PHILOSOPHY OF COUNSELING

Since this book is concerned with presenting the knowledge and skills that counselors should possess, it is important to explore early the reasons for the necessity of counseling. A rationale for counseling can be arrived at through a discussion of the meaning, principles, and objectives of counseling. Each of these serves to indicate the "why" of counseling.

Why counsel? Unless there are satisfactory answers to this query, what thinking student can justify the choice of the counseling profession for his career? Indeed, how can a practicing counselor maintain his self-esteem unless his rationale for counseling leads to the conclusion that counseling is an indispensable professional service?

The Meaning of Counseling

"... counseling is a one-to-one, face-to-face relationship between an individual who seeks help and another person who is professionally educated to give this help." (4, p. 219) It is immediately apparent that an individual does not have to possess the title "counselor" in order to be qualified to counsel. But he/she must be a professional, and he/she must limit his/her counseling to within the scope of his/her professional competency.

Counseling is one of the most intimate of all professional relationships in which two people interact and communicate with each other. It is certainly characteristic of the finest in our Western traditions, providing an environment in which the emphasis is on the individual and his personal fulfillment.

The nature of the help being provided by the counselor is "assisting the individual in making wise choices and adjustments." (3, p. 4) These choices involve a wide range of activities: for example, determining a major, choosing an appropriate subject, selecting an occupation, evolving a career, choosing a husband or wife, deciding on a hobby, or adopting a budget. The adjustments that confront individuals are equally diverse: adapting to new environments, dealing with fears and hostilities, resolving dilemmas, changing self-concepts, altering level of aspirations, getting along with others, maintaining self-esteem, and enhancement of self. Choices and adjustments may be classified into three areas: educational, career (or vocational), and personal-social.

When guidance is concerned with curriculum, cocurricular activities, studying, learning, and preparation for a vocation, it is classified as educational guidance. (9, p. 7)

Guidance which includes vocational interests and aptitudes, surveying vocations, selecting vocations, and getting a job is classified as vocational guidance. (9, p. 8)

Personal-social guidance involves problems in such categories as mental, emotional, ethical, social, marital, financial, health, etc.

It is important at this time to reflect upon the definitions of counseling as expressed by different authorities:

Counseling has been described as the face-to-face meeting of the counselor and counselee. Within the guidance services, counseling may be thought of as the core of the helping process, essential for the proper administration of assistance to students as they attempt to solve their problems. (15, p. 12)

Counseling is a service of verbal assistance by one person who wishes to help another person in a puzzled or troubled state by influencing his behavior so as to relieve the puzzled or troubled state. (2, p. 61)

Guidance is the assistance given to individuals in making intelligent choices and adjustments in their lives. (12, p. 25)

... we may define counseling as a learning process, warm and permissive in nature, by which one human being, properly trained, helps another to come to a closer realization of his total personality. (23, pp. 103–104)

Counseling is a personal face-to-face relationship between two people, in which the counselor, by means of the relationship and his special competencies provides a learning situation in which the counselee, a normal sort of person, is helped to know himself and his present and possible future situations so that he can use his characteristics and potentialities in a way that is both satisfying to himself and beneficial to society, and further, can learn how to solve future problems and meet future needs. (22, p. 3)

Throughout the literature on counseling, there is considerable confusion, disagreement and fuzziness in the use of the words "counseling" and "guidance." Some authorities use them synonymously. Others consider "guidance" a broader term that encompasses services other than "counseling." To further confuse the issue, the term "pupil personnel" has been inserted into the literature, sometimes to replace "guidance" and in other instances to represent more of a variety of services than is usually associated with "guidance."

The attachment of the word "guidance" to "counselor" is a redundancy in some instances, though perhaps because of the divergence in the use of the terms, even educators occasionally may become confused.

Whenever the word "guidance" is used in this text, it refers to a professional service designed to help individuals in making wise choices and adjustments. A guidance worker is any professional who is so engaged, and this includes people other than counselors, such as teachers, supervisors, and administrators.

Whenever the word "counselor" is used in this text it means "professional counselor," and it means "guidance counselor." A professional guidance counselor is defined as a qualified individual who helps another person to make wise educational, career (or vocational) and personal-social choices and adjustments.

Some colleges, universities, and agencies are referring to their counselors as "counseling psychologists." In the public schools the titles of "counselor" and "school psychologist" are used, representing two different occupations and requiring different educational preparation.

It is believed that "guidance counselor" – dropping the word "guidance" whenever the usage of the word "counselor" alone does not confuse the users – is the best identifying label for current usage.

In regard to the use of titles, it is important to consider the following:

Above all, the school has a right to expect that the counselor will be proud to be known as an educator, that he will make no pretenses, either publicly or privately, of being something better than "just an educator." (11)

The only time the word "counseling" will not refer to the definition given in this chapter is in Part II: Functions of the Counselor. In that section of the text, the occupational activities of the counselor, other than the actual act of counseling as we have just defined it, are described. As implied by the term, the functions of the counselor point out that there are other responsibilities incumbent upon the performance of counseling. What these activities are and their relationship to the one-to-one relationship are the subject matter of Part II, which in no way should confuse the reader in holding fast to the meaning of counseling as defined in this chapter.

Principles of Counseling

Each of the following principles is applicable to the concept of counseling. Counseling is a young profession, and the subject matter forming the bases of the science of counseling is still in the process of evolving into a framework of comparative stability. Consequently, there are few principles to which all counseling authorities subscribe. If the reader or his instructor disagree with a principle, the application of the third principle discussed further on makes possible this disagreement.

It is important for the reader to be alert in recognizing how the principles integrate with each other, and how the acceptance of a given principle contributes to the utilization of others.

Individualization. The adult and the child sitting on the log have long symbolized the ideal learning situation. From this emphasis on the individual, public education has unavoidably moved a long way into larger and larger groups as American society has attempted to cope with its belief in education for all.

In some texts, "guidance" becomes "guidance services," and in most usages, "pupil personnel" becomes "pupil personnel services." At the college level, "student personnel services" is used in most instances, rather than "guidance services" or "pupil personnel services," the term employed for California School Guidance Counseling Services.

Guidance Services include:
Individual Inventory Services
Counseling Services
Career Planning and Placement Services
Research and Evaluation Services
Career Counseling Services
Coordination/Consultation Services
Advisement/Program Placement Services

Pupil Personnel Services include:
Guidance Services
School Psychology Services
School Social Work Services (including Child Welfare and
Attendance Services)
School Health Services

Student Personnel Services (4, p. 231) include:
Counseling Center
Testing Service
Career Planning and Placement Service
Admissions Office
Housing Service
Financial Aid Office
Health Service
Records Office
Foreign Students Office
Student Affairs Office
Career Counseling Services
Handicapped Students Services
Advisement Services
Veterans Services
Adult Reentry Service

As we stated in the Preface, this chapter and all other chapters of the book are presented primarily within the frame of reference of the counselor who works in public schools, colleges, or universities. For these people, counseling is the service – the educative process – which counteracts the impersonalization that often comes with the group situation. Counseling focuses on the individual – one person, not the group (two or more people).

The importance of this principle in a democratic society cannot be overstressed. If many of the following principles are to be maintained, if each American is to have equal opportunities for self-enhancement, certainly there must be provision for expert assistance at those times when each person seeks specific personal attention in resolving his problems, meeting his needs, enriching his understanding of self, relating his self to his present or possible future environment, in maturing, etc. There should be little doubt why Frank W. Miller refers to counseling as "the most important service offered to pupils." (14, p. 56) This may be extended beyond the milieu of the school, substituting the word "people" for "pupils." Individualized help for a person – lawyer to client, dentist to patient, etc. – is something unique in interpersonal relationships. It is needed by each of us, it is one of the privileged heritages of being an American.

Emphasis upon the individual can, of course, occur in groups whenever the group is devoting its attention to aiding one of the members of the group or each member of the group. This matter of when and why the group should be utilized is covered in Chapter 2. Counseling and Group Guidance. As emphasized in Chapter 2, however, the utilization of the group situation should be carefully controlled to prevent any usurpation or infringement of the counseling process (the one-to-one situation).

In a discussion of existentialism in counseling, Landsman (13) points out that regardless of the positions taken by existentialists, all such theorists place "emphasis upon the self." The existentialists are not the only philosophers who adhere to the importance of individualism, but their thinking is cited here as an example of one of several possible philosophical bases for our focusing on the individual.

Learning Process. As it is used here as our second principle, learning means "the acquiring of understanding or skills." (9, p. 25) Regardless of the diverse viewpoints as to the most appropriate counseling methodology, there is little justification for any thesis which proposes that counseling is not a learning activity.

It is, of course, possible that learning will not occur, for the counselee may refuse to learn, may not want to learn, may not be able to learn, or may terminate the relationship before learning can be achieved. But none of these difficulties nullifies the principle that counseling is a learning process, which it certainly is when it is successful. When the counselor fails, and there is no learning, it does not destroy the "learning process" principle so long as the intent of the relationship is learning. If an automobile salesman and his customer are together in a "selling relationship," this is what their interaction may be called regardless of whether or not the customer buys a car. It is the rationale involved in the inception of the relationship which determines its identity.

Human Freedom. From the spirit of '76 to the immediate moment, Americans have agreed on and have fought for the concept of freedom. To exclude this principle from counseling would be unthinkable; counseling provides an environment in which the client is free to make his own choices and adjustments.

Not only is the client free to choose and to adjust in terms of his self-concept, level of aspiration, needs, personality traits, etc., he is free to delay decision making and adjusting. If he is not interfering with the rights of others, injuring others, or performing illegal acts, he should not be coerced, sold, persuaded, or led into actions: "... the foundation of freedom – the right of the individual to the pursuit of happiness as he chooses to pursue it" underlies the counseling relationship from beginning to end. (10, p. 145)

One of the prime reasons why a counselee often approaches a counseling appointment with resentment is that he was told he "should" see a counselor or worse, that he "must" see a counselor. The freshman who receives a form letter directing him to report to the Counseling Center or the transfer student who must meet with a counselor are examples of possible causes of a counselee's resistance to counseling before he is ever exposed to it. The hoary adage, "You can lead a horse to water, but ..." still applies.

In such situations, it is fitting to invite freshmen and transfer students (plus all other students) to avail themselves of the counseling service whenever they wish. Detailed explanations of the services offered by counselors should be called to the attention of the students at frequent, strategic intervals. But there should be no infringement of the individual's freedom; he should be permitted to stay away from the Counseling Center if he so chooses.

Helping. The core, the foundation, and the structure of counseling are tied into the principle of helping, for the very essence of counseling is helping.

The naive, the immature, the unknowing, the unskilled, the prejudiced, et al. – in varying degrees of deficiency – come to the counselor seeking assistance. It is not that the counselor "plays God" or pretends to be a fountain from which all manner of wisdom flows. Rather, within the scope of his education and experience, and in terms of his specialization or generalization, he strives to aid the individual, to provide the kind of assistance the person desires.

The techniques used in providing this help are discussed in Part III, the section dealing with the art of counseling.

With the ever-increasing complexity of living, everyone needs help from many professional sources: from the physician, dentist, lawyer, counselor, etc. It is the personalized assistance that makes the counseling relationship unique in human relationships.

Influencing Behavior. What the counselor and counselee do in the counseling relationship should have an effect on the counselee's future behavior. This is inevitable if the counselee learns anything in counseling. Accordingly, counseling influences behavior.

The counselor is attempting to influence the behavior of the client – this is obvious; otherwise he wouldn't be engaged in counseling. (17)

Caution should be exercised in delimiting the meaning of "influence." Having an effect on behavior means that the counselor serves only as a catalyst, contributing to the client's acquiring understanding or skills which then facilitate the making of wise choices and adjustments himself.

Thus, this principle does not mean that the counselor should try to manipulate, maneuver, cajole, or persuade the client to make certain choices or to adjust in a prescribed pattern. Instead, it should pertain to counseling methodology, which is selected only to aid the client. The "influence" is exerted through techniques chosen by the counselor which are intended to show the counselee the facts needed, the alternatives to consider, etc., so that the counselee has "techniques of action" that can move him in the direction of the resolution of his difficulties.