GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING.
09/10/2010
Counselling
is a purposeful dynamic relationship between two or more individuals in which
the procedures adopted may vary with the nature of the client’s need but in
which there is always mutual participation by the counsellor and counselee –
the client.
This
implies that in counselling there is no room for one side fits all in the
method adopted by the counselor. For example, the method adopted by a counselor
may depend on gender/sex of the individual. It may be influenced by age – for
instance, the strategy used for an adult will differ from that of a youth.
Counselling
can also be defined as an inter-personal process designed to bring about modification
of feelings, cognition, attitudes and behaviours to the individual seeking help
from the counsellor – (Strupp: 1978). In
this definition, four things are noted, namely modification of:
·
Feelings
·
Cognitions
·
Attitudes
·
Behaviours.
It is because of deviations of norms from
these four that people have problems.
Feelings: Feelings are not expected to be
measured or viewed from the same pedestal because a phobic may be good for
another.
Cognition: This refers to one’s thought
pattern. In one’s psychological wellbeing, it is pertinent that one fashions
his/her thought pattern in a motivational and positive way to enable the
individual to do things well and at the right time with moral boosted effort
and positively influenced behavior – wherever the man goes, there would the
means go.
Attitude: Everybody has attitudes towards
things. It could be favourable or unfavourable. According to the
definition, people go to counsellors to modify their problematic
attitudes.
Behaviour: In most cases, attitude
determines behavior.
·
Who is
a Counsellor?
·
A counsellor is a trained personnel who
applies counselling principles, techniques and strategies to help individuals
in their day to day life problems.
·
A counsellor is an expert or a
professional who has cultivated skills of helping people to understand their
situation, clarify their values and make informal decision for their assumed
responsibilities. It is a client or counsellor that has an assumed
responsibility.
·
Attributes
of a good Counsellor
1.
Empathy:
this deals with an accurate understanding of the client’s phenomelogical world
and transmitting or communicating same to the client at an emotional level.
This actually is to feel what the person feels.
2.
Unconditional
Positive Regard: A counsellor must be able to espouse this; accept client
unconditionally in a positive light. It all means not being judgmental or
condemn the client after counselling.
3.
Genuiness:
The counsellor must be real in his or her suggestions and advice – these must
reflect the reality no matter the situation on ground.
·
The
qualities of a good counsellor by American personnel and guidance association:
1.
Open mindedness
2.
Self understanding
3.
Commitment to individual
human values
4.
Belief in each person as
an individual
5.
Alertness to the world
through his immediate environment – he must be sensitive, current to the latest
happenings in the world.
·
Components
of Counselling
1.
Provision of suitable
atmosphere/setting. When these are in
place, they facilitate the development of new methods of exploring, interacting
and responding to the environment in an adjusted ways.
2.
Counselling must be seen
as a mutual enterprise. In this regard, it’s apposite to note that the
counsellor’s expertise alone is not sufficient to chose counselee’ goals but
such expertise is necessary in assisting the client to accomplish his or her
chosen goal/objectives.
3.
Counselling is concerned
with decision-making skills and problem resolution; that is to say, that
counsellors help the counselee to expand his range of alternatives or opinions
in addition to modifying behavior patterns towards desirable directions.
·
16/10/10
F Types of Counselling
Generally there are two major types of
counselling namely:
·
Individual counselling and
·
Group counselling
A third
type of counselling (sub-group) is the family and couple counselling
F Individual Counselling
As the
name indicates, this is a situation where one client meets with the consellor.
Individual counselling consists therefore of two persons at most, the client or
counselee and the counsellor. Individual counselling is a one–to–one
relationship between an individual (the client, in this case a parishioner) and
a professional (the priest) who has acquired requisite training and experience
that have qualified him to help others come up with solutions to different
types of personal difficulties. The client is that individual who has
difficulties or challenges that have over-tasked his resources; he therefore
seeks the help of the professional who in this instance is the priest.
Some
scholars have attempted to define individual counselling. Olayinka 1983 defined
individual counselling as a process in which one person assists another person
or individual in a person-to- person or face-to-face encounter.
F Group Counselling
This is
a counselling that involves one consellor and at least two other persons. This
is a type of conselling in which a counselor is involved in a relationship with
a number of counselees at the same time but the counselees may not share the
same problem. Group counselling is a self-learning environment in which members
are committed to working towards eliminating self-defeating behaviours. The
types may vary depending on the nature of problems and the nature of social
interaction.
There
are some persons that are problem oriented individuals, these include:
·
Drug addicts
·
Militant groups
·
Terrorists
·
Cultists
·
Armed robbers
·
Prostitutes
F Sub-group Counselling
·
Family counselling
·
Couple counselling – the couple could be
two dating individuals or married individuals. This kind of counselling
involves therefore the couple and the counselor and is quite different from
family counselling
§ Family Counselling
This is a type of group counselling
involving members of a family who have come to a consellor for an advice on a
specific problem affecting the family. The problem could be from any member of
the family. In this type of conselling every member of the family within reach
must be present during the counselling session.
In
family counselling, the family is the unite of treatment. The primary focus is
concerned on changing destructive communication patterns and improving ways by
which family members could relate with each other more effectively. Because certain
individuals may be seen as a source of problem for the family, a counsellor has
to demonstrate how this person’s behaviour reflects larger problems in the
family which has led to the breakdown of family ties.
§ Techniques in family counselling.
1.
Validation
Under this technique, the counselor shows
an appreciation and understanding of the feelings and thoughts of each member
of the family. He also acknowledges these feelings and says something positive
about each individual in the family.
2.
Reframing
Under this technique the job of the
consellor is to assist the family members to see, understand and appreciate the
fact that the problem that affects any individual member of the family is invariably
that of the family at large. The counsellor reframes the problem and gives it
global orientation. Put differently, the counsellor lets the family understand
and appreciate the fact that the problem of an individual member of the family
affects all and should be the concern of everyone.
3.
Structural change.
This is
a situation when there is factions and clique in the family. The situation is
such that members of the family are divided among themselves. The father is on
his own, the mother has sympathy for the last born and so both follow the same
trend of opinion. Two of the daughters share the same opinion while two of the
sons also share the same feelings. It is the counsellor’s responsibility to
detect the existence of such division during the counselling process after
careful observation. He then tries to reconcile the defragmented family.
4.
Detriangulation
Here
the counsellor tries to find out the source of the problem afflicting the
family. To detriangulate means to break down the barriers separating members of
a family from each other. To achieve this, the counsellor must try to find out
the root-cause of the family’s problem. Sometimes it could be money matter.
Suppose the father had told the wife that they ought to be more prudent in
their spending. Though the mother readily agrees to this, she nevertheless goes
on spending as before.
Now
instead of the father confronting her for this, he vents his anger on the
children who are innocent of the situation. The mother on the hand, instead of
confronting the father of the house that he no longer gives her enough money as
before, vents her anger on the children. The children as it were are at
cross-roads. The counsellor on this issue tries to find out causes of such
family problem which often is a remote one.
F Couple Counselling
This is
also known as marital counselling if the couples involved are married. In this
case the couples themselves are the unite of treatment. The goal of couple
conselling is to help those involved acquire effective communication and
problem solving skills. In addition, the consellor might want to identify other
sources of problem; for example, power struggle in the family. Often the father
sees himself as the head of the family and as such demand obedience from the
other partner. Generally the common complaint in couples involved in sessions
includes infidelity, dual-career family and gender roles.
F Models in Counselling
·
Psychological model
·
Health-belief model
·
Spiritual model
·
Psychological
Model – (Cognitive therapy)
This
model is based on the assumption that emotional disorders are the consequences
of maladaptive thought-patterns. The task of Cognitive therapy is therefore to
re-structure this maladaptive cognition; so as to enable the individual
function effectively. One form of cognitive therapy we shall consider is
Rational Emotional Therapy (RET) by Albert Ellis.
Rational
Emotional Therapy is a form of cognitive therapy that is based on the
proposition that individuals become psychologically disordered because of their
beliefs especially those beliefs that are irrational and self-defeating. Under
stressful conditions, individuals usually hold on to irrational statements that
are more harmful than helpful – statements or beliefs that are distortions of
objective reality. For example, if one thinks that everybody would like him/her
or that everybody would accept him/her, the person is not being objective.
Because there is no way everybody will like and accept you. This is a
distortion of reality. Owing to frequent verbalizations, these beliefs and
thoughts become internalized as the individual’s way of accessing issues in
life.
v
What
or how would you counsel a young lady who has been disappointed by her suitor
and comes to you and says: “Look Father am tired of it all. I have been let
down by three persons already, I don’t think that God has a husband for me”
·
Begin by asking that person what is her
belief concerning marriage? Does she believe that God has a husband for her or
not. From her answers to these and similar questions, the counsellor will know
what to say or do next
·
A. B.
C.
A practitioner,
who is using “RET”, will make use of the A B C. Now note that the experience is
not as important as your experience. The interpretation you give to your
experience will influence your behaviour.
A -
Means Activating experience. In order words what is the experience that an
individual have gone through that have led to this belief.
B –
Means belief system. Based on this experience, what do you believe about
marriage?
C –
Means consequence. Our beliefs often results in one form of consequence or the
other. It could result in anxiety, frustrations, depression and so forth,
because of the negative interpretations we give to our experiences. Because you
have been disappointed by three persons already, does that necessarily mean
that you will not get married?
The
goal of counselling here is to identify irrational ideas and faulty
thought-patterns and to try developing constructive one to replace the old
ones. There is good in every situation.
v 6/11/10
F
Behavioural
Therapy
The
adherents of behavioural model make use of the principles of learning when
conselling clients because the assumption is that maladaptive behaviour are
learned. There are different techniques in behavioural therapy. Some of them
are the following:
1.
Operant conditioning
2.
Classical conditioning
3.
Social modeling
F Operant Conditioning
·
Why do people do the things they do?
·
What triggers a particular behaviour in
people?
·
Why do people, for instance, engage in
armed robbery in spite of the dangers inherent in it?
·
Why do some men maltreat their wives?
The
principle of operant conditioning is that most, if not all of our behaviour are
randomly emitted, such that if a particular response is followed by an
environmental event which is re-enforcing to the individual, then, the
probability of that behaviour occurring again is increased. Proponents of this
theory are of the opinion that the consequences of a behaviour determines
whether that behaviour will occur again depending on whether that condition is
rewarding to the individual or not. In other words, behaviour which is
rewarding is likely to occur again than those that are not rewarding.
Take beggars
for instance. Some people prefer to be because begging relieves them of certain
responsibilities. Someone who earns his/her living by begging would not be
asked to pay electric bill, house rent, school fees of their family members
etc. this is because they would claim that they do not have money for these.
Some other persons may decide to remain without job as that will relieve them
from any form of responsibility towards their family and extended relatives.
·
A child may be performing well in school
because his father rewards him/her for his good grades. This spurs him/her to
do better in future knowing well that if he/she performs well, he/she will
receive a reward.
·
A man may be abusing his wife because that
gives him a sense of being in-charge of the household.
F What is operant behaviour?
Operant
behaviours are behaviours that are governed by their consequences because it is
believed that behaviours are learned. Proponents of operant conditioning assume
that behaviours can also be unlearned.
The focus of operant conditioning is behaviour modification, that is,
the replacement of unacceptable maladaptive consequences with acceptable ones.
In operant conditioning, consequences for behaviours are established to ensure
that acceptable actions are re-enforced and unacceptable ones are not.
F Steps in operant conditioning.
1.
Re-enforcement must be potent to motivate
the individual
2.
Re-enforcement must be systematically
applied. That is thorough, efficient and determined fashion.
3.
Re-enforcement must be applied contingent
on the demonstration of the desirable behaviour.
4.
The counsellor should have the skill,
ability, capability to elicit the behaviour which he plans to re-enforce.
F Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
is the treatment of psychological disorders using psychological rather than
physical or biological means. Psychoanalysis as a counseling technique is
primarily used for analyzing unconscious thoughts. It is useful in bringing to
the fore what is hidden in the unconscious.
F Techniques in psychoanalysis
1.
Free Association.
In free
association, the counsellor encourages the client to freely discuss whatever comes
to the mind of the client irrespective of how unimportant the issues might
appear to the client. While the client is free associating, the counsellor is
to be attentive and not distract the client. The counsellor can at intervals
cheap-in words to encourage the client to talk more. The counsellor should be
on the lookout for key words that might indicate the reasons for the client’s
behaviours.
It is
hoped that repressed impulses would sooner or later be revealed in the course
of free association. Free association is therefore an indirect method of
exploring the unconscious motive that underlies the counselee’s behaviour.
2.
Resistance.
To
resist means to fight against, to repel back. In psychoanalysis, the counsellor
often notices resistance at work. Resistance occurs when the client fights back
thoughts, feelings etc, from coming into conscious awareness because of the
pain or emotional distress associated with recalling certain experience or
event. For instance a lady that had experienced rape may not wish to narrate
the incident again because of the pain she would feel in recalling the
incident.
Resistance
gives a clue into the psychological problem affecting a client. Resistance can
also manifest itself when a client begins to skip appointment or starts coming
late to sessions.
3.
Transfer.
Transference
is the third technique in psychoanalysis. Transference refers to a situation
where the counselee relates to the counsellor in ways that are reminiscent of
important relationship in the client’s life. Important relationship here means
relationship with significant figures such as ones parent, boy friend, and
spouse. In addition, transference could manifest itself as intense feeling of
love or hate towards the consellor. The counsellor should take advantage of
transference by noting those aspects that may be the clue to unconscious conflict.
v Transferred
love or hatred: for instance a lady who comes for counseling starts telling the
counsellor I love you. Or when a male client tells the counsellor, I hate. In
such cases the client is seeing the image of the person who is the object of
his/her anxiety in the counsellor and unconsciously transfers his feeling
towards that person to the counsellor.
4.
Interpretation
At this
time, the counsellor gives the client information about his behaviour which he
was previously unconscious off before coming for session. Interpretation is
most effectively done by pointing out means increased awareness of periods of
resistance and defense mechanism used by the client.
The
counsellor may remind the client: ‘During session, you said that you hate me?
Is there anyone that has hurt you in the past that you find difficult to
forgive?
5.
Insight
Insight
means to gain understanding of the relationship between events/occurrences or
what happened in the past in the life of the client and what the consequences
were. It generally means increased awareness of unconscious conflicts and
psychological defenses which eventually leads to adaptive behaviour.
If a
client is made to understand that because of the hurt he received from other
people, he too is hurting others, he would be in a better situation to
check-mate his attitude towards other people.
v 27/11/10
v Stages in Counselling
1.
The Initial Stage - Interview
This is
a form of formal meeting between the counsellor and the counselee. The goal of
this stage includes the following:
a.
To create rapport and to relax the client
b.
To make the client perceive that the
consellor is listening and understanding what he/she has to say.
In
other words, in the initial stage the counsellor has to work in such a way that
the client’s confidence is won. There are two factors that influence the client
during initial stage.
1.
Client variable
2.
Counselor variable
·
Client’s variable has to do with how the
client perceive or understands counseling. Some people see conselling simply as
treatment (therapeutic treatment). Some other clients enter session with
pessimism.
·
The counsellor variable involves how well
a consellor is able to manage his/her emotions and how he uses the information
he gets to help the client. The counsellor should be patient with his/her
client. For instance, if you notice that your client seems to be irritated with
you, you shouldn’t act as if you are in a hurry to discard him/her in other to
attend to other patients.
v Facilitative Relationship Stage.
The
main focus of this stage is for the counsellor to establish good facilitating
relationship with the client. In this stage, the counsellor examines and
defines the client’s problem and sets outcome goal (over all objections of what
the client want) to achieve at the end of the day.
v Goal Identification
Here
the counsellor makes sure that the client’s problems/situation are spelt out
clearly and define in behavioural terms.
v Counselling Procedures
Following
the first three stages (Initial Stage, Facilitative Relationship
Stage and Goal Identification), the first stage in counseling procedure
has to do with selecting procedure or determining procedures which the client
can use to achieve his or her goal or aim. Some of these procedures can be
taught the client to practice at home, such as: decision making, effective
intra and interpersonal communication skills.
v Termination and Follow-up Stage
This is
normally affected when the counsellor and the client are satisfied that the
outcome good of the client has shown some level of improvement in some period
of time. The counsellor may decide to terminate the session. But there should
be a follow-up. The essence of following-up is to access and evaluate him/her
(the client) whether he is on the track.
v TERM PAPER TOPIC
·
Discuss the health belief model as it
applies to counseling – 4 pages maximum.
v 22/1/2011
v Ethical Issues and Counselling
Any
organized profession has its code of ethics. This code guides the activities of
that profession. Professions like medicine, engineering, accountancy etc has
code, canon that guides them. Every profession has a set of norms that guides
behaviour of its members. These guidelines or ethics facilitate a common
standard for practice. In the same vein, the practice of counselling may differ
to conform to the expectation of each society. For this reason, a consellor –
Priest must be aware of the peculiarities of the client. These peculiarities
include ethnic group, educational differences, culture and tradition etc.
Generally,
ethical decision making is an evolutionary process that requires a practitioner
to be continually open and self-critical. Certain uses are involved in
conselling and they include:
1.
Counter transference
This
has to do with the ability to control one’s emotions so that it will not
influence or affect the counselling relationship. Your prejudices,
vulnerabilities and your non-recognition of your own needs could impair you and
lead to counter transference. Manifestations of counter transference include:
ü Over
protecting a client
ü Rejecting
a client
ü Developing
sexual/romantic feelings towards a client
ü Desiring
a social relationship with the client
ü Delaying
termination
2.
Informed Consent
This
concerns or has to do with securing the approval of the client either directly
or from a guardian before counselling begins. It emphasizes that clients must
be provided with the information they need to make an informed choices. In
addition, clients must be made to know their right and responsibilities in the
relationship; information that must be provided to the client includes the
following:
ü Goal of
counselling
ü Responsibilities
of the client
ü Responsibilities
of the counsellor
ü Limitations
of, and exception to confidentialities
ü Estimated
duration of the counselling relationship.
3.
Confidentiality
Although
information shared between the counsellor and the counselee must be kept
private, confidentiality is not an absolute and where necessary, exceptions
must be explained to the client. Confidentiality must be broken when it is
clear that the client may do serious harm to either himself or others. For
example, confidentiality must be breached if a minor is a victim of abuses such
as rape, incest or some other crimes to the counselee’s life or the common good
detriment.
4.
Dual and Multiple Roles
Counsellors
must not assume two or more roles simultaneously or sequentially with a client.
Any multiple relationships that would impair a consellor’s objectivity,
competence and effectiveness must not be allowed. For example: a counsellor
must not enter into a business relationship with client in session.
5.
Multicultural competence
Theories
and the practice of counselling must be taken into consideration the world
views of the population that enter into a conselling relationship. For example,
when conselling an American, you stress the importance of individuality and
independence because they believe it is a requirement for maturity but when
counselling an African, collectivity or communal living should be stressed.
v 28/1/2011
v The Health Belief Model
HBM is
based on the idea that people are rational and engage in the process of
weighing the pros and cons of engaging in behaviours that could affect their
psychological well-being or health. Three factors that influence the person’s
perception according to HBM are:
·
Perceived susceptibility to health threat
·
Perceived severity to health diseases
·
Perceived benefits/barriers to treatment.
The HBM
tells us that health behaviour is consciously determined by individual. For
instance, some persons are allergic to certain diseases and so may get infected
and in order to prevent this infection, he/she determines consciously. A person
whose body is sensitive to skin disease cannot share clothe or towel with the
infected since he/she is susceptible to health diseases or threat. Note that a
model may not give one a desired result and as such two models (eclectic) may
be merged together in other to give a required or desired result.
v 4/2/2011
F Spiritual Model
Spiritual model rests on or begins with
and ends with the Word of God. The Word of God is the principle guiding that
application of spiritual model of counselling. It is the benchmark and blue-print
for the construction of reality to the knowledge of right and wrong and the
structure of personality. Spiritual model of counselling describes personality
based on the word of God.
F The goals of spiritual/Christian
counselling
1.
To encourage the client towards change of
non-productive or dysfunctional life-style. Emphasis is laid on holiness and
righteousness in the conduct of one’s daily activities. As the therapists
connect with client, he is confident that the therapeutic intervention used,
the subjective dynamics of the Holy Spirit will combine to meet the needs of
every facets of every human person – emotional, intellectual, spiritual,
social, economic and political needs.
[1] Counselling can be defines as the process
of helping individuals discover and develop their educational, vocational, and
psychological potentialities and thereby to achieve an optimal level of
personal happiness and social usefulness. The concept of counselling is
essentially democratic in that the assumptions underlying its theory and
practice are, first, that each individual has the right to shape his own
destiny and, second, that the relatively mature and experienced members of the
community are responsible for ensuring that each person’s choice shall serve
both his own interests and those of society.
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