The Process Of Counseling

Counseling is a psycho-therapeutic process, which has several stages through which a person can successfully achieve his goal. In the process of Counseling a counselor develops a friendly relationship and ease of communication with the client for the development of self understanding through which the client can take initiatives for future betterment.

Establishing initial structure: counseling has to be done in the peaceful place there should not be any kind of disturbance that can interrupt and create any chaos between client and counselor. Everyday counseling must be started at a fixed time otherwise it could be the first flaw in the process, because time management is an integral part of counseling. The counselor should gather and organize the information about the client and outline the key components of the counseling process. That includes planning the counseling strategy and self role induction.

Rapport development: the counselor’s role is more like a guide, counselor does not impose his decisions on the client he always let the client choose the best possible solution for himself from the available possibilities. In rapport development counselor does not judge his client because clients can quite the process if he thinks the counselor is criticizing or evaluating his decisions/actions. Initially or later in the process, counselor should avoid ordering, advising and arguments in the process these things kills the effectiveness of the process.

Know your client: once the counselor gathers all the information about the client, he should start outlining the basic elements of his clients' mood, to understand the mindset of the client, if the client is emotionally unstable, counselor can share his experience’s to provide moral support and creating an emotional link and if the client is involuntary then the counselor can outline the process of counseling to the client or If counseling process is designed for a child then a counselor can use humor and engage the child in different activities.

Identifying the problem: problem identification is the mutual effort of counselor and the client, they both work together to find out the problem that the client has been facing. Here, majority of the work is done by the client. The counselor acts as a facilitator to the client. After the problem is identified, the counselor starts working to know that is it the real problem of the client or not?

The Counselor may also refer the client for group counseling services to provide assistance to the individual to achieve more and grow personally and socially and get better educational and vocational development.

Exploring self perception and behavior: To know the behavior of the client there are many tests and other source of information through which accurate results can be achieved. Cumulative Record helps to know all the basic information about the client including his family background and educational settings. Questionnaire tests can be administered according to the need of the counseling process, rating scale can be used for the behavior of the client, case study is also a very important element for some critical and emotionally disturbed client, and counselor could also make some observations on the client’s behavior during the session. Interview is the most commonly used tool for counseling. Through Autobiography counselor can get the details of personal information, Family background, Personal history, previous counseling experience & Client's current life setting etc.

Problem solving: Once the test results are obtained, they decide what strategy and plan should be adopted to solve the problem of the client. For example: interview question and answer session and other tests (if used) to identify symptoms and to diagnose the nature of clients' problems.

Decision making: This is the step in which gathered information about the client is evaluated to find the best solution of the client’s problem. For Decision making all the relevant information is gathered and arranged according to the priority of actions. Then the effectiveness of the information used is analyzed. Appropriate Choice of decision and solution is made according to the importance of action.

Plan of action: Plan of action is a step to achieve desired goal. To obtain the desired result the client is meant to do what is planned through the counseling session with the counselor. This step is very specific it only tells the client how to maintain and made the necessary modification in his behavior. Plan of action must not be complex, it should be simple and specific to achieve the goal for successful development. For example; a client should not be told to go through several steps to implement the action. All the details and other information must be discussed during the decision making step.

Follow up: The process of counseling is a continuous process; it does not end with the counseling session, it proceeds with the implementation of the plan of action and evaluation of results. After the counseling process, counselor should encourage the clients as he implements on the action that is planned in the counseling session. The counselor should make observations on the actions of the client and make some changes if necessary to make the plan successful through which client can achieve his goals.

Termination: The Termination Stage is the final stage of the counseling process, but it is as important as the initial stage of counseling. The counselor discusses the whole process of termination with his client. If the solution is found then the process is terminated, but it depends on the client if he is satisfied with the whole process he can stop or proceed it further. The client can consult his counselor anytime he wants.