Guidance and Counseling

The difference between guidance and counseling is that assessment is primarily concerned with gathering information to understand a person’s or group’s current level of knowledge or skill, while evaluation involves making judgments and decisions based on the results of assessments to determine the effectiveness, quality, or value of a program, product, or performance.

Guidance and counseling are processes aimed at timely attention to low-complexity psychological problems. They correspond to the first level of health care, that is, to interventions of an educational nature; where ways to prevent difficulties in interpersonal communication are taught, basic knowledge about self-control, problem-solving, stress control, and crisis management, or some behaviors are detected that are not yet dysfunctional but could become so without proper guidance. Let us discuss guidance and counseling and the difference between guidance and counseling.

What is Guidance?

The guidance refers to advice and instructions given to a person by someone with more experience or authority on various issues. It is a process in which a person (often more knowledgeable or experienced than the one receiving the guidance) offers instructions and advice on the best ways or solutions to find the correct answer to a problem faced by a person.

Guidance occurs in almost all fields; however, it is in education where counseling is most common. Teachers or professors guide students on their educational paths. For example, college lecturers or professors can guide college students to better career paths by showing them the pros and cons of different paths they can pursue once they graduate.

What is Counseling?

Counseling is a counselor’s professional advice based on individuals’ personal or psychological problems. In short, counseling is a form of psychological guidance for an individual. Therefore, unlike the general counseling that can be received, counseling is primarily intended to help people deal with their mental problems. To become a professional counselor, one must have extensive academic knowledge and training in psychology and a natural predisposition to help people. A counselor deals directly with someone needing psychological assistance to alleviate their condition.

In addition, since counseling aims to treat and rehabilitate mentally disturbed patients, it covers extensive fields such as research to provide the most accurate psychological supervision, training, and guidance for patients or people with psychological problems. Thus, unlike guidance, counseling is more therapeutic.

Purposes of Guidance and Counseling

Guidance helps you to restrain yourself from going down the wrong path. Make lousy career decisions, enroll in bad deals, choose the wrong career path, etc. Seeking the expertise of an expert on such issues is a wise move.

On the other hand, counseling is curative. Counselors address mental health problems and use techniques to restore your mind to its healthy state. The solutions enhance healing. Counseling can steer you to embrace the right attitude, a healthy perspective, and a better mentality.

Through guidance, you get the best alternatives and a clear picture of the implications of each choice available. It is a way of acquiring answers to specific issues. For instance, a finance expert can advise you on the right places to invest your money. On the other hand, a teacher can assist a student in picking suitable electives based on their performance or passion. Counseling opens new possibilities for dealing with a challenging situation and has a more realistic and solvable approach. A counselor offers well-informed solutions to mental health issues, while a therapist guides you through the process to keep you from falling into the same problem.

Effective Counseling Skills

Counselors use counseling skills to help them better understand and listen to clients. Through active listening, rapport is built, trust forms and the speaker feels heard and understood by the counselor or listener.

Core Counseling Skills

Core listening skills are basic counseling skills, or practiced techniques, that help the counselor to empathetically listen to the speaker. These skills include:

• Active listening

• Being aware of nonverbal communication

• Building rapport

The core counseling skills are described below.

Attending

Attending in counseling means being in the company of someone else and giving that person your full attention, to what they are saying or doing, valuing them as worthy individuals.

Silence

Silence in counseling gives the client control of the content, pace, and objectives. This includes the counselor listening to silences as well as words, sitting with them and recognizing that the silences may facilitate the counseling process.

Reflecting and Paraphrasing

Reflecting in counseling is part of the ‘art of listening’. It is making sure that the client knows their story is being listened to. This is achieved by the helper/counselor by both repeating and feeding a shorter version of their story back to the client. This known as 'paraphrasing'.

Clarifying and the Use of Questions

Questions in counseling are classed as a basic skill. The counselor uses open questions to clarify his or her understanding of what the client is feeling. Leading questions are to be avoided as they can impair the counseling relationship.

Focusing

Focusing in counseling involves making decisions about what issues the client wants to deal with. The client may have mentioned a range of issues and problems and focusing allows the counselor and client together to clear away some of the less important surrounding material and concentrate on the central issues of concern.

Building Rapport

Building rapport with clients in counseling is important, whatever model of counseling the counselor is working with. Rapport means a sense of having a connection with the person.

Summarizing

Summaries in counseling are longer paraphrases. They condense or crystallize the essence of what the client is saying and feeling. The summary 'sums up' the main themes that are emerging.

Immediacy

Using immediacy means that the therapist reveals how they themselves are feeling in response to the client. According to Feltham and Dryden (1993: 88), immediacy is ‘the key skill of focusing attention on the here and now relationship of counselor and client with helpful timing, in order to challenge defensiveness and/or heighten awareness’.

How to Use Effective Counseling Skills

Be genuine: If you don't understand, it's OK to check and ask for further information.

Try to be brief when reflecting back: The speaker should do most of the talking.

Use your own words to reflect back: To avoid sounding like a parrot, it's better to use your own words when summarizing or paraphrasing.

Avoid using a shocked or disbelieving tone of voice: This may indicate that the speaker is unacceptable or odd.

Who Uses Counseling Skills?

This is quite an interesting topic. Counseling skills are really ‘the art of listening’ and are practiced by any number of people in any number of work roles, not just in counseling. We naturally think of some professions where counseling skills would be useful such as:

• Nursing

• Social work

• The medical profession

• Police and Ambulance service to name a few

However, the art of listening can be practiced by almost anybody.

Let us understand these concepts through a real-life example:-

Imagine a high school student named Achieng’. Achieng’ is a friendly and bright kid, but lately, she has been feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of exams and struggling to communicate effectively with their friends. This is where guidance and counseling come in, offering different levels of support depending on Achieng's needs.

Guidance

School counselor: Achieng's class teacher suggests her to visit the school counselor. The counselor provides a safe space for Achieng to discuss her anxieties and challenges. She learns communication skills to navigate friendship conflicts, time management techniques for exam preparation, and relaxation exercises to handle stress. This brief, solution-oriented guidance aims to equip Achieng with practical tools for immediate concerns.

Counseling

Psychotherapist: Achieng's struggles persist, so she seeks deeper support from a therapist. The therapist understands the root causes of Achieng's anxieties, exploring past experiences and thought patterns. This longer-term exploration helps Achieng understand and manage her emotions, build resilience, and develop coping mechanisms for future challenges.

Conclusion

Both guidance and counseling become necessary when facing crucial life problems. Therefore, guidance and advice can help us find the best solutions that will help us overcome these problems. Although they appear similar, guidance and counseling are two different procedures. Guidance is usually the general process of guiding someone through counseling or other problem-solving. In contrast, counseling refers specifically to the process of counseling by a professional counselor based on people’s personal or psychological problems. This is the main difference between guidance and counseling.