Counselling: what does it mean?
Counselling for me means to be given the privilege to get alongside a person- to go on a journey together. At the beginning, neither the duration nor the destination of this journey is clearly defined. But interestingly the person knows about the desired goal: it can be to clarify things – to gain greater inner freedom – to experience healing. As the journey is unique for each client as are the experience and the outcome of this journey.
Gerald Corey writes: "Clients have great hope for major changes in their lives with little effort on their part. As therapy progresses, clients discover that they must be active in the process, selecting their own goals and working toward them, both in the sessions and in daily living. Some clients can benefit from recognizing and expressing pent-up feelings, others will need to examine their beliefs and thoughts, other will most need to begin behaving in different ways, and others will benefit from talking with you about their relationships with the significant people in their lives" (Theory and Practice of Counselling & Psychotherapy, p 477). He further writes that it is the counselor’s task to decide what interventions are most likely to be helpful and to take into account the client’s cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic background.
I created following 'nutshell', capturing the necessary attributes to an effective counselling process:
