IN THE RING OF LIFE: WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT COUNSELLING? PART II

As an evolving profession whose practice gained legislative act as late as 2013 in Ghana, the field of counselling seems fairly new to a large number of the Ghanaian population as compared to nationals of advanced countries where the discipline has taken root. Indeed, in a research conducted by Dzokoto et al. (2022) on cultural adaptations and Ghanaian response to psychotherapy practice, their participants who included counsellors reported some cultural barriers they had to navigate before offering therapy in Ghana. The barriers include clients seeing therapy as an unfamiliar resource, resistance due to mental illness stigma, linguistic barriers, hierarchical and age norms associated with help-seeking in providing therapeutic services, Charismatic Christian and African Cosmological Worldviews, cultural expectations of helping and family sit-ins.

This is the second write-up on the three-part awareness creation series about the field of counselling. The current text highlights the relevance of counselling service and the need to seek professional counselling services as one navigate through the unpredictable path yet often eventful of life. Kindly read the first part of this series if you missed it via https://reflectiveseedsbycounsellorseyram.blogspot.com/2024/07/in-ring-of-life-what-do-you-know-about.html. 

Now, let’s turn our attention to some of the major goals of counselling.

1. Achievement of positive mental health. Contrary to popular perception that mental illness is solely synonymous to being “mad”, “insane”, “crazy” etc., mental health encompasses a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to the society. Mental illness however include mood disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder), anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia, dementia etc.). Counselling helps individuals deal with the onset of minor cases of some of the above conditions so as to enable the individuals attain positive mental health and lead fulfilling lives. This helps ensure the individuals do not experience the debilitating effects of mental illness.

2. Problem resolution and decision making. Counselling facilitates exploration of issues, feelings and practicalities about challenging situations which individuals cannot resolve by themselves. Concerns arising from relationships, marriage, divorce, childlessness, employment, lay-offs, retirement, career, spirituality, anxiety, loss and others are situations which individuals may require assistance to address. Counselling helps gain the ability to make right and timely independent decisions based on relevant information with room to seek clarification for avoidance of doubt.

3. Improving personal effectiveness and self-actualisation. Being effective means gaining the ability of greater self-awareness, self-knowledge, maturity, impulse control, creative thinking and building competence to recognise, define and solve problems of life and attain fulfilment. Counselling support enables the individual to become fully-functional in a non-limiting manner. It is a significant on-going process which may require occasional support to overcome life obstacles, discover the real self and be true to ones self.

4. Behaviour modification and personality change. Counselling helps the individual to modify and remove unhealthy, undesirable or self-defecting behaviours and learn desirable behaviours necessary for change, adjustment, development and positive growth. The counselling process helps the individual change his or her attitudes, perceptions or personality.

5. Crisis Intervention & Management.

Counsellors are equipped to offer immediate psychological support to individuals and groups who suffer disasters which hitherto may cause devastating emotional, mental and psychological damages to such people. In instances like fire outbreaks, flood, abuse, loss of varied forms and critical life incidents, counselling interventions primarily focus on restoring victims to the level of functioning prior to the incident and reduce trauma to the barest minimum.

6. Insight and Understanding for Symptom Amelioration. Counselling service provides the client an opportunity to investigate and analyse the root causes, effects and consequences of the persistent challenges they face in life. Therapeutic sessions help clients to understand their feelings, thoughts, perceptions, behaviours and motivation that affect their lives and their responses to same. This enables them experience a reduction or complete elimination of issues that affect their functionality. The symptoms clients report are likely to diminish or be lost completely during the therapeutic relationship and treatment process.

7. Discovery of meaning and transcendental experience. Counselling also prepares clients to be able to explore existential, spiritual or metaphysical meaning and transcendental experience of life. This is significant in an era where individuals may question existential components of life and the meaning they ascribe to the supernatural.

8. Systemic, Organisational and Social Change. Institutions, groups and individuals alike can benefit from counselling assessment services in terms of employee recruitment, capacities, challenges and conflict resolution activities. This consequently affects the roles such individuals or groups are expected to perform in order to cause not only positive change within their respective organization but also a social transformational development in the society at large.

9. Psychoeducational guidance. The Counselling profession is sensitive to social improvement and communal transformation. Thus, practitioners provide continuous openings for education, information, training on career choices, wellness, lifestyle, relationship, family, employment, among others. This helps individuals navigate through life in the most peaceful ways devoid of psychological, physical and mental illness.

10. Adjustment and resource provision. Counsellors provide hands-on interventions to individuals, groups and organisations to enable them gain contextual information, develop coping skills, assertiveness and goal-setting strategies to overcome life challenges. Additionally, counsellors offer clients needed resources and timely assistance to sustain them in dire situations.

In sum, counsellors employ therapeutic support based on tested assessment and diagnosis using theories and methods in a systematic process of initial engagement, facilitative relationship, goal identification, strategic selection and strategy implementation. The process ends with a terminative stage and follow-up depending on the data gathered from assessment. Counsellors utilise skills and qualities like good listening, non-judgmental approach, warmth, understanding, empathy, assertiveness, knowledgeability, sense of humour, unconditional positive regard and respect for the uniqueness of the individual to lead clients to problem resolution. TO BE CONTINUED...

References

American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5 Task Force. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5™ (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 

American Psychological Association (1998). Dictionary of Psychology. APA.

Feltharn, C. & Dryden, W. (1993). Dictionary of Counselling. Whurr.

Hahn, M. E. & Maclean, M. S. (1955). Counseling psychology (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Pepinsky, H. B. & Pepinsky, P. N. (1954). Counseling theory and practice. Ronald Press Company. https://doi.org/10.1037/10631-000

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Houghton Mifflin.

The American Counselling Association Conference (2010). American Counselling Association. https://archive.counseling.org/conference/past-conferences