Psychological counseling is a relatively new field in applied psychology that provides psychological assistance and advice to clients. It involves an initial assessment of the client's problem through a personal interview, followed by the psychologist providing recommendations to help the client solve their problem without ongoing assistance. Psychological counseling requires specialized training and knowledge. While it was originally intended for those seeking to become psychologists, the field is now included in the training of various social service professionals. There remains a need to develop training manuals on psychological counseling to better train professionals and serve client needs.
Psychological counseling is a relatively new field in applied psychology that provides psychological assistance and advice to clients. It involves an initial assessment of the client's problem through a personal interview, followed by the psychologist providing recommendations to help the client solve their problem without ongoing assistance. Psychological counseling requires specialized training and knowledge. While it was originally intended for those seeking to become psychologists, the field is now included in the training of various social service professionals. There remains a need to develop training manuals on psychological counseling to better train professionals and serve client needs.
Psychological counseling is a relatively new field in applied psychology that provides psychological assistance and advice to clients. It involves an initial assessment of the client's problem through a personal interview, followed by the psychologist providing recommendations to help the client solve their problem without ongoing assistance. Psychological counseling requires specialized training and knowledge. While it was originally intended for those seeking to become psychologists, the field is now included in the training of various social service professionals. There remains a need to develop training manuals on psychological counseling to better train professionals and serve client needs.
Psychological counseling is a relatively new field in applied psychology that provides psychological assistance and advice to clients. It involves an initial assessment of the client's problem through a personal interview, followed by the psychologist providing recommendations to help the client solve their problem without ongoing assistance. Psychological counseling requires specialized training and knowledge. While it was originally intended for those seeking to become psychologists, the field is now included in the training of various social service professionals. There remains a need to develop training manuals on psychological counseling to better train professionals and serve client needs.
Psychological counseling is a relatively new field in the professional
activity of a psychologist, and in the development of science in our country, scientific research on psychology has recently emerged as an independent field of activity, along with traditional practical forms of teaching psychology, psychological correction, and psychodiagnostics. Undoubtedly, this activity requires special, deep knowledge and professional training from a specialist. It is not possible to simply organize this preparation, to replace it with the above-mentioned areas of knowledge and skills, but all these knowledge are very necessary for a psychologist-counselor. Knowledge in the field of psychological counseling is mandatory not only for those who want to become practical psychologists, but also for social service workers and defectologists (specialists in the field of psychology). Currently, the science of psychological counseling is included in the training of specialists in all higher educational institution programs, and there is every reason to believe that in the near future, our republic will be equal to the developed countries of the world in terms of the number of practicing psychologists. Training of such specialists in higher educational institutions began as psychologist-consultants. 1. In recent years, the majority of psychologists who have received higher psychological education in higher educational institutions of the country feel the need to improve their knowledge in the field of psychological counseling, but this need has not been fully met until now. In our opinion, one of the main reasons for this state of affairs is the fact that not a single training manual on psychological counseling has been created in the country. First of all, the textbook can be used only by those who want to become practical psychologists, social service workers or special psychologists (defectologists) and undergraduates who have to study psychological counseling as one of the compulsory subjects. Secondly, this book can be useful for self- study for those who are just interested in applied psychology as a system of knowledge and skills useful to a person in everyday life. CHAPTER I. WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING?
Psychological counseling refers to a special field of applied psychology
related to the provision of psychological assistance directly provided by a specialist psychologist as advice and recommendations to those in need. They are given by the psychologist on the basis of an initial study of the problem faced by the client in his life and a personal interview. Often, psychological counseling is conducted at a predetermined hour, in a room specially equipped for this purpose, usually free of strangers and one-on- one, face-to-face. Psychological consultation is conducted in the form of a personal interview of a psychologist with a client, which lasts from one to three hours. During this conversation, the client talks about his problems and himself. The psychologist, in turn, listens carefully trying to understand the nature of the problem, trying to clarify this problem both for himself and for the client. scientific, reasonable recommendations are given. The advice and suggestions given to the client by the psychologist- consultant in most cases are aimed at the client being able to fully solve his problem without the help of the psychologist-consultant. Psychological counseling is a practice created to provide practical psychological help to people based on the belief that they can solve all psychological problems that arise in human life. But the client always knows what the essence of his problem is that it consists of and relying on its strength and capabilities, it does not clearly know and does not understand how to solve it. A professionally trained psychologist-counselor should help him in this regard. This is the main task of psychological counseling. During counseling, the psychologist usually uses special work methods and methods of influencing the client's problem aimed at finding a practical solution to the client's problem in a short period of time. That's it while this solution is implemented in away that is understandable and possible for the customer to implement. The meeting of a psychologist-consultant with a client is often not limited to one or two meetings. In most cases, it is necessary to consult with the client three times or more over a long period of time. The need for such long-term counseling arises in the following typical cases: The client's problem is so complex that it is almost impossible to understand it in one or two hours. The client has not one, but several problems, the solution of each of which requires a separate consultation; The solution of the proposed problem cannot be implemented immediately and fully independently by the client and requires additional assistance from the consultant. Due to the individual characteristics of the client, the psychologist-consultant does not fully believe that he will be able to solve his problem immediately and without additional help. Such cases occur if the client does not have enough self-confidence, cannot control his emotions and behavior, if his level of intellectual development is not sufficient to independently accept a reasonable, correct solution in difficult situations. Who, when and why consult a psychologist- counselor? People who are in the high risk zone in terms of their physical and health status, often referred to as the middle class of the population, turn to a psychologist-consultant. The high risk zone refers to people who are prone to nervous, mental and physical illnesses and situations where they can actually get sick. Other, physically and mentally strong, much healthier people get out of such situations only by feeling tired or uncomfortable. Those who seek psychological counseling are usually people who have not adjusted well enough to life and are not very busy with their work, because it takes time to get a full, detailed consultation of a psychologist. There are many unlucky people among those who turn to a psychologist- consultant for help in life and more than anyone else, and it is precisely these people who think that they are physically unhealthy that bad luck forces them to wait for help from a psychologist. Among those who turn to a psychologist- counselor, there are people with one or another emotional withdrawal, which, in turn, is the result of many depressions and despair. When do these people start actively seeking help from a psychologist? This usually does not happen immediately when they have a problem, but they turn to it when the most difficult times in their lives begin. When a person does not know what to do, or when he has no options to solve his problem on his own, he comes to a psychologist- consultant for help. A person may turn to a psychologist for help when he is in a bad state of mind, when he thinks that something scary is happening to him or to people close to him, that may lead to bad consequences. What do people expect from a counseling psychologist? Why do they turn to him? These questions can be answered as follows: 1. Some clients know how to solve their problems in general and seek only psychological help from a psychologist-consultant. 2. Others do not know how to solve the problem and go for advice. 3. Those who do not fully believe in themselves or do not know which of the available options to solve their problems. It is necessary to convince them and direct their activities in the right direction. 4. These are often lonely people who just need someone to talk to, they usually don't have serious psychological problems, but occasionally they desperately need someone who listens carefully and is kind. Among the clients of psychological counseling, there are also those who bring to the psychologist-consultant just out of curiosity or just a desire to argue with him. Some really want to know what a psychologist- counselor is and what he does.