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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Lesson 05

GOALS & ACTIVITIES

GOALS OF COUNSELING

This section will elaborate on the expected results or goals from counseling. The ultimate decision about the

goals must rest with the client and counselor as a team.

Criteria for Judging Goals

Krumboltz (1966) identifies the following criteria for judging the effectiveness of counseling goals:

· Goals capable of being stated differently for each client

· Compatible with values of the counselor

· The degree of attainment of goals should be observable

A few important goals of counseling are as under:

· Facilitating behavior change

· Enhancing coping skills

· Promoting decision making

· Improving relationships

· Facilitating the client's potential

Facilitating Behavior Change

· Rogers (1961) sees behavior change as a necessary result of counseling process, although specific

behaviors receive little emphasis during the counseling experience.

· Dustin and George (1971), on the other hand, suggest that the counselor must establish specific

counseling goals.

· Almost all theorists agree to bring about a change in behavior enabling the client to live a more

productive and satisfying life. They believe that the specific goals make both understand the

specific change.

Enhancing Coping Skills

· Few people completely achieve developmental tasks.

· Inconsistency of significant others can result in ineffective learning in children.

· New interpersonal or occupational role demands may create an overload and excessive anxiety.

· Counselor helps individuals to cope effectively.

Promoting Decision Making

· Counselor just promotes not makes decisions. Counselor provides information, clarifies and sorts

out personal characteristics and emotions, and even attitudes affecting decision making.

· The client learns to estimate the probable consequences in personal sacrifice, time, energy, money,

risk, and the like.

· One question emerges from the points discussed above that if client has the major responsibility of

improving himself/ herself, then where does the counselor fit in? The answer to this question is

that client works as a facilitator for the client and provides a safe and comfortable environment

where the client will perceive the counselor as a trustworthy person and will be able to share his

problems with the counselor. In this kind of therapeutic atmosphere, the client will be able to find

the solutions of his problems himself/herself.

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Improving Relationships

· Many people have problems relating to others as much of our life is spent in social interactions.

Bowlby's attachment theory states that children of insecure and rejecting parents establish their

adult relationships differently than those of secure and understanding parents.

· This problem can be due to "poor self image", "unstable self-esteem", or "inadequate social skills"

· Counselor strives to helps improve quality of relationships. Sometimes counselor improves

relationships by improving client counselor relationship.

Facilitating the Client's Potential

· The counselor attempts to promote the client's growth by improving personal effectiveness and

skills like interpersonal relationships and problematic behaviors like smoking, eating, drinking,

shyness, anxiety, and depression.

· Blocher (1966) suggests that:

o First counselor maximizes an individual's possible freedom within limitations.

o Second, counselor seeks to maximize a client's effectiveness promoted by giving him

control over the environment.

Qualification & Training of Counselor

· Three levels of training:

o First: Appropriate educational and/ or experience background.

o Second: Master's degree: According to the British Association for Counselors, Master's

different learning modules should be two third of the course, whereas rest of the part can

be dissertation, usually of 20,000 words.

o Third: Doctorate degree (180 training institutions in US and Canada).

Core areas of study in counseling are:

o Professional identity

o Social and cultural diversity

o Human growth and development

o Career development

o Helping relationships

o Group work

o Assessment

o Research and program evaluation

Accreditation is a part of the process of post-training of counseling. The Official approval is taken

by different professional bodies, e.g., BAC, APA, and ACA.

BAC requires 450 hours supervised client work: 200 hours of skill development and 250 hours of

theory.

A license to practice is to ensure the accountability (referral & consultation) and is usually the

requirement of different organizations seeking counselors' services.

Work Activities of Counselors

Certain activities have evolved for counselors across all settings. First 5 are traditional or basic activities,

later these were expanded to referral, etc. The rest of the activities were added to the list later.

· Individual assessment

· Individual counseling

· Group counseling and guidance

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Career Assistance

Placement and follow up

Referral

Consultation

Research

Evaluation

Accountability

Prevention

Individual Assessment & Counseling

· Individual assessment and counselling is considered as a primary skill of the counsellor. It seeks,

systematically, to identify the characteristics and potential of every client by using standardized

tests, observation and self-reporting techniques like autobiography. Sometime a counselor can also

consult other professionals in this field like psychometrics, etc.

· Individual counseling is the core activity through which all the other activities become meaningful

with counseling being one-to-one helping relationship. It is a client-centred approach that demands

confidentiality and it is initiated when a relationship is established between the counselor and the

client.

Effective counseling requires:

1. Training and skills,

2. Certain personality traits,

3. Counseling will suffer from credibility unless counselor exhibits core traits.

Group Counseling and Guidance

· Groups have become popular for providing organized assistance to individuals for a wide range of

needs e.g., to drug abuse, to families for understanding and coping. They may include task groups

or psycho educational groups.

Group Counseling:

· Focuses on assisting counselees to cope with their day-to-day adjustment and developmental

concerns.

· More popular in agency and institutional settings.

Group Guidance:

· The activities of group guidance are educational, vocational, career, personal, or social.

· Groups are designed with a goal of providing students and employees the accurate information.

· More likely to be found in schools/colleges to provide information for career or educational

understanding for personal and social growth, adjustment and development, personal relationship

skills, etc.

Career Assistance

· Providing career assistance to clients with dramatic changes taking place in the world of work.

· Providing counselling not at selected stages in life's development, but across the entire life span.

· Technological advancements impact the ways counsellors provide career assistance and information

to their clients.

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Moreover, criteria of promotions and selections do vary with the passage of time, for example, in

Pakistan promotion is now contingent on person's work, qualification and research. Hence, the

counsellor shall be aware of these changes so rapidly taking place in the work environment.

Counselling profession is called upon to renew and update its efforts in one of its traditional areas

of service by paying attention to latest changes like internet use, computer based assessment tools,

programs, distance learning, and interactive learning systems.

Placement & Follow-up

· Educational placement in courses and programs has been a traditional service of school

counselling. The concerns for youth employment in 1990 in USA resulted in increased attention to

second placement service and to match students with type of work, seeking part time or full time

jobs.

· Follow-up activities are a way to assess the effectiveness of a program's placement activities.

Referral

The counsellor also refers clients to appropriate counsellors or agencies if required.

Consultation

It is a process for helping a client through a third party or helping a system improves its services to its

clientele. Counsellors are used as a consultant to teachers and parents. They are also consulted to

prevent severe mental illness, mostly in agency settings.

Research

Research is necessary for the advancement of counselling profession. It can provide empirically based

data relevant to different goals of counselling.

Evaluation

Evaluation is the process for assessing the effectiveness of counsellor's activities.

Prevention

· It is the most attractive alternative to traditional mental health practices and seeks to prevent the

occurrence of the disorder in the first place. Home and school are the first social institutions that

shape early adaptation and influence early human development. Accordingly, primary intervention

strategies can be initiated to educate parents and teachers. The counsellors also work in close

alliance with medical doctors to promote both physical and mental well-being.

· The current trends are to focus on the holistic approach to counselling which embodies the

dimensions of body, mind, spirit and emotions.

Where Counsellors Work?

· Educational institutions: At the turn of 20th century, there were no counsellors in US schools.

However, after more than 100 years, more than 125,000 school counselors are now working in

USA.

· Rehabilitation centres, e.g., working with disabled; the rehabilitation counselors are specialized in

dealing with developmental issues.

· Industry

· Community or various agency settings

· Rehabilitation centres

· Private practice

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632

Marriage and family counseling centres