COUNSELING AS RELATIONSHIP

C. H. Paterson

University of Illionois

In dealing with counseling the usual approach treats counseling as a process – as a series of stages or phases, not necessarily discrete but nevertheless discernible. We thus have the total process broken down into sub process: the intake process; the initial interview; the evaluation process, including interview and testing; the problem exploration stage( including in vocational counseling, occupational exploration); the problem solving stage, including the selection of a vocational objective ; and the closing stage, which in vocational counseling includes placement.

On this view, the attention, the emphasis, of counselor is focused upon techniques. Now while techniques are necessary, they are –or should be- secondary. They are not the essence of the counseling process, only means to the goal. Concern with techniques as such may be detrimental rather than helpful to good counseling. It tend to lead to a situation in which the counselor  uses techniques as a devices by which to manipulate or influence the client toward the acceptance of his, the counselor’s, goal or objectivity. this is kind of thing represented by such phrases as counseling a client into, or objective, or toward this or that decision. To call such activity counseling is a misuse of term, if not a desecration of the very concept. Counseling is not something you do to, or practice upon, a client. It is something you engage in with the client.

The word with suggest that, rather than being a matter of techniques,   counseling is a relationship. This point of view has been discussed and developed by number of writers, but mainly in the area of psychotherapy. I think it has value in all counseling areas.

In Aid of Good Relationship

In obvious that counseling is a human relationship. Since we are, of course, constantly engaged in relationships with other people, it might appear  that there should be no difficulty in learning to be a counselor, we would simply apply what we know about human relationship in our work with our client. To some extent this is true. Counseling and psychotherapy are often made to appear to be more complicated, more mysterious, more esoteric, than is actually case. The emphases upon techniques, the attempt to classify kinds of client and kinds of problem and to match these with specify techniques, contribute to this impression. To view counseling as basically akin to other human relationships is to remove this aura of mystery an magic. This might be threatening to some professional counselors and therapist, suggesting that learning counseling or even psychotherapy is not necessarily a long, complicated process.

Granted this is the case, we must beware of oversimplification. Counseling is based upon the principles of good human relations. While these principles are in general known, there are necessarily widely practiced outside of counseling and psychotherapy, not do they necessarily come automatically and easily. It is also true that they application in counseling are compared with their application in other interpersonal or social relationship involved somewhat difference techniques, methods, and skills. Let us consider briefly what these principles of good human relations are, and how they may be manifested in the counseling relationship.

Good human relationships are those which are productive of or conductive to good mental and social-psychological health. Since the goal of counseling or psychotherapy is the attainment of good mental health, the basic principles of good human relation and counseling are clearly the same. One might say that providing of good human relationships keep people healthy, while in counseling and psychotherapy we are concerned with restoring people to good mental health or improving their mental health. What is good for one purpose likewise useful in fulfilling the other.

What now are the requirement of good mental health which can be met as individual interacts with individual, whether is general human relationships or in specific situations such as teacher – student, employer-employer, or counselor-client relationships?

MARKS OF MENTAL HEALTH

The first and basic requirement of every individual if he is to be mentally healthy is that he have at least a modicum of self-esteem - that he accept himself, that he feel that at least in some respects he is a person of worth. The achievement and maintenance of this self-esteem is the basic drive and the motivation of every person. To have it is to be, to the extent that it is present, mentally healthy. A social environment which facilitates the development and maintenance of self-esteem is a healthy environment.

How does one go about providing such an environment? What can one can do to promote self-esteem in other people? We have some evidence, both from research and from experience, regarding the conditions which promote or faster self-esteem or mental health.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to accept or respect oneself if one is not accepted by other. One of the first principles of human relations, therefore, is the acceptance of other. Acceptance involves recognition of another as an individual, a unique person, who is respected as a person and treated as worthy of respect. Acceptance includes recognition of the right of another to be himself rather than conform to what you might want him to be. One accepts others by being interested in them as individuals, showing respect for their opinions or contribution or expression of feelings, taking time to listen to what they have to say.