18 Individual Counselling, Group Counselling, Group vs Individual Counsellin

18.1 Introduction:

Counselling is one of the distinct profession that has been developed in a vide category from 20th century. It is unique and dynamic process in which helps to grow positive thoughts in clients by building confidence. In a simple way counselling is nothing but when a person (client) approaches another professional person (counsellor) for a help/advise for his/her day today problems. Counselling is the focus of assisting an individual from her problems in daily living.

Counselling as a helping profession that underlines the role and function of the counsellor in today’s society. A helping profession is the one who are specially trained and licensed or certified to execute a unique role/ service to the human beings who are in problem. These helping professions may include health, law, education, psychology, family and societal works (Gibson and Mitchell 2009).

Learning objectives:

v  To understand the meaning and purpose of Counselling

v   To know about Individual and Group Counselling

v   To identify the qualities of a counsellor

v   To learn about steps in counselling process

18.2 Definitions:

Counselling is a process in which clients learn how to make decisions and formulate new ways of behaving, feeling and thinking. Counsellor’s focuses on the goals of their clients wish to achieve. Clients present levels of functioning and the changes that must be made to achieve personal objectives. Thus, counselling involves both choice and change, evolving through distinct stages such as exploration, goal settings and action (Brammer, 1993; Egan, 1990, Samuel, 1995).

Counseling usually deals with an individual personal, social, vocational, educational and empowerment concerns. Counseling areas may be related to interpersonal and intra- personal concerns which are related to school, college, personal adjustments, mental health, education, marriage and family issues, aging, employment and rehabilitation.

How counselling for young children are different?

Counselling for young children will differ from counselling for adults, and it depends on the child’s age, type of difficulties and their developments. For every trouble different methods may be used to encourage young children to be able to express their difficulties, such as play and art. For example, during story telling session while talking about the feelings of a character child also puts his own feelings and will help him to express his emotions through drama, story, drawing, painting and so on. This type of methods will make a counsellor a great insight into the unconscious mind of the child.

Older children might prefer talking therapy, or a mixture of both, and counselling approach will always depend on a particular individual. Even though different methods may be used for child counselling, the aim of counselling for both children and adults is ultimately the same; which helps the individual to cope better with their emotions and feelings.

How can counselling benefit young people?

Counselling to the children and young people involves helping a child to develop a positive attitude towards their life, recognise their strengths and express their emotions. It does not involve decision making for the child but imposing beliefs on them or campaigning. Counselling may be provided to children and young people on their own, or it may be provided to a child as part of a family (family counselling).

Child related issues

Child related issues may include:

• family and step-family relations
• bullying
• bereavement/loss
• emotional problems
• behavioural problems
• infatuation
• school issues
• Literacy and numeracy problems.

To solve these issues counsellors need many years of practice and should have required qualification to accomplish. However anyone in spite of qualifications or training can become a more effective assistant by learning to apply basics of counseling techniques.

Who are child counselors?

Child counselors are those who assist children who are having personal or psychological problems. These counselors possess certain qualities/characteristics. If they possess these characteristics, they can be called as an effective child counselor.

18.3 Professional Counselors:

Professional Counselors are the one who distinguishes from those who may use the term Counselor. Professional Counselors are full-time dynamic representatives of their vocation and accept the role and responsibilities of professionalism.

A licensed Professional Counselor is characterized by:

a. Having the primary duty and responsibility of providing specific licensed professional counselling to deal with personal, social, emotional and physical issues and needs of an individual

b. Functioning as a source of education in a variety of settings, such as building confidence, time management, stress management, coping skills, mental health awareness, etc.

c. performing as the primary contributor in crisis, behavioural intervention services and other major crisis situations.

18.4 Qualities of a Counselor:

Ø  Patience

As a counsellor they need to have patience with their client as they process the conversation. It may take time to acknowledge certain things and to move towards positive changes. Sometimes people may discuss about something several times before they are ready to make a move in any particular direction. Also, we may not expect to see great changes in an individual child; therefore, we must accept with incremental progress in their lives and be happy over small victories.

Ø   Good Listener

Being a counsellor they should spend most of their time to listen to the clients; because clients will be expressing their problems and the counsellor has to listen to them rather than talking. Counsellor must give time to his client to express their feelings, emotions and time to tell their story in a clear way.

Ø  Compassionate

It is very essential that every client should feel counsellor’s compassion for their problems and client have to sense as counsellor is truly caring about them. Counsellor may not be able to relate to every issue that is shared with them, but they need to be able to have concern for how it feels to be in their shoes. Honest concern produces positive results.

Ø   Nonjudgmental

A counsellor has to listen all types of information’s from the client whether it is private or general. They must give better solution for the client problems and to communicate positive regard. Counsellor should be ready to spare time to judge a particular behaviour and is very much essential to understand them. But client must not feel that counsellors are judging them. Likewise, they must come across children of different problem, culture, tradition, religion and it should not push their cultural/religious views. For a counsellor, multicultural competency is very essential. The counselling environment should always provide a secure place for the clients to share their utmost personal concerns.

Ø   Research-Oriented

Being a counsellor they have to involve a considerable amount of time spent for researching. Counsellor should have current knowledge about the existing research in order to help the clients and to extend the counsellors knowledge. Counsellor knowledge can also be enhanced by personal research after they started to counsel the clients.

Ø   Empathetic

Empathy is the ability to recognize and share the feelings of others. Counsellor need to be able to put themselves in the shoes of their client and understand the situation from their point of view. Even if counsellor doesn’t agree with their perspective, they still need the ability to understand how it feels to them in order to deal with their issue successfully. However, it’s important that they should not be too empathetic. Some people struggle as counsellors because they are unable to maintain objectivity and therefore carry home the emotional stress of the job.

Ø   Discrete

Maintaining secrecy is of upmost important when we are a counsellor. One must be able to maintain confidentiality so the client can able to trust counsellor with their utmost personal issues.

Ø   Encouraging

Giving confidence/ encouragement is most important for a counsellor. Most of the clients will be struggling to discover trust in their circumstances. The major role of a counsellor is often inculcating hopes in discouraging/ depressed personalities.

Ø   Self-Aware

Whatever the counsellor feelings are, they must be able to keep their own feelings out of the session and they do this only if they have self-awareness. Self-awareness helps the counsellor to know their own fears, insecurities and weaknesses and this will help in therapeutic relationship. This quality will help to solve their own problems and also can use that skill to help clients in difficult situations.

Ø   Authenticity

Authenticity can also be called as Genuineness. This is very much important when working with clients; they will guess whether counsellor is genuine or fake. Clients will not open or trust until counsellor’s advice is genuine. This is even more crucially essential when working with teens.

18.5 Purpose of counseling:

Effective counseling consists of absolutely planned, permissive relationship which allows the client to expand an understanding of him to a degree which enables him to take positive steps in the light of his new direction.

The aim (of counseling) is not to resolve one particular problem, but to assist the individual to grow, so that he can cope with the present problem and with later problems in a better incorporated manner.

Therapy is not an issue of doing something to the children or of suggesting him to do something for himself. It is in another word a matter of freeing child for normal growth and development, of removing obstacles so that the child can again progress ahead.

18.6 Steps in counseling:

The different steps in the process, according to Rogers, may be summarized briefly as follows:

1. When the children/client comes for help, which means he has taken a conditional step.

2. The helping circumstance is usually defined. He is made conscious at once that the counselor does not have the answers: the client is simply helped to work out his own answers.

3. The counselor encourages an open expression of feelings in regard to the problem. He tries to keep from overcrowding (and even encourages) the course of aggression and anxiety, the feelings of concern and of guilt. The counselor doesn’t attempt to influence the client that he is wrong or right. He accepts him as he is. He merely tries to give confidence to express himself.

4. The counselor accepts, recognizes, and clarifies the client negative emotions. The counselor should respond to the feelings of the child, not to the rightness or wrongness of the situation or confidence taken by the client. He tries to express it and clarify it without excessive sympathy.

5. When the children negative emotions have been quiet fully expressed, they are followed by the faint and tentative expressions of the positive impulses that helps for development.

6. The counselor agrees and recognizes the positive feelings which are expressed by the child, in the same manner in which he has accepted and recognized the negative emotions.

7. This result is an understanding and insight into the self and an acceptance of the self. This provides a basis on which the client can go ahead to the new levels of incorporation.

8.The initiation by an individual for a minute, but extremely significant, positive events. The client is not urged: he still is merely accepted and being encouraged.

9. The progress of further insight, a more complete and truthful understanding. This is further component of growth.

10.  Increasingly incorporated positive action.

11.  A feeling of increased freedom, of decreasing need for help. (Manju Gupta, 2003).

18.7 Individual counseling:

Individual counseling during the early days of the counseling movement has been identified as the center activity, through which all the other activities become significant. Counseling is a one-to-one helping association that focuses on individual growth, adjustment, problem solving and decision making requirements.

It is a client-centered process that demands in confidence. This process is initiated when a state of psychological contact or association is established among the counselor and the client: it progresses as certain conditions essential to the success of the counseling process.

Most of the practitioners believe that these include counselor genuineness, respect for the client, and an empathetic understanding of the client’s internal structure of reference. Effective counseling requires counselors to have not only the utmost levels of training and professional skills but also certain personality characteristics. Counseling programmes will experience effectiveness and sincerity unless counselors exhibit understanding, warmth, humaneness, and positive attitudes towards humanity.

This process brings relationship and communications base from which the client can develop understanding, explore possibilities and instigate change. In this setting, it is the counselor’s ability that makes positive outcomes possible. The counselor’s skills and knowledge provide suitable framework and direction that maximize the client’s potential for optimistic results.

Counseling goals are:

a)      Providing information

b)      Helping client in problem solving

c)      Initiating change

d)     Client enthusiasm

e)      Giving support

f)       Educating the client

Individual psychology is often called Adlerian therapy which sees the individual holistically and focuses on the uniqueness of individuals. This theory has been referred as socioteleogical for its viewpoint of individuals constantly motivated to attain their goals. Adler also stressed out the importance of developing the client’s social interests and re-educating clients so that they can live in society as one who gives to as well as receives from the society.

Adlerian counseling process involves 4 stages:

a)      establishing relationship

b)      diagnosis

c)      interpretation/insight

d)     re-orientation

In the first stage, the counselor establishes a good relationship/rapport with the client through interview in which client is helped to feel comfortable, accepted, appreciated, and cared about. The client is motivated to explain his needs and problems and also asked to discuss about his life tasks.

The diagnostic stage involves the standard of living (lifestyle), interview, formal assessment procedure about family, parents, siblings and recurring dreams.

In the interpretation phase, the counselor and client develops insight from the lifestyle interview into the clients “crucial mistakes” by analyzing the convictions, goals and activities that the client developed in early life.

In re-orientation stage the therapist helps counselee to move from “intellectual” insight to the actual development and expression of their healthier attitudes and behaviors. Perhaps this is the most critical stage. Here client with his counselors support, encouragement and direction actively pursues changing negative emotions/feelings into positive feelings for him as well as for society.

In today’s concepts of Adlerian counseling has been utilized in working with children, family, divorce or re-marriage.

18.8 Group counseling:

It is the regular adjustment or developmental experiences provided in group surroundings. Group counseling focus on assisting counselees to deal with their day-to-day adjustment and developmental aspects. Eg: Behavioural modifications, developing personal relationship skills, career decision making, problem solving.

We may conclude that group guidance activities are most likely to be found in schools. Group counseling is usually popular in agency and institutional settings and has been utilized somewhat, though not as frequently as group guidance in school settings. While group psychotherapy may be most commonly occur in clinics, agency or organizational settings.

Theoretical considerations:

In group counseling, there are popular theoretical orientations which help in counseling process.

• Individual or Adlerian group leaders are direct and active in group process while identifying that group members can decide what to do for themselves. The group setting can be a safe opportunity for members to inspect themselves, to develop self respect and to improve their social interactions to expand their potential.
• Client-centered counselors always will have active involvement in group counseling. Carl Rogers joined his beliefs about human behavior with his observations of therapeutic groups to formulate his thoughts of group counseling and group therapy.
• Client centered counseling helps individual to have natural tendency to progress themselves. Group counseling provides such an atmosphere in which members feel secure to reveal their problems and needs for their improvement. Group leader also contributes to enhance positive group environment and overall group process.
• Reality-oriented groups give caring environment in which clients always feel valuable and safe enough to explore satisfying behavior. Here counselor acts as a teacher in leading group members to adopt more appropriate behaviors and also create more practical choices.

18.9 Values/principles of group counseling:

Group counselling is not a team sport; the goal is not to win the group but to accomplish the goals, meet the needs and to provide an experience of value to individual members who represent group. Following are some of the points in which group counseling offers:-

• Individuals be able to explore, with the re-inforcement of a support group, their developmental and modification needs, concerns and problems
• Group counseling may provide the client an opportunities to gain insights into his or her own emotions/feelings and behavior
• Group counseling helps the clients with an opportunity to develop positive, natural interaction with others
• Group counseling provides opportunities for clients to learn responsibility to themselves and with others

18.10 Selection of group members:

Even though group counseling focuses on the needs of an individual, the importance of group relationship to the achievements and adjustments of different people in the group cannot be overvalued. Following are the possible criteria for the selection of group members:-

• Common interest
• Self-referred or volunteer participation
• readiness to participate in group process
• Ability to involve in group process (Gibson and Mitchell 2009)

References:

(1) Brammer, L.M. (1993). The helping relationship (5th). Needham heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, NewYork

(2) Egan, G. (1990) The skilled helper: a systematic approach to effective helping (4th Ed) International Thomson Publishing, UK-London

(3) Gibson R.L, and Mitchell M.H, (2009), Introduction to Counseling and Guidance, Seventh edition, PHI Learning Pvt.Ltd, New Delhi

(4) Manju Gupta, (2003), Effective Guidance and Counselling-Modern methods and Techniques, Mangal Deep Publications, Jaipur, India

(5) Samuel T.G, 1995, Counselling; A Comprehensive Profession, 3rd edition, Macmillan Pub Co;