INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING

PSY 3140

PSY 3140
WEEK 1

DR. ELSIE NEWA

 WHY DO YOU CHOOSE
COUNSELING
• Before you choose to be a counselor be honest with yourself
by :
• Confronting your own fears
• Self deception
• Ambivalence
• Motives
Different reasons for the helping
profession.
• Do you want to save the world
• To save yourself
• Desire to help others
• Make a difference in the lives of those suffering
• Empathy from personal experiences
• Make the world civilized.
• You enjoy touching other lives
Important to note before you begin:
• Do you lose your objectivity, clarity, cos of your own
personal issues that interfere in the process
• Perceptions of your clients get disturbed, or polluted by your
own personal issues.
• Transference and countertransference reactions.
• Transference is subconsciously associating a person in the
present with a past relationship.
• For example, you meet a new client who reminds you of a
former lover.
• Transference occurs when a person re-directs some of their feelings
or desires for another person to an entirely different person.
• An example of transference is when you observe characteristics of
your father in a new boss.
• You attribute fatherly feelings to this new boss
• Countertransference is responding to them with all the thoughts and
feelings attached to that past relationship.
• Another example is when therapist becomes concerned when they
develop protective feelings for a client.
• In discussions with a colleague, they realized that the client reminded
them of their sister, leading to counter-transference.
• Handle your own biases.
• Unresolved issues should not follow you in counselling
Examples of issues to deal with
• Strong emotional problems likely to interfere with your
ability to think objectively.
• Certain opinions you hold sacred e.g.
• Opinion on death penalty
• Abortion
• Gay rights
• Religious and non religious convictions
Implications for your life in choosing to be
a counselor
• All your relationships will change
• You will develop new expectations and standards for
intimacy
• You will learn new skills that enable you to develop closer
levels of intimacy with others.
• You will want to use the skills to enrich your family and work
relationships.
• You will be dissatisfied with superficial encounters
• Your love relationships may change forever
• Many of your friendships might be outgrown
• You will chose a new way of being, of relating to self and
others, and the world
• Open to intense scrutiny and growth
• Examining your strengths and limitations as a human being
• Aspects of your functioning that you need to improve
What is counseling
• A process designed to stimulate thinking so that ideas
ferment, evolve, and grow into personal conception.
• An activity designed to work with those experiencing
developmental or adjustment problems, or those struggling
with mental illness
• A relationship in group, family, or individual constructed to
promote trust, safety, support and lasting change
• A multidimensional dealing with human feelings, thoughts,
and behaviors, as well as past , present and future.
Definitions of counseling
• Counseling is a process of engagement between counselor and client
working towards a desired change.
• Change here involves, changing attitudes, behaviors, perceptions,
and coping skills.
• Both client and counselor work together to come up with solutions
for clients concerns.
• The counselor here is the skilled helper.
How to be a skilled helper
• Involves personal self exploration
• Personality characteristics
• Humor, etc.
Historical development of counseling
• A unique aspect of counseling as a profession has its
foundations grounded in other disciplines thus a hybrid of
knowledge from philosophy, education, psychology,
psychiatry, sociology and family studies
• Back in the day, the, the first mental health professionals
were fond of drilling holes in clients heads to permit
demons to escape.
• Through the days of ancient Mesopotamia and Persia, Greek
and Roman eras, counselors were primarily philosophers,
physicians, or priests,
• During the 19th century, the first real counselors attempted
to heal by talking:
• The “talking cure” is a concept taken for granted today.
• They even smacked witchcraft and the occult.
• The cathartic method of talking out problems was pioneered
by Sigmund Freud as a method of treating persons with
psychological problems.
• Today people agree that talking over problems is helpful
• Sharing feelings and concerns is useful
• Therefore today, interpersonal communication and verbal
interactions form the heart of counseling.
 An Introduction and an Overview to the
course
As we begin to learn about the various theories in counseling,
I suggest that:
• You keep an open mind.
• Realize that no one theory is perfect. Each has its
strengths and limitations
• Be aware that the process of internalizing the theories
will take many years of study, training and practical
counseling experience.
• You will be willing to accept that human behavior
cannot be restricted to explanation from one theoretical
approach.
• You need to be exposed to different perspectives hence
the many theories.
• Be aware of which theories resonate with you.
Eventually, you will develop a philosophical orientation
• Most counseling approaches assume
that the clients are able to accept
personal responsibility for their actions
irrespective of the environment around
them. This is not always so.

• A comprehensive approach will

therefore go beyond the internal
dynamics influencing us and also look
at the environmental realities
influencing us too.
• Counseling is for the mentally healthy. We should not focus
on psychopathology in order to dispel the myth that those
who go for counseling are mentally unwell.
• The type of person a
counselor/therapist is plays a vital role
in influencing the outcome of therapy.
As Corey (2001) puts it:
• If practitioners possess wide
knowledge, both theoretical and
practical, yet lack human qualities of
compassion, caring, good faith,
honesty, realness, and sensitivity,
they are merely technicians. p.5
• The therapist is not a “finished
product”. Perfect, well adjusted and
performing at their full potential. This
is another myth that needs to be
dispelled. However, therapists must be
willing to remain open to their own
growth and struggles in life.

• The best techniques you can use as a

counselor is yourself. ‘Even with
theoretical knowledge and skills,
effective counseling is a product of
artistry.’ Corey (2001)
 Overview of the Theories
• Analytical approaches –that is Psychoanalysis by
Sigmund Freud and Adlerian therapy by Alfred Adler.

• Experiential/Relationship Approaches- that is Existential

therapy, Person-centered therapy and Gestalt.
• Action Therapies-that is Reality therapy by William
Glasser, Behavior therapy by Lazarus and Cognitive
Behavior therapy by people like Beck, Ellis and others.

• Systems Perspective-that is Feminist therapy (Jean Baker

Miller, Carolyn Enns Olivia Espin and Laura Brown, and
Family Systems therapy by people like Virginia Satir,
Murray Bowen, Carl Whitaker, Alfred Adler and Salvador
Minuchin.
 WHAT IS COUNSELING?
• According to McLeod (1996), counseling is an
activity embedded in the culture of modern
industrialized societies.
• Counseling is a relatively recent addition to
the range of human service professions. In
Great Britain there were 1000 professional
counselors in 1977, which increased to 8556
in 1992(BAC, 1977). In the USA, there were
645 counselors in 1951 that increased to
2695 in 1978 (1984). What about Kenya?
 Definition of Counseling

• Counseling denotes a professional relationship

between a trained counselor and a client. This
relationship is usually person-to-person
although it may sometimes involve more than
two people.

• It is designed to help clients to understand and

clarify their views of their life space, and to
learn to reach their self-determined goal
through meaningful, well-informed choices and
through resolution of problems of an emotional
or interpersonal nature. (Burks and Stefflre,
1979:14)
• Highly trained specialists, usually with medical
background offer psychotherapy. This is expensive
and takes a longer time for results to show. Both
counseling and psychotherapy are NOT advice
giving, caring and teaching.

• It is possible to use counseling skills without being

a counselor. For example nurses, teachers and so
on. However, care should be taken to avoid role
conflicts or dual roles, for example,
administrator/counselor in a schools setting.
 Diversity Of Counseling Theory and Practice
• Karasu (1986) reported coming across more than 400 distinct
models of Counseling and psychotherapy.

• Luckily for us, it is widely accepted that these are the core
approaches that is psychodynamics, cognitive-behavioral and
humanistic approaches offer different ways of viewing human
beings and their emotional and behavioral problems (Mahrer,
1990).
• Counseling can be culturally located
alongside medicine, e.g. in the case of HIV/
AIDS. Counselors occasionally refer clients
there. It is also found in private practice
within the “growth centers”.

• Counseling is not only an individual learning

process but also a social activity. Usually
people come for counseling at a point of
transition such as, transition from child to
adult, married to divorced, an addict to
sober and so on.
 The Aims of Counseling
• The aims of counseling as expressed by counselors include:
(McLeod, (1996) pg.6).
• Insight
• Self-awareness- becoming more aware of thoughts and
feeling which had been blocked off or denied, or
developing a more accurate sense of how self id perceived
by others.
 • Self-acceptance
• Self-actualization and individuation.
• Enlightenment.-Assisting the client to arrive at a higher
state of spiritual awakening.
•
• Problem-solving.
• Psychological education.
• Acquisition of social skills e.g. anger
control, turn taking in conversations.
• Cognitive change. Discarding
irrational thoughts
 • Behavior change
• Systemic change e.g. introducing change to a social
system like within a family.
• Empowerment e.g. working on skills to help clients
confront social inequalities or unfairness.
• Restitution. Helping the client to make amends for
previous destructive behavior e.g. like they do in AA
•
• “People in all societies, at all times have
experienced emotional or psychological
distress and behavioral problems.
• In each culture there have been well-
established indigenous ways of helping
people to deal with these difficulties” (p.
8 McLeod, 1996)
The cultural origins of counseling
• Assignment
• How does your culture deal with mental illness?
• All this began to change as the industrial revolution took effect.
Capitalism began to dominate economic and political life. Values in
science began to replace those of religion.
• This move to the industrial towns, as a result of the
industrial revolution, led to the fragmentation of
communities and the family networks that were
taking care of the old, sick, poor and insane. This led
to the rise of the workhouse system to take care of
these non-productive members of the community.

• Putting these weak and old people together with the

insane was a recipe for pandemonium. Eventually
mental asylums were created for the insane. At first
the conditions in the asylum were appalling. People
actually paid to go and “see” them like a show.
• Religious groups like the Quakers came in to
improve the conditions. Later the medical
profession realized that there was money to
be made in the “trade in lunacy”.

• Science replaced religion as the dominant

ideology underlying the treatment of the
insane.

• Sigmund Freud eventually created

psychoanalysis as a scientific method of
dealing with mental problems. Other
counseling approaches are offshoots of this.
 BASIC ISSUES OF COUNSELING PRACTICE

• Be open minded in order to benefit from the

unique contributions and limitations of each
therapeutic approach.

• As you study these approaches, be aware of the

ideas and concepts that resonate with you.
These will assist you in selecting the approach
that you will want to make yours.
• However you also need to develop a systematic
rationale for adhering to any one approach. You
cannot pick pieces here and there (which you
use like a magician waving his wand) at random.
It has to have a basis.

• To be an effective counselor, you need to also

look beyond the internal dynamics influencing
the client and address the environmental
realities that influence him as well.

• Counseling is not exclusively for the “sick”

• The quality of presence is a significant quality of
an effective therapist. This is enhanced by
compassion, caring, good faith, honesty,
realness and sensitivity. Even if you master all
the techniques and theories and lack these, you
are reduced to a mere technician.

• ………. “As a counselor you are your best

technique” (Corey, pg 5.)
• This will increase awareness and bring out
personal growth, of course couple with other
measures. As Corey successfully puts it,
“reading about a technique in a book is one
thing, actually experiencing it from the vantage
point of a client is quite another”.

• Though human qualities of a therapist are

paramount, an effective counselor must also
undergo supervised counseling as well as
knowledge of counseling theory and
techniques.
 The case of Stan
• Activity:
• Read the Case of Stan on pages 10-13. You have 15minutes.
Thereafter,
• Identify the themes that you feel merit special attention.
• Why do you think he is the way he is?
• How would you go about helping him?