The Clientele and Audiences of Counseling

Individuals and groups of people who receive services from various

counseling professions constitute the clientele and audience (Clientele
and audience are made up of individuals and groups who seek out the
services of different counseling professions). These individuals and
groups vary in their needs and context in which they avail of counseling
services (Their requirements and the environment in which they
receive counseling services vary among these individuals and
groups).

4.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CLIENTELE AND AUDIENCES OF COUNSELING

 Are normal people
 They are not in need of clinical or mental help

 Maybe the youth in need of guidance at critical moments of their growth

 Anyone in need of assistance in realizing a change in behavior or attitude or

simply seeking to achieve a goal

 Other clientele may be people in need of premarital and marital counseling, grief
and loss (divorce, death, or amputation), domestic violence and other types of
abuse, or coping with a terminal illness, death, and dying.

The clientele and audiences of counseling are normal people. They are not in need of
clinical or mental help. They may be the youth in need of guidance at critical moments
of their growth, anyone in need of assistance in realizing a change in behavior or
attitude, or simply seeking to achieve a goal. What the audience normally calls for in
counseling is the application or development of social skills, effective communication,
spiritual direction, decision-making, and career choices. Sometimes, people need to
cope with crises. Other clientele and audiences of counseling may be people in need of
premarital and marital counseling, grief and loss, domestic violence and other types of
abuse, or coping with a terminal illness, death, and dying.
LOOK AT THE FOLLOWING ROLES OF COUNSELORS THEN DESCRIBE THE
INTENDED CLIENTELE AND THEIR SPECIFIC NEED.
ENGAGE
Role of Counselor
School counselor
Job hunting coach
Conflict management provider
Human resource personnel
Marriage counselor
Rehabilitation counselor
Bereavement counselor
Clientele and Their Needs
Students who need to resolve personal
conflicts or stressful situations
The requirement to find suitable work for
job seekers.
Persons who need to resolve conflicts in
a positive way.
Attend to the social needs, compensation,
dispute resolution, and needs of the
employee.
Couples and families who must deal with
a variety of challenges and problems that
jeopardize their harmony or peaceful
coexistence.
Drug users who need to resolve their
issues or lessen the harmful
consequences of drug consumption.
Those who require assistance in
overcoming a loss, such as a death in the
family, and in avoiding depression.
4.2 NEEDS OF VARIOUS TYPES OF CLIENTELE AND AUDIENCES OF
COUNSELING

SCHOOL GUIDANCE COUNSELOR – these professionals provide the need for

personal guidance by helping students seek more options and find better and more
appropriate ones in dealing with situations of stress or simply decision-making.
(This may include career options. Sometimes they serve as a link between the
home and the school in settling disputes that have a negative impact on students
and their families to the point where they endanger the growth and learning of the
pupils.)

JOB-HUNTING COACHES – provide avenues for people to find necessary information

and get employment that is suitable for them.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROVIDERS – provide the need for principles and theory-
based approaches to deal with conflict and de-escalate it, if not revolve it positively.

HUMAN RESOURCES PERSONNEL – provide the needs common to all workplaces

and they are employed in almost all workplaces to deal with various employee needs
that cover aspects of remunerations, social services, compensations, conflict resolution,
and discipline.

MARRIAGE COUNSELORS – provide the need for conflict-resolution skills to parties,

couples, and children to deal with various stresses and issues that threaten their unity
or peaceful coexistence.

REHABILITATION COUNSELOR – meet the need to help people overcome their

problems or mitigate some of the most negative effects of drug abuse.

BEREAVEMENT COUNSELORS – they respond to the need to be helped to go

through loss, such as a death in the family, in a way that will help prevent depression
and other unhealthy ways of dealing or coping with loss such as committing suicide or
giving up on life.
4.3 THE INDIVIDUAL AS CLIENT OF COUNSELING
Individualized counseling is the type that is most frequently used. The individual
who needs to be helped to manage well a life-changing situation or personal
problem or crisis and other support needs may undergo counseling as an
individual. Problems like alcoholism, loss of job, divorce, imprisonment, and
rehabilitation can cause shame and embarrassment. (Without acquiring
enough strength ad ability to go through such life experiences, people are
vulnerable and may come out worse.)

4.4 THE GROUP AND ORGANIZATION AS CLIENTS OF COUNSELING

Groups exist in communities, organizations, students in schools, teachers in
schools, and departments in workplaces, and such entities can undergo group
counseling to meet counseling needs on that level. The needs can range from a
desire to reduce conflict or manage it, become more productive as a team, or
work better together. Some of the group processes and procedures resemble
those that are applied to individuals. However, some are unique to the group and
organizational context.

4.5 THE COMMUNITY AS CLIENT OF COUNSELING

When people experience something collectively, which may be socially troubling
and constitute the danger of blocking their collective capacity to move on,
counseling is necessary to be undertaken on a community level.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sigmund Freud – based on Freud’s explanation that human beings are basically
determined by psychic energy and early experiences
 He was close to his mother when he was young.
 He was a medical doctor and is fond of the drug cocaine.
 He was not a successful in the field of medicine.
 He helped Joseph Breuer in treating Anna O. of her hysteria through “talk
therapy”.

LEVELS OF MENTAL LIFE

 UNCONCIOUS
 PRECONSCIOUS
 CONSCIOUS

Unconscious – contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our
awareness but that nevertheless motivate most of our words, feelings, and action.
Preconscious – contains all those elements that are not conscious but can’t become
conscious either quiet readily or with some difficulty.
- Can come from either conscious or unconscious
Conscious – defines as those mental elements in awareness at any given point in time
- Perceptual Conscious System – which is turned toward the outer
world and acts as medium for the perception of external stimuli.

PROVINCES OF THE MIND

 ID
 SUPER EGO
 EGO

Id – the pleasure principle

- Baby ug mind
 - No contact with reality
- Illogical, primitive, chaotic, inaccessible
Super ego – Morality and idealistic principle
- naa na sa matured level of mindset
- Represents the moral and ideal aspects of personality
- Conscience- what we should not do
- Ego-ideal – what we should do

Ego – the reality principle

- The “ego” or “I” is the only region of the mind in contact with reality.
- The greater reconciler, the diplomat, and employs defense
mechanism
- A healthy individual must have a strong ego that can be with
the demands of id and super ego

DYNAMIC PERSONALITY (THE MOVEMENT)

 Drives
 Aggression
 Anxiety

Drives – it operates as a constant motivational force as an internal stimulus,

drives differ from external stimuli in that they cannot be avoided through fight
Sex-drive – Freud believed that the entire body is invested with libido
- Energy for sexual drive
- The ultimate aim of the sexual drive (reduction of sexual
tension) cannot be changed but the path by which the aim is
reached can be varied.
- Sex-drive can be express via narcissism, love, sadism, and
masochism
NARCISSISM – extreme self-love (hambog)
LOVE – love that we read on pocket books/wattpad
SADISM – wanted to hurt people (through physical pleasure or like Christian Grey in the
Fifty shades of Grey)
MASOCHISM – receiving the pain (like Anastacia in the Fifty shades of Grey)
 DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY
Aggression – the aim of the destructive drive, according to Freud, is to return the
organism to an inorganic state
- can be expressed via teasing, gossip, humiliation, humor and
enjoyment of other people’s suffering
- Thanatos – death drive
- Ultimate inorganic state: suicidal thought gossips

Anxiety – Freud 1933-1964, emphasize that it is a felt, affective, unpleasant state

accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger.
 Neurotic Anxiety – worry comes from nothing (unknown danger)

 Moral Anxiety – conscience attack over-thinker not showing empathy

 Realistic Anxiety – an unpleasant, nonspecific feeling involving a possible
danger. (Covid-19)

DEFENSE MECHANISM
 To protect the Ego from the impulses and demands of id and superego
(which manifests as drives and anxiety), the ego uses techniques to avoid
breaking down.
 Mechanism or patterns of thought that the ego uses to satisfy the demands of id
and superego
 This can result to having a weak ego, therefore weaker control and personality

LIST OF DEFENSE MECHANISM

Repression – repression is an unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep
disturbing or threatening from becoming conscious.
Denial – denial involves blocking external events from awareness. If some situation is
just to much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.
Projection – this involves individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts,
feeling and motives to another person.
Displacement – satisfying an impulse (e.g., aggression) with a substitute object.
Regression – this is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with
stress.
Sublimation – satisfying an impulse (e.g., aggression) with a substitute object in a
socially acceptable way.

The late 1950s saw three schools of thought in psychology that became very dominant
psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and the humanistic perspective.

The field of psychoanalysis encompasses a vast number of therapy models that utilize
dreams, fantasies, associations, and the expression of thoughts both verbally and
physically.

BEHAVIORISM
Represented by BF Skinner (1904-1990), behaviorism fomised on the effects of
reinforcement on observable behavior. All psychological disorders are a result of
maladaptive learning that all behavior is learnt from our environment and
symptoms are acquired through classical conditioning and operant
conditioning.
 Classical conditioning involves learning by association.
 Operant conditioning involves learning by reinforcement (eg, rewards) and
punishment.

HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE
Represented by Carl Rogers (1902-1987). Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), and
George Kelly (1905-1966), the humanistic perspective attempted to understand
the conscious mind, free will, human dignity, and the capacity for self-reflection
and growth. Humanistic therapeutic models are rooted in insight and focus on
self-development, growth, and responsibilities. They seek to help individuals gain
self-empowerment by recognizing their strengths, creativity, and choice in their
given circumstances.
The following are among the basic counseling approaches commonly used today that
provide processes, methods, and tools for counselors to draw from Psychoanalytic
Therapy, Adlerian Therapy, Existential Therapy, Person-centered Therapy, Gestalt
Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Behavior Therapy, Rational-emotive Therapy,
and Reality Therapy.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY
 an approach developed by Sigmund Freud
 is based on Freud’s explanation that human beings are basically determined
by psychic energy and early experiences. These unconscious energy and
experiences invented people’s behavior in the form of unconscious motives
and inflicts.
 The goal of a therapist is to help a client become conscious of this energy and
early experiences and thereby become empowered and harness both
positively.

ADLERIAN THERAPY
 It was developed by Alfred Adler (1870-1937) who believed that the first six
years of life influence an individual. But ensuing behavior depended on
how one interprets his/her past and its continuing influence on him/her. For
Adler, humans are motivated primarily by social urges.

EXISTENTIAL THERAPY
 Viktor Frank! (1905-1997), Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), and Rollo May
(1909-1994) are considered key figures.
  Existential therapy focuses on the human capacity to define and shape
his/her own life, give meaning to personal circumstance through reflection,
decision-making and self-awareness.
 It draws heavily on existentialist philosophy that emphasizes human freedom
to define oneself, and that our lives are not predetermined; we have a
responsibility to live and to see in life what we chose to. The only things we
cannot control is being born and the fact of dying.

PERSON CENTERED THERAPY

 originated from Carl Rogers (1907-1987).
 For Rogers, people get share, or surrender power and control over
themselves and others, and so empowerment depended on the self and such
required non-directive process.
 Non- directive counselors focus on the client’s self discovery rather than their
input.
 The main stay in this non-directive counseling is counselor-client reflecting and
clarifying the verbal and non-verbal communications of clients. The process
includes the counselor use of active listening, reflection of feelings, clarification,
and just “being there” for the counselee in a non-interventionist way.

GESTALT THERAPY
 was developed and introduced by Frederick S. Perls (1893-1970)
 It is an existential approach, stressing that people must find their own way in
life and accept personal responsibility for maturity.
 They must develop an awareness of their unfinished business from the past,
traumatic experiences in life, and what they are doing in order for them to bring
about change in their lives.
 Gestalt therapy techniques include confrontation, dialog with parties, role-
playing, reliving, and re- experiencing unfinished business in the forms of
resentment and guilt. Counselors push for doing and experiencing rather than
just talk about one’s feelings as client. It involves recognizing and letting go,
accompanied by actions like breaking a glass or hitting something hard.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS
  was developed by Eric Berne (1910-1970)
 Its main aniqueness is its emphasis on decisions and contracts that must be
made by the client. Like other existentialist philosophies, which are based on
the understanding of human nature.
 this approach believes that the client has the potential for choice and so,
the contract made by the client clearly states the directions and goals of
the therapeutic process.

BEHAVIOR THERAPY
 also referred to as behavior modification, is associated with: many theorists
and among them are Amold Lazarus, Albert Bandura, B.F. Skinner,
Mahoney, David L. Watson, and AE Kazdin.
 Behavior therapy user must action-oriented methods to help people take steps to
change what they are doing and thinking.
 This approach focuses on the overt behavior, precision in specifying the
goals of treatment, and the development of specific treatment plans in this
approach.
 The counselor is active and directive, and functions as a teacher or trainer in
helping clients to work on improving behavior.

RATIONAL EMOTIVE THERAPY

 was developed by Albert Ellis (1913-2007).
 It is a form of cognitively-oriented behavioral therapy and is based on the
assumption that human beings are born with a potential for both rational or
straight thinking, and inational or crooked thinking.
 Beatise people are fallible, this approach focuses on helping clients to
accept themselves as people who would continue to make mistakes, yet at
the same time learn to live with themselves and be at peace with
themselves.
 Ellis stressed that through thinking, judging, deciding and doing, people can
change their cognitive, emotive, and behavioral processes and react differently
from their usual pattern. They can train to master themselves and control
themselves like choosing not to be upset.

REALITY THERAPY
  was founded and promoted by William Glasser (1925-2013).
 This therapy is a short-term approach that focuses on the present and
highlights a client’s strength.
 It stresses that a client can learn more realistic behavior and achieve sucans.
 For Glasser, people choose their behavior and are therefore responsible for
what they do and how they think and feel.
 What a client needs from a counselor is encouragement to assess the current
style of living then leave them to employ a process of honest sell- examination,
leading and resulting to improvement of one’s quality of life.

5.1. Government Setting

Counseling professionals in government setting work with the various
govemment agencies that have counseling services such as social welfare,
correctional departinent, the court system, child and women affairs
services, schools, military, police, hospitals, mental and foster homes, and
rehabilitation centers. Sometimes, other specialized departments also have
units of counselors such as intelligence-gathering departments, military and
police departments, presidential guards, and special advisories

5.2. Private Sectors Setting

In the private sector, counselors range from independent providers of services
or work for NGOs, or specialized for profit centers and organizations that
render a variety of counseling services. The processes, methods, and tools
used by counselors in the private sectors setting remain very much the same as
in the government setting.

5.3. Civil Society Setting

The context of civil society is generally charities or non-profit and issue-
based centers or organizations such as for abused women, abandoned
children and elderly, veterans, teachers, professionals, or religious groups.
The methods, and tools used resemble each other.

5.5. Community Setting

The community has the greatest and widest application of counseling services
considering the diversity of people who constitute the community. There are
people who are in conflict with the law, socially marginalized, people who
surfer loss of all kinds, those living in institutional homes, and those
experiencing different types of life transitions that need counseling
support and services. The community setting creates a crossroad for individual
context and group context. Therefore, the needs recognized and addressed on
other levels are equally present in the cominunity setting