term basis with clients who have more critical issues.
