What role does counseling play in the helping profession?

Answer 1

When I was in grad school for counseling, I was taught that our goal as counselors was to facilitate. More specifically, it is not our job to solve peoples' problems, but rather to encourage the person, through questioning, insights, and other counseling techniques, to discover the answers and solutions on his/her own.

Sometimes people get stuck in ruts and they try to do the same thing over and over again to no avail. They either end up feeling worse or experiencing no change at all in their problem/s. A counselor can help facilitate change only through helping a client take a very deep and thorough look at his/her role in the problem. Counseling involves a process because both the counselor AND the client must work together, to come up with viable ways to help each unique individual better his/her life.

A counselor who assesses a problem and tells a client what to do is doing a great disservice to the client. This is because one of the most powerful goals of counseling is to impart a sense of self-efficacy and empowerment in clients. This helps ensure that clients will function more effectively when left on their own to deal with life's problems (which are inevitable).

Answer 2

It plays the role of talking about problems trying to solve them and make better relationships.