A common scenario:A: What did you studied for?
B: Counselling
A: Wow, then I got problem can come to you
B: Why is that?
A: to get some advice ……
It is never a shock to hear a common statement that counselling is for people with problems and the counsellor is someone who gives advice! It makes me wonder, does that mean a counselling graduate had studied 3 or 4 years in varsity on only how to advice others ?
The numerous misconceptions over counselling had urged a calling to untangle the tangles on the noble profession of counselling...
To begin with, Advise: is a common opinion of an individual over a situation or event given to others which can be done quite commonly by anyone based on their very own knowledge and experience
Whereas Counselling : is a guide form of assistance rendered by a trained professional counsellor to the client agreed upon in a professional etiquette based relationship under the basis of certain theory & techniques towards helping a client to reach a level of better or developed cognitive / thinking capability for the comprehensive development of the client’s self
The definition would rather self-explain that counselling is a totally varied with advice thus an advice can never be quoted as a counselling session. Advice doesn’t normally is a form of a suggestion from the advice giver this is in total contrast to counselling which focuses more on the clients self-thought towards a solution
Counselling has been a victim of misconception due to its complexity which is equivalent to its nobleness. It is due to this complexity that many fail to understand what counselling is in real. Counselling had been developed from the need of mental health attention post world war 2. Counselling is situated under the giant umbrella of psychology whereby an counselling is an applied psychology since it shares the similar techniques and theories excluding the chemical & biological factors such as the issuance of drugs done by the clinical psychiatrist.
counselling focuses more on mental or the cognitive aspects of a person to assist them in realizing their situations, the outcomes and the best options they have without hindrances from irrelevant matters such as emotions, surroundings, false beliefs & misconceptions and much more. This is done by a strategic assistance of certain Theories such as the psychoanalysis, Rational Emotive behaviour therapy, gestalt and much more. Further from the theory numerous techniques are also co-used in counselling services which are derived from the theories mentioned, just to name a few are like, “the empty chair technique, the taught stopping technique, sculpting technique, disputing technique, breathing techniques and much more …
Complicating it further Counselling has a numerous branches from it each focusing on specific segment of help such as Career counselling, family counselling, substance abuse counselling, group counselling, Crisis Counselling, Child Counselling and much more as for the studies for counselling too is varied with the said types of counselling as their specifications and a few other variants such as counselling psychology and so on.
Any counselling service will be based on certain theory which will have the fundamental philosophy towards human development and the counselling services will be based on a professional etiquette started with an informed consent and developed with a systematic progress working towards the resolution of the issue acknowledged
Counselling is thus a noble profession with contributed and developed by many great people from around the world for the only purpose of assisting individuals towards attaining their optimum in mental health and wellness. In Malaysia counselling has 2 major bodies to administer and govern it’s progress and monitor its quality which is the International Counselling Association of Malaysia aka PERKAMA International & Lembaga Kaunselor Malaysia which registers Counsellors and issues the licence to practice counselling
Many should take up the initiative to understand the profession and services of counselling and acquire the best benefit from it rather than clinging on the assumption that counselling is the act of mere advising and sharing of opinion and it can be done by anyone.
Further information about counselling :
http://www.perkamainternational.com/index.php?id=1&mnu=1
http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/web/lkm/
Towards the acknowledgement of the noble counselling profession …………….
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