Context and the
Basic Concepts
of Counseling
DIASS
Counseling
• Affected by the context (background, environment & framework) and
the surrounding factors
Context of Counseling
The The
Peers The culture
neighborhood counseling
Contextual Family s the
The client The counselor and process primary
factor context
Peers as a context
• Friend’s attitudes, norms and behaviors have a
strong influence on adolescents
• Many personal issues are often introduced to the
individual by their peers
• Parents can much have influence over their
adolescent children
• Critical family issues involve family family roles, both
positively and negatively
• In most cases, the impact of parent influence can
help counter the negative influence on the
adolecents
Neighborhood as a Context
• The interaction between the family and its neighborhood
as immediate context are also important to consider
• A family functions within a particular neighborhood
• The behavioral problem in this particular neighborhood
require that families work against crime and social isolation
that may impact them
Culture as a context
• Culture provide meaning and coherence of life to any
orderly life such as community or organization
• Various sectors of community families, peers,
neighborhoods are all bound together by a cultural
context that influences them all as individual members
• Culture is the source of norms, values, symbols and
language which provide the basis for the normal
functioning of an individual
• Understanding the cultural
context of a client makes it easier
for a counselor to appreciate the
nature of their struggles as well as
their cultural conditioning that
inform certain personal
characteristics such as degree of
openness to share personal
concerns, self-revealing, making
choices and personal
determination for independence
Success factors such as
-client factors-the expectation and attitude of the
client define the result of the counseling process
Counseling -counselor factors-skills and personal qualities of
counselor
as a context -contextual factors-the context in which the
counseling takes place can define outcomes
Process Factors
-
Counseling as a Context
• The National Institute of Health recognizes counseling itself as a
• CONTEXT-the circumstances that form the setting for an event,
statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and
assessed.
• Regardless of a therapeutic approach in use, the counseling situation in
itself is a context
• There is a deliberate specific focus, a set of procedures, rules,
expectations, experiences and a way of monitoring progress and
determining results in any therapeutic approach
• Counseling can be affected by the counseling context
Success factors in
Counseling
1. Client Factors
• The client brings so much to the
counseling context and therefore
remains imperative that they are
considered as an active part of the
process
• The expectations and attitude of the
client define the result of a counseling
process and experience
• The success or failure of the counseling
process depends so much on the client
2. Counselor Factor
• The personality, skills, and personal qualities of a counselor can significantly
impact the outcomes of the counseling relationship
• The counselor’s personal style and qualities can make the intervention
successful
• The condition for self-restoration or experience of self-empowerment in a
client are some qualities that a counselor usually brings about
• The experience of positive and negative conditions can be attributed to the
counselor
• This may be amplified or aggravated by the choice of the counseling methods
that the counselor uses in his practice, this makes counseling both a science
and an art
3. Contextual Factor
• The context in which counseling takes place can
define the outcomes
• Counselors are concerned with the environment
and atmosphere where to conduct the sessions
• There are ideal contexts and not ideal ones
• Example-the physical noise and distance trigger
the feeling of emotional safety of the client
• A noisy place can be a distraction that prevents
healing
• A place where a client feels strongly fearful can
provided a blockage from genuine engagement
with counseling process and procedure
• A client has to feel comfortable and
positive
• Ideally, counseling should take place in
a quiet, warm, and comfortable place
away from any distraction
• Unless the counselor and client talk in
comfort and safety, there is no way
steps of healing can commence and
yield desirable outcome
4. Process factors
• Process includes actual counseling
undertaking
Process Factors
DEVELOPING TRUST EXPLORING HELPING TO SET EMPOWERING INTO HELPING TO
PROBLEM AREAS GOALS ACTION MAINTAIN CHANGE
Stages of Counseling
a. Developing Trust- this involves providing warmth, genuineness and
empathy
• Warmth- secured, enthusiasm, affection, kindness
• Genuineness-real/authentic, sincere
• Empathy-the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive
to and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience
of another
b. Exploringproblem areas-
providing a clear and deep analysis
of what the problem is , when it
comes from, its triggers, and why it
may have developed?
• C. Helping to set goals- involves
setting and managing goal-oriented
interventions
d. Empowering into Action- fostering actions to achieve set goals
• Helping to maintain change- providing support and other techniques
to enable the client to maintain changes
• F. Agreeing when to
end the helping
relationship
Goal of counseling
• Aimed at empowering a client
• Lead an individual client or group to self-
emancipation in relation to the felt problem
• A client should attain insight and understanding of
oneself, achieve better self-awareness and look at
oneself with increased self-acceptance and
appreciation and be able to manage oneself
positively
Client Empowerment
• Client develop skills and abilities that require self-
management and improved motivation towards
actions that are good for oneself and develop a
positive outlook toward the past leading to some
sense of closure and attainment of relative inner
and outer harmony resulting in improvement in the
relationship with family, friends, colleagues, and
others
• The scope of counseling is wide
• Essentially, it involves:
1. Application of some psychological theories and recognized
communication skills
2. It does not deal with clinical cases such as mental illness
3. It is a professional relationship that requires an eventual closure
and termination of the counselee-counselor relationship
Principles of Counseling
• -found in the basic process of counseling since they govern each and
every step:
1. Developing trust
2. Exploring problem areas
3. Helping to set goals
4. Empowering into action
5. Helping to maintain change
6. Agreeing when to end
• Counselors are to set aside their own value system in order to
empathize with their clients
• Since the objective of counseling is to provide support in dealing with
issues of concern
• Counseling is effective when it is performed with clear objectives that
include providing some degree of advice, reassurance, release of
emotional tension, clarified thinking and reorientation
• Counselors must try to keep this principles in mind at all times in
order to be effective
Advice
• Counseling may involve advice-giving as one of the several functions
that counselors perform
• When this is done, the requirement is that a counselor makes
judgments about a counselee’s problems and lays out options for a
course of action
• Advice giving has to avoid breeding a relationship in which the
counselee feels inferior and emotionally dependent on the counselor
Reassurance
• Counseling involves providing clients with reassurance,
which is a way of giving them the courage to face a
problem or confidence that they are pursuing a suitable
course of action
• Reassurance is a valuable principle because it can bring
about a sense of relief that may empower a client to
function normally again
Release of Emotional
Tension
• Counseling provides clients the
opportunity to get emotional release from
their pent-up frustrations and other
personal issues
• Counseling experience shows that a
person begins to explain their concerns to
a sympathetic listener, their tensions
begin to subside
• They become more relaxed and tend to
become more coherent and rational
• The release of tensions helps remove
mental blocks by providing a solution to
the problem
Clarified thinking
• Tends to take place while the counselor and
counselee are talking and therefore becomes
a logical emotional release
• As this relationship goes on, other self-
empowering result may take place later as a
result of development during the counseling
relationship
• Clarified thinking encourages a client to accept
responsibility for problems and to be more
realistic in solving them
Reorientation
• Involves a change in the client’s emotional self through a change in
basic goals and aspirations
• This requires a revision of client’s level of aspiration to bring it more
in line with actual and realistic attainment
• It enables client to recognize and accept their own limitations
• The counselor’s job is to recognize those in need of reorientation and
facilitate appropriate intervention
Listening skills
• Listening attentively to clients is the counselor’s attempt to
understand both the content of the clients’ problems as they see it,
and the emotions they are experiencing related to the problem
• Counselors do not make interpretations of the clients problems or
offer any premature suggestions as to how to deal with them , or
solve the issues presented
• Good listening helps counselors to understand the concerns being
presented
Respect
• In all circumstances, clients must be treated with respect, no matter
how peculiar, strange, disturbed, weird, and utterly different from the
counselor
• Without this basic element, successful counseling is impossible
• Counselors do not have to like the client, or their values, or their
behavior, but they have to put their personal feelings aside and treat
the client with respect.
Empathy and positive regard
• Carl Rogers combined empathy and
positive regards as 2 principles that
should go along with respect and
effective listening skills
• Empathy requires the counselor to
listen and understand the feelings and
perspective of the client
• Positive regard is an aspect for respect
• Clients have to be given both
“unconditional positive regard” and be
treated with respect
Clarification, confrontation and
interpretation
• Clarification is an attempt by the counselor to restate what the client
is either saying or feeling so the client may learn something or
understand the issue better
• Confrontation and interpretation –used by counselors in their
intervention
Transference and countertransference
• Transference- clients are empowered to gain an understanding of
important aspects of their emotional lives
• Countertransference – helps both clients and counselors to
understand the emotional and perceptional reactions and how to
effectively manage them
Core Values of Counseling
1. Respect for human dignity
2. Partnership
3. Autonomy
4. Responsible caring
5. Personal integrity
6. Social justice
Respect for • Counselor must provide a client unconditional
positive regard, compassion, non-judgmental
human dignity attitude, empathy and trust
Partnership
• A counselor has to foster partnerships with the various
disciplines that come together to support integrated
healing that encompasses various aspects such as the
physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual
• These relationships should be of integrity, sensitivity,
and openness to ensure health, healing, and growth of
clients
Autonomy
• This entails respect for confidentiality and trust in a relationship of
counseling and ensuring a safe environment that is needed for healing
• It also means that healing or any advice CANNOT be imposed on a
client
Responsible caring
• Respecting the potential of every human being to change and to
continue learning throughout his/her life, especially in the
environment of counseling
Personal integrity
• Counselors must reflect
personal integrity honesty
and truthfulness with clients
Social Justice
• Accepting and respecting the diversity of the clients, the diversity of
individuals, their cultures, languages, lifestyle, identities, ideologies,
intellectual capacities, personalities and capabilities regardless of
their presented issues
Ethical Principles in Counseling
foundation of ethical practice
Counselors shall:
1. Act with carte and respect for individual and cultural differences
and the diversity of human experience
2. Avoid doing harm in all their professional work.
3. Respect the confidences with which they are entrusted
4. Promote the safety and well-being of individuals, families and
communities
5. Seek to increase the range of choices and opportunities for clients
6. Be honest and trustworthy in all their professional relationships
7. Practice within the scope of their competence
8. Treat colleagues and other professionals with respect
Activity
• 1. Based on the concepts of counseling, how do the following factors
contribute to the success of counseling . Write at least 2 significant
points
a. Client
b. Counselor
c. Context
d. process
2. Role Playing
Demonstrate how the counseling core values can be exhibited in a
counseling session
1, Pair up with a classmate. Assign which of you will play as the
counselor and counselee
2, The counselee should think of a life issue to bring up with the
counselor, while the counselor internalizes the counseling core values
Sustain a counseling session for 3 minutes
