My understanding of counselling PCA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

My understanding of counselling PCA - Essay Example To answer the question in some detail, let us go back to the antecedents of counselling. Traditionally, people suffering from extreme abnormalities in thought and behaviour, unable to live ‘resourcefully’, were seen as mentally ill, and either isolated and/or were treated by psychiatrists using psychotropic medication. However, the vast majority of those identified as suffering from some type of mental disorder did not require hospitalisation, or drug treatment throughout their recovery phase. What they needed was psychotherapy, described as ‘talking cures’, where characteristically psychoanalysis held sway during the early part of the 20th century, until behavioural and cognitive therapies became more prevalent. Increasingly, psychoanalysis could not be justified not only on scientific grounds, but also on cost and length of treatment. It gave way to cognitive behavioural therapies modelled on learning theory based on Pavlovian classical conditioning and Sk innerian operant conditioning. Those who sought or needed such psychotherapeutic interventions were ‘patients’, and, conversely, those who treated them were drawn from the medical profession. In addition to psychiatrists, clinical psychologists in hospital settings also became providers in the care of these patients. Counselling evolved as an intervention outside the medical context offered by practitioners drawn from disciplines other than strictly within the medical establishment. An inability to cope with ordinary everyday life increasingly devoid of traditional supporting mechanisms of family, church (orthodox religion), and community, mostly in industrialised societies, left a growing populace vulnerable to psychological stress. Counselling therefore, happens to be a much broader concept than psychotherapy (or simply temed therapy) which evolved from more existential, philosophical and humanistic roots. Those who sought help from counsellors were not identified as patients. Not only were individuals seeking ‘greater well-being’ catered for, but those seeking help in specific contexts such as careers counselling and marriage guidance counselling meant that there was no longer a stigma attached to counselling. Indeed the origin of the very term counselling is ascribed to Frank Parsons (1909) at the beginning of the twentieth century who initiated help for young people with problems in finding suitable employment. Today, there is a continuum of helping interventions that range from intensive psychotherapy through counselling, to co-counselling, and to life coaching, where practitioners range from medical specialists to those drawn from varied walks of life, but with appropriate and recognised counsellor training. The relationship between the counsellor and the counselled is one of equality. The counsellor does not set him/herself up as an expert. The client is the expert on him/herself. The counsellor explores with the counselled, o ptions elicited during the counselling process. By meeting at regular intervals the counsellor helps the counselled to commit to agreed upon courses of action gently but firmly holding him/her responsible for the outcome. Counselling is a burgeoning profession and the recognition afforded its mainstream practitioners is a testament to its enduring value. It is necessary to look more closely at the theoretical underpinnings of the practice of counselling. A recent analysis of the