21 Directive and Non Directive Counselling

S. Gayatridevi

Counselling is an accepting, trusting and safe relationship, in which clients learn to discuss openly what worries and upsets them, to define behaviour, to acquire essential social skills and to develop the courage and self confidence to implement the desired new behaviours. Counselling is a relationship in which one person endeavours to help another to understand and solve his adjustment problems. Shostorm and Brammer (1952) defined Counselling as a purposeful reciprocal relationship between two people in which one, a trained person helps the other to change himself or his environment.

Counselling involves two individuals – one seeking help and the other, a professionally trained person, who can help the first. There should be a relationship of mutual respect between the two. The counsellor should be friendly and cooperative and the counsellee should have trust and confidence in the counsellor. The aim of Counselling is to help a student form a decision, make a choice or seek direction. It helps a counsellee acquire independence and develop a sense of responsibility, explore and utilize his potentialities.

Directive Counselling

In this type of approach the counsellor plays an important role. A major goal is to replace the emotional behaviour of the individual with deliberately rationale behaviour, although he avoids dictatorial advice. This approach is also known as counsellor centered. Under this process the counsellor plans the counselling process, his work is to analyze the problem, identify the triggers, identify the exact nature of the problem and provide various options.

Williamson (2011) stated that this approach is good to address the problems relating to educational and vocational adjustment. This type of Counselling is a concept, where educational and vocational guidance relate to the personality dynamics and interpersonal relationship. This type of Counselling is more useful where the individual wants information and advice for choice of a career. This approach does not focus its attention on personality development as such.

Features of Directive Counselling

Directive Counselling features are

During the interview attention is focused upon a particular problem and possibilities for its solution and the counsellor plays a more active role than the client or pupil.
The pupil or client makes the decision, but the counsellor does all that he can to get the counsellee or client makes a decision in keeping with his diagnosis.
The counsellor tries to direct the thinking of the counsellee or client by informing, explaining, interpreting and advising him.

Steps of Directive Counselling

Williamson has given six steps Directive Counselling:

Analysis: It includes collection of information about the individual which can be collected through Structured Interviews, Case History Methods, Interaction with Family Members, Friends etc.
Synthesis: After the data collection, the information will be organized in the logical manner to analyze the individual in terms of his qualifications, assets, potentials, liability adjustment, cultural background, habits etc.
Diagnosis: The interpretation will be based on the nature and causes of the problems.
Prognosis: Prediction is made based on the future development of the problem.
Counselling: The Counselling is to bring about adjustment and readjustment to the client based on his problem. During Counselling sessions the client attitudes and interest will be considered. It emphasis that the client will develop positive direction which leads to success and in turn could lead to further efforts and motivations.
Follow-up: It is extremely important because the client will be able to solve immediate problems but new problems may occur or the original problem may reoccur, so the Follow-up is extremely necessary. The Counsellor has to make the client understand and accept his strength, weakness and faults.

This technique is less time consuming and the client who lacks experience is easily

influenced by the counsellor’s experience and specialized knowledge. The client feels that the counsellor has superior knowledge and therefore a professional relation takes place. The base of this counselling is the relationship between the Counsellor and the Client. In this counselling, submissive and highly emotional client will be helped to cultivate self confidence and reach his goal by dignified manner.

Counsellor Centered Counselling revolves around the counsellor. He tries to maintain good relations with the client and try to be friendly with him and try to give assistance whenever necessary. In this, the counsellor is active and he expresses his ideas and attitudes independently. He evaluates expressions of the client.

Directive teaching is the core in all the cognitive approaches. In Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), previously called Rational Therapy and Rational Emotive Therapy, the client together with the therapist, in a structured active directive manner, often work through a set of target problems and establish a set of therapeutic goals. In these target problems, situational dysfunctional emotions, behaviours and beliefs are assessed in regards to the client’s values and goals. After working through these problems, the client learns to generalize insights to other relevant situations. In many cases after going through a client’s different target problems, the therapist is interested in examining possible core beliefs and more deep rooted philosophical evaluations and schemas that might account for a wider array of problematic emotions and behaviours. In REBT, the first step often is that the client acknowledges the problems, accepts emotional responsibility for these and has willingness and determination to change.

Basic Assumptions of Directive Counselling

According to Willy, the basic assumptions of Directive Counselling are

a. Competency in Giving Advice: The counsellor possesses the best training experience and information. He is more competent to provide an advice to problem.

b. Counselling as an Intellectual Process: A client’s intellectual is not destroyed as a result of maladjustment. Hence Counselling is primarily an intellectual process. It stresses upon the intellectual aspects of a person instead of emotional aspects of the personality.

c. Counselling Objectives as Problem Solving Situation: The Objective of Counselling is achieved through problem solving situation.

d. Client’s Incapability of Solving the Process: The counsellor does not possess the capability for solving the problem always.

The counsellor plays the vital role in this counselling process. He is the pivot of the process and the leader of the situation. The counsellor does most of the talking problems and individual is not the focus. The counsellee in fact, works under the counsellor and not with him. The counsellor tries to direct the thinking of the counsellee or client by informing, explaining, interpreting and sometimes advising also.

The counsellor collects all possible information about the counsellees and analyses them for an adequate understanding. He summarizes and organizes the data so as to understand the abilities and limitations, adjustment and maladjustment of the counsellees. He formulates conclusions about the nature and causes of his problems. He predicts the future development of his problems.

He prescribes what the counsellees should do to solve his problems and follows the consequences or effects of his prescription. Directive counselling is also called the prescriptive counselling because the counsellor prescribes the solutions or the course of action for the pupils.

Advantages of Directive Counselling

The advantages of Directive Counselling are

It saves time.
It focuses more on the problem and the person.
The counsellor can look the client directly.
It focuses more on the intellectual aspects of the person than emotional aspect of the personality.
Because of the availability of the Counsellor, the client feels very happy.

Limitations of Directive Counselling

In this process the client is more dependent. He is also less able to solve new problems of adjustment.
The client is dependent on the counsellor.
If the client doesn’t develop some attitude through experiences, he cannot make any decision himself.
The counsellor fails in serving the client not to commit the mistakes in future

In Directive Counselling, the counsellor initiates discussion or approaches the client based on a direct referral from another practitioner. In Non Directive Counselling, the client is aware of the problem and seeks help from the counsellor. Clients tend to be far more likely to become defensive and resist problem solving under the conditions of Directive Counselling. For this reason, counsellors using this method need to be especially sensitive to all verbal and non verbal behaviours and to be supportive while attempting to explore the issue at hand.

Directive Counselling techniques are used for Remedial Counselling sessions to address poor performance when the client is unaware or unwilling to address it to themselves. Non Directive Counselling is ordinarily the preferred Counselling method when dealing with clients who need to plan and set the goals for themselves.

Non Directive Counselling

It is developed in the 1930s by the American Psychologist Carl Rogers. Client Centered Therapy departed from the typically formal, detached role of the therapist emphasized in psychoanalysis and other forms of treatment. Rogers believed that therapy should take place in a supportive environment created by a close personal relationship between client and therapist. Rogers’s introduction of the term “client” rather than “patient” expresses his rejection of the traditionally hierarchical relationship between therapist and client and his view of them as equals. In Person Centered Therapy, the client determines the general direction of therapy, while the therapist seeks to increase the client’s insight and self understanding through informal clarifying questions.

Beginning in the 1960s, person centered therapy became associated with the human potential movement. This movement, dating back to the beginning of the 1900s, reflected an altered perspective of human nature. Previous psychological theories viewed human beings as inherently selfish and corrupt. For example, Freud’s theory focused on sexual and aggressive tendencies as the primary forces driving human behaviour. The Human Potential Movement defined human nature as inherently good. From its perspective, human behaviour is motivated by a drive to achieve one’s fullest potential.

A basic assumption in the Rogerian client centered point of view is that humans are basically rational, socialized and realistic. Individuals, if their needs for positive regard from others and for positive self regard are satisfied, possess an inherent tendency toward realizing their potential for growth and self actualization. Counselling releases the potentials and capacities of the individual. One of the most important characteristics of the Rogerian theory is the relationship it suggests between the counsellor and the client. The underlying assumption is that the client cannot be helped simply by listening to the knowledge the counsellor possesses or to the counsellor’s explanation of the client’s personality or behaviour.

The term Self Actualization is derived from the human potential movement. It refers to the tendency of all human beings to move forward, grow, and reach their fullest potential. When humans move toward self actualization, they are also prosocial; that is, they tend to be concerned for others and behave in honest, dependable and constructive ways. The concept of self actualization focuses on human strengths rather than human deficiencies. According to Rogers, self actualization can be blocked by an unhealthy self concept (negative or unrealistic attitudes about oneself).

Rogers adopted terms such as “Person Centered Approach” and “Way of Being” and began to focus on personal growth and self actualization. He also pioneered the use of encounter groups, adapting the sensitivity training (T-group) methods developed by Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) and other researchers at the National Training Laboratories in the 1950s.

Person Centered Therapy is considered one of the major therapeutic approaches, along with Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Behavioural therapy, Rogers’s influence is felt in schools of therapy other than his own. The concepts and methods he developed are used in an eclectic fashion by many different types of counsellors and therapists.

Process

Rogers believed that the most important factor in successful therapy was not the therapist’s skill or training, but rather his or her attitude. Three interrelated attitudes on the part of the therapist are central to the success of person centered therapy: congruence; unconditional positive regard and empathy. Congruence refers to the therapist’s openness and genuineness – the willingness to relate to clients without hiding behind a professional facade. Therapists who function in this way have all their feelings available to them in therapy sessions and may share significant emotional reactions with their clients. Congruence does not mean, however, that therapists disclose their own personal problems to clients in therapy sessions or shift the focus of therapy to themselves in any other way.

Unconditional Positive Regard means that the therapist accepts the client totally for who he or she is without evaluating or censoring, and without disapproving of particular feelings, actions, or characteristics. The therapist communicates this attitude to the client by a willingness to listen without interrupting, judging, or giving advice. This attitude of positive regard creates a nonthreatening context in which the client feels free to explore and share painful, hostile, defensive, or abnormal feelings without worrying about personal rejection by the therapist.

The third necessary component of a therapist’s attitude is empathy. Carl Rogers defined empathy as “entering the private perceptual world of the other /…/ being sensitive /…/ living in his/her life /…/ sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware /…/ communicating the sensing’s of his/her world /…/ checking with him/her as to the accuracy of sensing’s”. The therapist tries to appreciate the client’s situation from the client’s point of view, showing an emotional understanding of and sensitivity to the client’s feelings throughout the therapy session. In other systems of therapy, empathy with the client would be considered a preliminary step to enabling the therapeutic work to proceed; but in person centered therapy, it actually constitutes a major portion of the therapeutic work itself. A primary way of conveying this empathy is by active listening that shows careful and perceptive attention to what the client is saying. In addition to standard techniques, such as eye contact, that are common to any good listener, person centered therapists employ a special method called reflection, which consists of paraphrasing and/or summarizing what a client has just said. This technique shows that the therapist is listening carefully and accurately, and gives clients an added opportunity to examine their own thoughts and feelings as they hear them repeated by another person. Generally, clients respond by elaborating further on the thoughts they have just expressed.

According to Rogers, when these three attitudes (congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy) are conveyed by a therapist, clients can freely express themselves without having to worry about what the therapist thinks of them. The therapist does not attempt to change the client’s thinking in any way. Even negative expressions are validated as legitimate experiences. Because of this non directive approach, clients can explore the issues that are most important to them – not those considered important by the therapist. Based on the principle of self actualization, this undirected, uncensored self exploration allows clients to eventually recognize alternative ways of thinking that will promote personal growth. The therapist merely facilitates self actualization by providing a climate in which clients can freely engage in focused, in depth self exploration.

Individual’s Perception of the Relationship

When a client seeks the counsellor’s help, he soon discovers that the counsellor accepts him as he is and believes in his ability to solve his problem in his own way. He also learns that he can talk about whatever he chooses and sometimes he finds, even to his own surprise, that he can talk about topics which so far he couldn’t discuss with his closest friends.

He now finds that he is talking with a person who tries to understand him, tries to follow what he is saying and feeling, tries to help him understand himself, and neither gives advice not attempts to manipulate him into making a decision which the counsellor believes is best for him. He feels that the counsellor understands why he sees the things differently at different times and he learns that if he wishes, he can terminate or avoid the relationship without solving the specific problem which is brought to the counsellor.

Basic Assumptions of Non Directive Counselling

1.Tendency towards Actualization: A persons’ inherent tendency includes growth, adjustment, socialization, freedom etc. This directional tendency is termed as ‘Actualizing Tendency’.

2.Belief in the Dignity of Man: Rogers believes in the dignity of the man. He considers the person capable of taking decisions and he accepts his right to do so.

3.Man is Trustworthy: Rogers considers the person basically good and reliable. He also knows that the person behaves in an unreliable manner too. A person is born with some urges which must be controlled if healthy personality development is desired.

4. Man is Wiser than His Intellect: When some organization is functioning independently and effectively, then the ‘awareness’ is a very small part or component of the entire process. When the organization feels some difficulty in its system of functioning, this awareness becomes more sharpened and focused.

According to Snyder the assumptions of Non Directive Counselling are

i.The client has right to select the goals of his life.

ii.If the client is given an opportunity, he will select the goals which may possibly provide him great happiness.

iii.Emotional disturbance inhibits a person’s proper adjustment initially.

iv.In the Counselling situation, one should reach very quickly at a point from where the client may be able to start functioning independently.

Steps in Non Directive Counselling

Carl Rogers proposed the steps for Non Directive Counselling. They are

1. Defining the Problematic Situation

2. Free Expression of Feelings

3. Development of Insight

4. Classification of Positive and Negative Feelings

5. Termination of Counselling

Characteristics of Non Directive Counselling

It is a Client Centered Counselling.
It is based on the principle that the client has so much capacity and drive that will help him to grow to face the situations in reality.
The counsellor is passive to the maximum.
It reduces psychological tensions.
Defensiveness falls down.
There will be closeness between the picture of the self drawn by the client and a desirable and an ideal picture of his own.
Client’s psychological adjustment improves.
Client’s behaviour is considered to be emotionally matured.
Client is accepted for his originality and he is free to express his attitude.

Axlines (1947) proved that the reading improvement speeds up as a result of Client Centered Play Way Methods in the primary schools even if special reading instructions are not given. This school of thought is just reverse to that of Directive Counselling.

Advantages of Non Directive Counselling

The therapy concentrates on here and now, and encourages the client to think in present time.
It recognizes and values the client.
It encourages self expression, self awareness, self development and a greater understanding of self.

Conclusion

Counselling either Directive or Non Directive Counselling should be strictly adhered to the client’s requirements rather than the therapists trying to enforce or thrust the knowledge or whatever learnt by him onto the client. Therefore, judiciously using counselling techniques could alleviate lot of problems and help clients bring more confidence onto the therapists. Thus, many people will look forward to counselling as a help to open up their personal problems.

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