TYPES OF COUNSELLING

 

TYPES OF COUNSELLING

1. DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING APPROACH
(Prescriptive or Counsellor-centered Counselling)

Ø  It is also known as prescriptive counselling or counsellor-centered approach of counselling.

Ø  Counseling during which a professional play an active role in a client's or patient's decision making by offering advice, guidance, and/or recommendations. 

Ø   Directive counselling is the process of listening to a member’s problem, deciding with the member what should be done, and then encouraging and motivating the person to do it.

Ø  In directive counselling, the counsellor plays a leading role and uses a variety of techniques to suggest appropriate solutions to the counselee’s problem.

Ø  This approach also known as authoritarian or psychoanalytic approach.

Ø  The counsellor is active and help individual in making decisions and finding solution to their problems.

Ø  The counsellor believes in the limited capacity of the patient

Characteristics of Directive counselling approach

1.       Counselor-Centered Approach: The counselor is the central figure who actively manages the entire process, dominates the interview, and takes the lead in discussions.

2.       Emphasis on the Problem: The primary focus is on identifying and resolving the specific educational or vocational problem at hand, rather than focusing heavily on the students’ emotional growth.

3.       Intellectual Rather than Emotional: It relies on intellectual reasoning, logical analysis and objective facts to solve problems, putting less emphasis on exploring deep-seated emotional states or feelings.

4.       Active Role of the Counselor: The counselor actively gathers information, asks direct questions, interprets data, and suggests concrete solutions or alternative pathways to the student.

5.       Passive Role of the Student: The student (counselee) plays a relatively passive role, primarily answering questions, providing necessary information, and listening to the counselor’s guidance.

6.       Heavy Reliance on diagnostic tools: The process heavily depends on objective data collected through specialized tools such as intelligence tests, aptitude tests, cumulative records case histories, and interest inventories.

7.       Structured and Phased Process: It follows a highly structured, systematic six-step methodology; analysis, synthesis, diagnosis, prognosis, counselling and follow-up.

8.       Counselor Assumes Superior Insight: The approach operates on the belief that the counselor, due to their specialized training and objective viewpoint, is better equipped to understand and solve the student’s problem than the student themselves.

9.       Direct Advice and Prescription: The counselor doesn’t just guide self-discovery; they directly prescribe solutions, offer specific advice, and tell the student what steps or course of action they should take.

10.   Focus on immediate and future adjustments: It aims to help students make immediate, practical decisions (like choosing a stream or career path) while also helping them anticipate and prepare for future educational challenges.

Steps of Counselling

 Analysis:

Ø  Collection from a variety of sources the data needed for an adequate understanding of the student.

2. Synthesis:

Ø  Summarizing and organizing the data so that they reveal the students’ assets, liabilities, adjustments and maladjustments.

3. Diagnosis:

Ø  Formulating conclusions regarding the nature and the cause of the problems exhibited by the student.

4. Prognosis:

Ø  Predicting the future development of the student’s problems.

5. Counselling:

Ø  The counsellor’s taking steps with the student to bring about adjustment and readjustment for the student.

6. Follow-up:

Ø  Helping the student with new problems or with recurrence of the original problem and determining the effectiveness of the counselling provided to him.

 Advantages of Directive counseling

1. Time Saving:

Ø  Since the task of the counselor is only giving suggestion/advice, pressures, therefore it consumes less time.

2. Economic:

Ø  Time is not wasted so it is economic.

3. Organized:

Ø  Systematic approach. Involves an organized set of steps.

4. Active participation of counselor:

Ø  Counselor is active participant and directs the individual in decision making.

Limitations of the directive counselling approach.

1. The patient does not gain any liability for self-analysis or solve new problems of adjustment by counselling.
2. It makes the counselee over dependent on the counsellor.
3. Problems regarding emotional maladjustment may be better solved by nondirective counselling.
4. Sometimes the counselee lacks information regarding the counselee, leads wrong counselling.
5. It does not guarantee that the counselee will able to solve the same problem on his own in future.

2. NON-DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING

Ø  The counselee (Student) is the pivot.

Ø  He takes an active part in the process of counselling. He gains insight into his problem with the help of the counsellor.

Ø  The role of the counsellor is passive. The counsellor provides a place where the client works out the solution with the assistance of the counsellor.

Ø  Counsellor’s attitude is friendly, interested and receptive. The counselee has adequate freedom to express his feelings.

Ø  The goal is on the individual rather than the solution of a particular problem.

Ø  The main function of the counsellor is to create proper environment. The emotional elements rather than the intellectual elements are stressed.

Characteristics of Non-directive Counselling

1.       Student-centered Focus: The student (not the counselor or teacher) is the center of the entire process. The conversation revolves around the student’s feelings, experiences and perceptions.

2.       No Advice or Impositions: The counsellor strictly avoids giving advice, solutions or moral lectures. The goal is to guide, not to dictate what the student should do.

3.       Permissive and Free atmosphere: It create a safe, non-threatening environment where the students feel completely free to express negative emotions like anger, fear or frustration without fear of judgment.

4.       Counsellor as a facilitator:  The counsellor acts as a mirror or a catalyst. Their role is to reflect back the student’s thoughts and feelings to help them see their situation more clearly.

5.       Unconditional Positive Regard: The student is accepted exactly as they are, with all their faults and achievements. The counsellor maintains a warm, deeply respectful and non-judgmental attitude.

6.       Emphasis on self-Exploration: The process encourages students to look inward, analyze their own behavior and understand their unique emotional state.

7.       Emotional Priority over Intellectualizing: It focuses more on the student’s current feelings rather than an intellectual discussion of the facts or the history of the problem.

8.       Development of Insight: As the student talks through their issues in a supportive space, they naturally develop sudden moments of realization or “insight” into their own problems.

9.       Growth in Autonomy and Self-Direction: It assumes that the student has the inherent capacity for self-growth. The process builds their independence, making them capable of solving future problems on their own.

10.   Dynamic and Flexible Process: There is no rigid, pre-planned structure or psychological testing involved. The counselling sessions flow naturally based on whatever the student chooses to bring to the table.

Steps of Non-Directive Counselling

1. Defining the problematic situation:

Ø  First of all, the counselor should define the problematic situation.

 2. Free expression of feelings:

Ø  After the first step, the client is made aware of the fact that he can express his feelings freely and the counselor approves this.

 3. Development of Insight:

Ø  The counselor goes on thinking regarding the client’s new feelings along with the development of client’s insight and he goes on classifying all those new feelings.

4. Classification of positive and negative feelings:

Ø  After the free expressions of feelings by the client, the counselor identifies his negative and positive feelings and he classifies them.

5. Termination of counseling situation:

Ø  The counselor looks for a point where he can terminate the counselling situation after all the above steps.

Ø  According to this school of thought, either the client or the counselor can suggest for such termination of counseling situation.

Advantages of Non-Directive Counselling

1. It is slow but sure process to make an individual capable of making adjustments.

2.No tests are used so one avoids all that is laborious and difficult.

3. It removes emotional block and helps an individual bring repressed thoughts on a conscious level thereby reducing tension.

4. Independence of Counselee:

Ø  Counselee is independent of making decisions for himself to   Solve his own problems. It removes emotional blocks.

5. Freedom:

Ø  It feels free in talking about his problem and possible causes.

 6. Knowledge:

Ø  Knowledge based approach. Without knowledge counselor cannot be a Competent part of this approach.

Limitations/Disadvantages of Non-directive Counselling

1. More suitable to sort out emotional/personal  problems.

 2. Time consuming:

Ø  Free flow of view of counselee needs time.

  3. Not Economic:

Ø  Many sessions may be required to develop insight in the counselee.

  4. Require special Training:

Ø  Cannot be used effectively without training.

  5. Emergence of Non-Acceptable solutions:

Ø  Sometime the counselee may drive out non- acceptable non-suitable readjustment solutions which are impractical in life.

 3. ECLECTIC COUNSELLING

Ø  Here the counsellor first studies the personality and needs of the individual.

Ø  He then selects the technique that would be most helpful for the individual.

Ø  He can start with the directive one but when the situation demands, the counsellor may switch over to the non-directive and vice-versa.

Ø  The attempt is made to adjust the techniques to the requirements of the situation and the individual.

Ø  The chief advocate of Eclectic counseling is F. C. Thorne. 

Ø  Eclectic counseling is defined as the combination of the two extremes that is directive and non-directive counseling.

Ø  In eclectic counseling, the counselor is neither too active as in the directive counseling nor too passive as in the non-directive counseling.

Ø  He just follows the middle path between these two.  That is, it is neither counselor-centered nor client-centered.

Characteristics of Eclectic Counselling

1.       Highly Flexible and Adaptable: It doesn’t force a student to fit into a specific theoretical box. The counsellor changes their method based on the student’s personality, problem, and environment.

2.       Student-Centered Focus: The unique needs, strengths and background of the student dictate the counselling process, rather than the rigid rules of any single therapy system.

3.       Integration of multiple theories: It blends elements from various schools of thought- such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for study anxiety, and person-centered therapy for building self-esteem.

4.       Objective and Scientific:  It relies on evidence-backed techniques. The counselor systematically studies the student’s problem and chooses tools that have been proven to work for that specific issue.

5.       Active roles for Both Parties: Both the counselor and the student are highly active. It isn’t just the counselor talking or just the student venting; it is a collaborative, problem-solving partnership.   

6.       Focus on efficiency and Economy: Because it targets the exact issue with the most effective tool available, it often saves time and school resources compared to long-term, single-theory therapies.

7.       High success rate: By drawing from a vast toolkit, the counselor has a much higher chance of finding a strategy that actually resonates with a diverse student population.

8.       Dynamic and Evolving: The process is not static. If a behavioral contract is not helping a student improve their attendance, the counselor can seamlessly switch to an emotional or cognitive approach without starting over.

9.       Freedom of Choice:  The counselor has the professional freedom to choose whatever tools work best, while the student is often given options in how they want to approach their goals.

10.   Balanced Approach: It strikes a perfect middle ground between being overly directive (the counselor telling the student what to do) and non-directive (the counselor just listening), balancing guidance with student autonomy.

Steps in Eclectic counseling

q  Thorne, suggested the following steps,

1. Diagnosis of the cause.
2. Analysis of the problem.
3. Preparation of a tentative plan for modifying factors.
4. Securing effective conditions for counselling.
5. Interviewing and stimulating the client to develop his own resources and to assume its responsibility for trying new modes of adjustment.
6. Proper handling of any related problems which may contribute to adjustment.

Advantages of an Eclectic Counselling

1. Safety:  The use of variety of ideas and procedure from different existing approaches and methods will increase the chance of learning taking place.

2.Interest:

Ø  Teachers need to use different techniques to hold the learners’ attention.

3.Diversity: Different learning/teaching contexts require different methodologies.

4.Flexibility:

Ø  Awareness of range of available techniques will help teachers exploit materials better and manage unexpected situations. Informed teaching is bound to be eclectic.

5.It doesn’t restrict one perspective so allows new ideas to be formed.

6.Combination method is a useful way of validating ideas.

7.Strength of one method can be used to offset the weakness.

8.Individual needs are better matched to treatment when more option is available.

9.Therapeutic method treat the entire disorder and not just one symptom.

Disadvantages of Eclectic Counselling

1. Some people are of the view that eclectic counseling is vague, opportunistic and superficial.

2. Both directive and non-directive counseling cannot be mixed together.

3.  In this, the question arises how much freedom should be given to the client? For this there is non-definite rule.

4. The problem with an eclectic orientation is that counselors often do more harm than good if they have little or no understanding about what is helping the client.

5. It does not lend itself to prediction and control of behavior.

6. It difficult to identify the relative contributions of each approach.

7. There is a practical difficulty in investigating the integration of approach.

8. There are practical difficulties when providing eclectic therapy. It may be too complex for one    clinician to manage.