Psychological counseling is a relatively new professional field of psychological practice, which is a type of psychological assistance. This direction comes from psychotherapy and is aimed at a clinically healthy individual who cannot overcome everyday difficulties on his own. In other words, the key task of this technique is to help individuals find a way out of existing problematic circumstances that they are unable to overcome without outside help, to recognize and change ineffective behavioral patterns for making fateful decisions, to resolve current life difficulties, and to achieve their goals. . According to the target area, the tasks of psychological counseling are divided into corrective influence and tasks aimed at achieving personal growth, self-development and life success by the client.
Concept of psychological counseling
The concept of “what is psychological counseling” consists of the following aspects:
- what is this field of activity;
- for whom is it intended?
- what is it aimed at;
- How does it differ from other psychological assistance?
The concept of “psychological counseling” is part of practical psychology, which emerged from psychotherapy and covers requests for psychological help from people without mental disorders.
Such counseling is required when a person cannot overcome life’s difficulties on his own, such as:
- difficulties at work;
- loneliness;
- family problems;
- difficulties with children;
- diffidence;
- difficulties when making decisions, etc.
People may need psychological help in special life situations: the death of a loved one, persistent feelings of guilt, states of anxiety and fear, phobias, etc.
Psychological counseling is aimed at:
- help a person understand and accept their current life situation;
- help you make a choice and take action;
- help to accept the need to change behavior patterns and learn new skills;
- promote personal development.
The main differences between psychological counseling and other similar assistance:
- The psychologist-consultant gives the client advice and recommendations, shows various work techniques. Their practical implementation is a matter for the client himself;
- the main work of the client on himself and his behavior is carried out by the client himself in the absence of a psychologist;
- The consultant’s area of responsibility is the correctness of conclusions about the essence of the client’s problem and the potential effectiveness of his recommendations. The result of the work is the client’s responsibility.
Basics of psychological counseling
The basics of psychological counseling are, first of all, the principles that a consultant must adhere to when communicating with a client:
- Non-judgmental attitude.
- A person has all the resources to solve his problems.
- A person does the best of what he has been taught.
- Distinction between personal and professional spheres.
- Effective counseling is a journey that the consultant takes alongside, and not instead of, the client.
Psychological counseling, which is based on the professional and human competence of the consultant, allows the client to find an acceptable solution to the problem and take responsibility for its implementation.
Psychologists distinguish 6 types of clients who come for consultations. But this applies to ordinary everyday problems. In addition to them, there are special situations in life that bring special clients to consultations.
Features of psychological counseling for anxious clients
Anxiety is a warning about a threat and at the same time protection from it. An anxious client, as a rule, ends up in psychological counseling after visiting several doctors who were unable to make a definite diagnosis. Meanwhile, the main problem is an unresolved internal conflict.
Counseling an anxious client begins with a diagnosis - the person himself cannot explain what is happening to him. In counseling, the psychological state of anxious clients is compared to a dark sky, which has a depressing effect on a person. Anxious clients experience:
- acute reaction to perceived danger;
- inability to identify specific situations that cause anxiety;
- increased blood pressure, heart pain, breathing problems;
- insomnia;
- Bad mood;
- somatic symptoms - headache, spasms, itching, etc.
Counseling anxious clients is a long and painstaking work of a psychologist, since it is difficult to immediately reveal the problems hidden behind this condition.
Features of counseling anxious clients - anxiety is often disguised as emotions such as aggression, hostility, irritation, verbosity, etc. or the exact opposite: coldness, stiffness, taciturnity, etc. You need to be able to recognize this.
Counseling anxious clients is based on recommendations to give the person the opportunity to speak out in order to express his condition in words. Then anxiety will become an object visible to the consultant.
Methods for dealing with anxiety:
- art therapy;
- relaxation and auto-training;
- imagotherapy;
- NLP practitioners;
- rational psychotherapy;
- Gestalt therapy, psychodrama, etc.
Counseling anxious clients is one of the popular topics for psychology essays.
Existential psychotherapy: the path to perfection through understanding basic concepts
Existential psychotherapy is based on the client, first of all, coming to understand his personality, actions, and the situation in which he finds himself. Here a person will need quite a lot of courage and desire not only to understand, but also to accept responsibility for his life without shifting it to someone else or sharing it with other people. If we talk about the assembled existential psychotherapist, Irvin Yalom identified several main areas of research (problems): freedom, inner emptiness, isolation, death. Working through and understanding these issues in your life will give the key to understanding yourself as an individual.
The existential direction considers a series of consistent internal conflicts that a person encounters on his path, realizing which, a person improves as a person.
This direction will be useful when working with anxiety, depression, and crises.
Psychological counseling for reactions of fear and phobia
Fear is close to anxiety, but unlike it, it always has a specific object. There are different types of fears:
- normal - a natural reaction to a phenomenon, person, object, event;
- pathological (phobia), which has no real basis for its occurrence.
Counseling for fear reactions and phobias begins with diagnosing the client’s level of inappropriate fear. Normally, fear is a safety regulator. The task of a psychologist is to teach a person to interact constructively with his fear.
Methods of working with fears:
- “Dialogue with Fear” technique;
- art therapy;
- sand therapy;
- “Magic Country” technique;
- exercise “How can you protect yourself from fear?”;
- NLP techniques;
- symboldrama, etc.
The situation is more complicated with phobias. More than a thousand are known. The basis of a phobia is the displacement of anxiety from a primary situation to a substitute situation due to an unresolved internal conflict. Only experienced psychologists-consultants undertake to work with phobias. In this case, Richard Bandler’s scheme based on NLP methods, the dissociation method, correction through relaxation and living the hierarchy of fears, etc. are used.
Counseling for fear and phobia reactions aims to identify the secondary benefit that the client derives from their expression. This increases the chances of understanding the client and dealing with the problem.
Psychodrama will help you understand your own inner world
Psychodrama as a method was founded by Jacob Levy Moreno. The basis of the work of a psychologist is playing roles in a group that allow you to recreate a social situation, gain awareness of aspects of interaction between people, and understand your own inner world. This method will be especially useful for theatrical, creative, and active people.
As an element, psychodramas can be used in the work of other specialists. The range of research can be quite wide, ranging from relationships in the family to social roles. However, if a person is quite closed, shy, and does not like crowds of large numbers of people, then studying this feature can also be useful.
Psychological counseling when experiencing grief of loss
Psychological counseling when experiencing loss is aimed at helping the client consistently go through all stages of accepting grief. Almost everyone is familiar with the grief caused by the loss of a loved one. Death, long separation, divorce are events associated with the loss of someone dear.
A special place here is occupied by the death of a loved one, when the experience of loss is especially acute. Counseling is required for a person who is unable to cope with grief on his own.
To come to terms with a loss, you need to consistently go through the stages of grief: shock, denial, aggression, compromise, depression, awareness. Bereavement counseling helps a person gradually come to terms with the fact of loss; it is appropriate at every stage of grief.
Losses, like many life events, not only cause suffering, they often open up opportunities for personal growth. Bereavement counseling can facilitate their realization.
Features of counseling when experiencing loss are alleviating the client’s experiences: listening, empathy, accompaniment at all stages of the grief period so that the person does not get stuck at any of them.
Bereavement counseling also includes working with the client’s loved ones in order to form the correct response to his behavior. Bereavement counseling for clients is not an easy test of the professional level of the counselor himself.
Problem Definition
The next stage of psychological consultation is related to understanding the problem. A client who comes to a psychologist talks about what worries him. The psychologist asks clarifying questions. This is one of the longest stages; sometimes it can stretch over several meetings.
This is due to the fact that any problem usually has long roots. You shouldn't be afraid of this. Discovering the causes plays a huge therapeutic role, allowing you to understand how and why the problem arose and determine ways to solve it.
For a psychologist, this stage means as much as compiling a medical history for any other doctor.
Psychological counseling when experiencing guilt
Counseling when experiencing feelings of guilt is aimed at understanding how justified the client’s feeling is. Is there real guilt in his situation or is it a neurotic manifestation of fear?
Guilt counseling is aimed at helping the client realize personal responsibility for their actions and change behavior for the better.
Psychological counseling for crying clients
The peculiarity of counseling crying clients is that you don’t need to try to console them in any way; let them give free rein to their emotions and live through them. Of course, tears greatly interfere with the correct interaction, and counseling with crying clients is a certain test for a psychologist.
During psychological counseling of a crying client, the psychologist should not take his tears personally. A person cries because of problems that lie within his area of responsibility.
Counseling crying clients, often women, shows that people, in addition to the problems that have befallen them, can cry from anger. And it is better to let anger come out so that it does not interfere with the search for a constructive way out of a problematic situation.
Counseling a crying client first allows him to cry to his heart's content, and only then begins to discuss his problems with the counselor.
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Transpersonal psychotherapy
Transpersonal psychotherapy studies the phenomena of altered human states, including the so-called “mystical experience”. It is based on the early studies of Carl Jung, William James, and Abraham Maslow. They talked about the connection between the body and consciousness, and considered spirituality. The term “transpersonal” itself means, literally translated, as “existing beyond the personality.” This direction is suitable for those people who view themselves and others from a spiritual perspective. However, it is important to emphasize that in order to work within the framework of this method, the client himself must be ready for this and sufficiently conscious.
Counseling aggressive and hostile clients
Aggressive and hostile people create problems not only in the psychologist’s office. But it is important for him to understand what circumstances caused the person’s embitterment. What did he defend himself from by choosing this model of behavior? Then you can effectively respond to the client’s condition.
Counseling hostile aggressive clients begins with reducing the level of aggression. To do this, the consultant uses a model of emotionally neutral behavior - calmly listens to the client without getting involved in his experiences. This allows the client to experience their emotions and reduces the level of tension. After this, there is an opportunity for a constructive dialogue between him and the consultant.
To better understand the issues of psychological counseling, we invite you to take the Psychological Consulting and Coaching program at the EdPro Academy of Continuing Education.
Body-oriented psychotherapy
Body-oriented psychotherapy, founded by Wilhelm Reich, is based on the connection of bodily muscle tension with the characteristics of a person’s personality and his emotional experience. The psychotherapist works through muscle tension that arises as a result of a person’s experiences and experiences. This type of psychotherapy is used as an element in other directions, however, as an independent direction, it is also quite effective. It will be especially useful for clients who have difficulty expressing themselves and are introverted. The psychologist follows from the body to awareness. We often explain a lot to ourselves, build hypotheses and logical chains, calculate behavior algorithms, predict our reactions and the behavior of other people. However, our body reflects everything that happens to us and provides the key to understanding these processes.
