Counselling is a chance to rethink your feelings, and to re-feel your experiences; and to digest what
needs to be digested, and then move on.
SOME PRACTICAL DEFINITIONS
In simple terms, counselling
involves one person (the counsellor) helping another person (the client) to work through some difficult or painful emotional,
behavioural or relationship problem or difficulty. That is the form of individual counselling. Here is my video
description of counselling:
A counsellor
may also see a couple, especially a married or cohabiting couple, to help them with their relationship. And some counsellors
help whole families to work on their relationship problems. See also my Couples Therapy page.
Counselling takes place in a confidential meeting, in a quiet room, and
is subject to a code of ethics which specifies what the counsellor can and cannot morally do in that context. (See the Accreditation and Ethicspage). Here is an illustration of a counsellor and client engaging in CBT counselling:
As practiced by Jim Byrne, counselling and therapy (and coaching)
amount to helping the client to identify the source of their emotional or behavioural problems; and/or to refine their understanding
of their practical problems; and/or to clarify their goals in relation to some developmental challenge; and/or to overcome
their emotional, behavioural or relationship difficulties or problems. To understand how he operates as a counsellor is to
perceive him as a "(relatively) wise philosopher who teaches what he has used to heal his own life".
There
are, of course, different approaches to counselling, with some being quite passive, listening forms of counselling; while
others are more analytical of the sources of the presenting problem; and others quite philosophical and into teaching the
client the philosophical wisdom of the ages. The CBT/REBT approach is probably one of the most educative of the counselling
approaches. Here is an example of a satisfied client describing her experience of CBT counselling for grief at the loss
of her husband.
I see my work as a combination of an empowering relationship and
a teaching/learning encounter. For some schools of counselling, the relationship is primary. For example:
‘Pilgrim (1997) describes psychotherapy as a “type of personal relationship entailing a series of negotiated
meetings containing conversations" (p. 97). The central feature of psychotherapy is defined by Holmes and Lindley (1989)
as "..... the use of a relationship between therapist and (client) - as opposed to pharmacological or social methods
- to produce changes in (thinking), feeling and behaviour". These more universal definitions tend to focus upon the relationship.
A definition reflecting the unique social role of psychotherapy is offered by Smail (1987). He describes it as a situation
where people are offered the rare opportunity to pursue the truth about themselves and their lives. This is without the threat
of blame and disapproval and without the risk of offending or hurting the person to whom they are revealing themselves. Although
these definitions emphasise different aspects, all indicate how central the relationship is to any understanding of the practice
of psychotherapy’. Neil Scott Gordon (2000, March).
Here is an illustration
of a role played counselling session using the relational approach:
In the UK there are 99 organizations representing
counsellors, and each of them varies somewhat in their emphasis on what counsellors do. Forty-six of those counselling organizations
are (directly or indirectly) in negotiations with the government about professionalization of the field.
One of
those forty-six organizations, the BACP, defines counselling as follows:
"Counselling
takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having,
distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose.
It is always at the request of the client as no one can properly be 'sent' for counselling".
"By listening
attentively and patiently the counsellor can begin to perceive the difficulties from the client's point of view and can help
them to see things more clearly, possibly from a different perspective. Counselling is a way of enabling choice or change
or of reducing confusion. It does not involve giving advice or directing a client to take a particular course of action. Counsellors
do not judge or exploit their clients in any way". (Source: BACP website - http://www.bacp.co.uk/education/whatiscounselling
.html).
Much of this definition would be acceptable to most counsellors in the
UK, although clarifying options for clients is increasingly common, and helping them to reach decisions of their own. In addition,
we have the concept of "therapy", which comes from the Greek word for "healing". And counselling and therapy,
which overlap significantly, can be said to be in the business of "healing the life" of the client. Or helping the
client to "heal themselves". No attempt to distinguish counselling from therapy has been particularly successful,
and it is best to see "counselling and therapy" as a unified field of endeavour. (See: Nelson-Jones, 2002, Essential
Counselling and Therapy Skills, pages 4-5).
As practiced by Jim Byrne, counselling and therapy (and
coaching), amount to helping the client to identify the source of their emotional or behavioural problems; and/or to refine
their understanding of their practical problems; and/or to clarify their goals in relation to some developmental challenge;
and/or to overcome their emotional, behavioural or relationship difficulties or problems. To understand how he operates as
a counsellor is to perceive him as a "(relatively) wise philosopher who teaches what he has used to heal his own life,
and to gain mastery over his own affairs". But he does this with one eye on the emotional component of the relationship
with the client. And he is increasingly concerned with questions to do with how securely or insecurely the client is
attached to significant others, and how to help them to develop secure attachments in all their significant relationships.
To clarify this emphasis on feeling, emotion and affect, here is a final clip: What is Counselling? Part 2: