Aproaches to Counselling

Approaches to counselling , skills and theories


Counselling can be defined in varies ways, However counselling involves a person (counsellor) helping another person (Client) to work through some difficult or painful time or facing relationship and behavioural problems. This can either be achieved through the profession of applying psychological theories or by giving the client the opportunity to explore and discover ways of living more resourcefully and towards greater well being (BAC 1991). Person centred counselling is when the counsellors allows the client to have full control of the process as they believe people have the potential to find their own solutions.
Counselling developed from varies theories and practices of psychology and psychiatry.These therapies range from the type of Psychoanalysis, originally practised by Sigmund Freud and later developed into other forms of analytic psychotherapy by his pupils, through Humanistic Psychotherapy (based on personal growth and self development) to the Behavioural Therapies used for dealing with specific phobias and anxieties. However there is evidence that the relationship between the counsellor and the client is more important than the approach the therapist uses.
Sigmund Freud in 1923, the father of psychoanalysis believed that the mind was split into several parts that was the conscious and unconscious. The conscious is the part we can access and unconscious is that part which we cannot access. Additionally he goes on to describe the individual psyche using ID, Ego and Super-ego these he says determines the way we behave .” with this model , the ID is said to represent feelings and urges straining to find expression .The Id is driven by the pleasure principles which strives for immediate gratification of all desires and needs . The ego is the part of our self which organizes the various mental processes.   It also develops from the ID and ensures that the impulses of the ID can be expressed in a manner...