1

G. Baradha

01.1 Introduction

Counselling has all the requirements reasonably for quiet some time. It is been used from its inception for helping individuals with stress of all the age group for their growth and for remediation. The professionalists in counselling help individuals, as well as other family members experience situational, developmental and long or short term problems. Because of its effectiveness counselling is very famous, attractive to those seeking healthy life – stage transitions and productive lives. Hence it is a requirement to know how the counselling came into existence.

Objectives:

By learning this lesson students will

• acquire knowledge about counselling – its history
• Understand the work in the past, present and future.

01.2 Counselling – how it came

Counselling came into existence from anthropology, education, ethics, history, law, medical sciences, philosophy, psychology and sociology. In the educational institutions the word ‘guidance’ is equated with counselling because of similarity in the function.

01.2.1 Definition of Counselling

The process of helping people to come away from difficulties is called counselling. But the word counsellor was misused in companies when people talk to promote products as sales person, advice givers or supervisors of children or services.

The progressive guidance movement of the early 1900’s lead a path to the counselling as profession. The function of counselling is helping individuals of all ages and stages avoid making bad choices in life while finding meaning, direction and fulfillment in what they did. Today professional counselling encompasses within its practice, clinicians who still focus on the avoidance of problems and the promotion of growth, but the profession is much more than that. The focus on wellness, development, mindfulness, meaningfulness and remedication of mental disorders is the hallmark of counselling for individuals, groups, couples and families across the life span. To understand the present day context of counselling, it is important first to understand the history of the profession and how counselling is similar to and different from concepts such as guidance and psychotherapy.

In 2010, 29 counselling associations including the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American Association of State Counseling Boards (AASCB), accepted a consensus – definition of Counselling. According to the 20/20: A Vision for the future of counseling group, counseling is defined as follows:

“A process that empowers diverse individuals, families and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education and career goals”, is known as counselling” (www.counseling.org/20-20/index.aspx).

• Importance of Counselling

According to counsellors the importance of this field are:

• Good health, growth, work, education and empowerment concerns. These areas include concerns related to find meaning, adjustment and fulfillment in mental and physical health and the achievement of goals in such settings as work and school. Counselors are concerned with social justice and advocate for the oppressed and powerless as a part of the process.
• It is apt to conduct with persons at all levels. Patients/clients seen by counselors live and work in a wide variety of settings. Their problems may require short term or long term interventions that focus on just one person or with multiple individuals who are related or not related to each other.
• Clients come from hetrogenous group in terms of minority, majority and multicultural groups who require the help. Societal issues, such as discrimination or prejudice, require guidance depending on their needs.
• The dynamic process of counselling comes through using a variety of theories and methods. Thus, it involves making choices as well as changes, lively and engaging. Counselling helps in action either internally with thoughts and feelings or externally with behavior. The professional counselors must first meet the requirements for the general practice of professional counseling (www.counseling.org).

01.2.2 Inception of Counseling

Counselling was not popular during late 1900’s but restarted to work for problems of the human being. Population explosion and general education influenced the growth of the counselling career. There was a great change which caused a major shift to individuals assessed themselves and others. It was a socially challenging period. So counsellors started working as teachers and social reformers.

During 1900’s, three persons emerged as leaders in counselling development: Frank Parsons, Jesse B.Davis and Clifford Beers. Parsons, often called the founder of guidance, focused his work on growth and prevention. Parson’s body of work and his efforts to help others that represents present day counselling. He theorized that choosing a vocation was a matter of relating three factors: a knowledge of work, a knowledge of self and a matching of the two through ‘true reasoning’. Thus Parsons devised a number of procedures related to the work and the clients. A systematized guidance programme in the public schools was set up by Jesse B. Davis. He suggested that classroom teachers of English composition teach their students a lesson in guidance once a week, to accomplish the goal of building character and preventing problems. The progressive educators advocated school guidance which is a forerunner of counselling.

Mental health counselling came from the students work as a means of helping people adjust to themselves and society, which was related with the fields of psychiatry and psychology.

Complementing the funding of NVGA was congressional passage of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. This legislation provided funding for public schools to support vocational education.

The development of the first standards for the preparation and evaluation of occupational materials, was an another turning point. Throughout the decade, of 1920’s counsellors were broadening their focus to include issues of personality and development, those concerned to the family.

During 1930’s, the Great depression influenced researchers and practitioners, especially in University and vocational settings, to emphasise helping strategies and counselling methods that related to employment. A highlight of the decade was the development of the first theory of counselling by E.G.Williams at the University of Minnesota. His emphasis on a direct counsellor – centered approach came to be known by several names – for example, as the Minnesota point of view and trait – factor counselling. His pragmatic approach emphasized the counsellor’s teaching, mentoring and influencing skills.

Aptitudes, interests, personal and achievements that could be integrated in a variety of ways to form individual characteristics. Counselling was based on a scientific problem solving, empirical method that was individually tailored to each client to help him/her stop non-productive thinking / behavior and become an effective decision maker. The task of the counsellor was to ascertain a deficiency in the client such as a lack of knowledge or a skill and then to prescribe a procedure to rectify the problem.

Another major occurrence was the broadening of counselling beyond occupational concerns. Edward Thorndike began to challenge the vocational orientation of the guidance movement. As a counsellor every teacher to incorporate guidance into the school curriculum as a subject. All education should focus on preparing students to live outside the school environment was the opinion of the educationists. Evolving from this measure was the creation of state supervisors of guidance positions in state departments of education throughout the nations. Thus school counselling, still known as guidance in the 1930’s, became more of a national phenomenon.

The theory of Carl Rogers, world war II and government’s involvement in counselling were the three major events shaped the practice of counselling.

The client was espousing a non-directive approach to counselling was emphasized. It gave the importance of the relationship in counselling, research, refinement of counselling technique, selection and training of future counsellors and the goals and objectives of counselling. In order to select and train specialists for the military, the US government required counsellors and psychologists to help.

After the war, the US government further promoted counselling, which provided vocational education funds through the US office of Education for counsellor trainer institutes. In addition, the Veterans Administration (VA) funded the training of counsellors and psychologists by granting for students engaged internship study.

The decade 1950’s produced five major events that dramatically changed the previous status of counselling such as

• The establishment of the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA).
• The charting of the American School Counsellor Association (ASCA)
• The establishment of Division 17 (Society of Counselling Psychology) within the American Psychological Association (APA).
• The passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) and
• The introduction of new guidance and counselling theories.

During 1960s counselling was turned into a developmental profession.

The emphasis of counselling shifted from a one-on-one encounter to small group interaction. Behavioural counselling grew in importance with the appearance of ‘Revolution in Counselling’ in 1996 in which learning was promoted as the root of change. Establishments of Mental Health Centres was an another noteworthy occurance during 1960’s, alcohol abuse counselling and addiction counselling, marriage and family counselling also emerged in such centres.

Emergence of several trends that were influenced by actions apart from and within counselling circles. New initiatives such as working with women, minorities and people with disabilities, affirmative action and legislation for disabled persons.

Among the most noteworthy events of the decade (1980s) were those that standardized the training and certification of counsellors, recognized counselling as a distinct profession, increased the diversification of counsellor specialities and emphasized human growth and development. A second way that human growth and development stressed was through increased attention to gender issues and sexual preferences, which helped introduce feminist theory into the counselling arena. An emphasis on moral development was the third way in which human growth issues were highlighted. Finally, the Association for Multicultural Counselling and Development took the lead, regarding the challenges of working with different ethnic and cultural groups.

During 1990s changes in the evolution of the counselling profession took place. One significant change was to modify its name from AACD (American Association for Counselling Development to the American Counselling Association (ACA). A second noteworthy event was, counselling as a primary mental health profession included in the health care human resource statistics. Psychology, social work and psychiatry recognized counselling on par with other mental health specialities.

Twenty First Century

Counselling formally celebrated its 50th anniversary as a profession under the umbrella of ACA in 2002. Within the celebration was a realization of changing certain topics. issues and concerns. Among the most pressing topics were dealing with violence, trauma and crises, managed care, wellness, social justice, technology, leadership and identity.

01.2.3. Guidance movement in India

In our country guidance movement was an organized professional activity in more than four decades. While in America the guidance movement started as an attempt to fulfill the practical needs of employers and teachers’, in India it began as an academic discipline. Calcutta University enjoys the privilege of being the first Indian University to introduce guidance as a section of its Department of Applied Psychology in 1938 (Alam, 2008). Guidance movement received another push forward when Trustees of the Parsi Panchayat Funds and properties in Bombay decided to establish a guidance services bereau. The bureau also started publishing the Journal of Educational and Vocational Guidance which provided the guidance workers with a professional organ of communication and interchange of ideas and information regarding research and practice in the field. Then government of Uttar Pradesh gave official recognition to the movement by setting up a Bureau of Psychology at Allahabad in 1947.

01.2.4. Scope of Guidance

At present, a Student Advisory Bureau, under the Ministry of Education and a University Employment Information and Guidance Bureau under National Employment Service, together impart educational and vocational information, as well as, guidance to students. However, the function of these Bureau is not proper because of lack of both direction and coordination. Of course, as already pointed out various universities and colleges have also set up guidance centres, counselling cells and career advising units, however, these too are either deficient in trained workers or there is a lack of sense of commitment among liaison officers, as also insufficient patronage and support from the administration.

A programme that covers vocational, educational as well as, all other important and desirable aspects of guidance in its entire spread, including help to solve the psychological problems of students was not available. Some universities do have the post of a student counsellor, yet most of these counsellors are kept busy with odd jobs assigned to them by the concerned authorities, all because the expression ‘guidance and counselling’ has yet to be comprehensively understood and as a consequence these student counsellors just do not get to do what they have been appointed for, function as to do because of a misunderstanding of the nature of their job function. No national organization exists to effectively handle the entire guidance and counselling programme. The Central Government does have its Ministries of Education and of Labour and Employment, as well as, the University Grants Commission and National Council of Educational Research and Training look after the issue of guidance and counselling, but these four arms of the Government are often singing different, and so, in effect appear to be working at cross-purposes. Of course, the NCERT is imparting training at its four regional centres to fresh as well as sponsored candidates. However, the intake of trainees is limited, so that, all four centres, even it put together cannot satisfy the Nations entire demand. Moreover, there is lack of coordination even among these four centres. Further still, the concept of guidance in colleges and Universities has narrowed down to one aspect of guidance only, that is, vocational guidance. This is quite unfortunate. There is no clear cut national policy in this regard. There is also lack of direction and co-ordination. There is neither any supervision and planning nor is there administrative support, nor are there any finances. Students, as well as, parents have today understood the importance and need of guidance. Therefore, the demand for guidance workers is increasing day by day in schools. Also, it does not surprise if private organization have started working in this area too.

The credit for establishing the first full time counselling service for college students goes to the MS University, Baroda. In 1958, at the invitation of the University Grants Commission, the University of Baroda prepared a plan of a counselling center with full time staff to cater to the needs of its students. The plan included practical service to students with educational and vocational problems, research related to guidance and counselling and training of guidance personnel. The plan was approved by University grants Commission and the Student Counselling Centre of the university was set up in 1959. This centre did following commendable works:

(i) conducted a study of student problems and developed an adjustment inventory on the basis of the study

(ii) published a series of pamphlets devoted to typical case studies

(iii) prepared some measuring tools like Family Attitude Test for use with children and young adolescents, the Gujarati version of Wechsler’s Adult

Intelligence Scale; Abstract Reasoning Test; Selection Test for the Faculty of Engineering

(iv) prepared a handbook for developing guidance and counselling for the in-service school teachers, and

(v) organized some seminars for teachers in small towns and villages.

The centre became well-known in India therefore, some consultants from USA visited the centre and often helped in its organization and development.

In 1961, Allahabad University also organized a Counselling Centre for its students with the assistance of the United States Educational Foundation in India. From 1961-65, the Foundation placed one exchange professor either on full time basis or to be shared between the Departments of Education and Psychology, with the specific assignment to help developing a student counselling centre.

Conclusion

Counselling is a distinct profession. It is concerned with wellness, prevention, development and situational difficulties as well as with helping persons with particular psychological disorders. It is based on principles and a definition that has evolved over the years.

Reference

1. Alam, S. (2008), Basics of guidance and counselling, Global Vision Publishing House, New Delhi.
2. Smith, H.B. and Robinson, G.P. (1995), Mental health counselling past, present and future, Journal of Counselling and Development
3. Sharma, S.P. (2005), Guidance and Counselling: A Historical Perspective.
4. www.isca.in. www.isca.me
5. www.counselling.org/20-20/index.espx.