NUANCES OF COUNSELLING

✓ Any given situation starts with acceptance; acceptance of self, and acceptance of the

other one as they are without conditions and expectations.

✓ Being autonomous or self-sufficient. Experiential facts are the facts, rest are

statements. (‘Anubooth thathya hi Sathya hai, baaki sab kathya hai’)

✓ Emotional maturity or emotional intelligence, knowing your strengths and

weaknesses.

✓ Self-regulation, working on demerits.

✓ A healthy sense of humour helps in establishing a connection with the client.

✓ Spontaneity, acting according to the requirement.

✓ Solution-oriented, the targets which have been made after the clients’ assessments

have to be practical, empirical, observable, achievable, and not idealistic

✓ Maximization of human potential, building on the positives and ignoring the

negatives.

✓ It is important to retain our authentic personality and need not imitate or copy

others to change ourselves. However, it is important to work on our demerits to be

better individuals.

✓ Peace within and harmony with others. Focus on both inner and outer adjustment.

(‘Man ki mouj, jag ki laaj’) It is important to adjust internally and not get carried

away by external adjustment although it is equally important.

✓ Surrender to the ultimate authority. Fulfill your roles and responsibilities, and need

not focus on the outcome which doesn’t rest in our hands.

✓ Safeguard mental health from unhealthy vibes of the counselee by not carrying and

reacting.

✓ The professional relationship with the counselee has to be maintained, but the

transference that happens is natural and can be used as a vehicle for the

psychotherapeutic process. Depending on the situation, the exchange of thoughts

and positions can happen naturally when the rapport building is strong and

confidentiality is built. Examples can be cited as and when needed to get the desired

outcome but not at every step of the process. A judicious decision has to be made on

when to share and when not to share.

✓ ‘Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical

systems that determine the unique adjustment to his environment,’ Gordon Allport.

In some respects, man resembles all other men, in some respects, man resembles

with few other men, in some respects, man resembles no other men.

✓ We have to be empathetic in general, which reflects in counselling and other

professions. The client is not entirely different from other people and situations in

life and not any mystery puzzle.

✓ Counsellors need not get carried away with image distortions created by the

counselee because it could be their perception.

✓ When the counselee is emotional, the counsellor has to initially balance the

emotions through relaxation techniques and bring rational emotive techniques to

get the secondary response. The client could resist the process and keep giving up in

between.

✓ There are differences in the western and eastern approaches to counselling. The first

difference is that the western approach is professional and the eastern is

relationship-oriented. The approach has to be suitable to the circumstances and the

person. For example, if the client asks the counsellor what he would have done if, in

the same situation, the counsellor need not imagine the situation and give an

answer to a hypothetical question, unlike defined in the textbooks.

✓ When we try to enhance ourselves, we realize that this is a unified whole and we are

here to play our role. It helps to develop all the essential ingredients of counseling

effortlessly. In the eastern approach, the focus is on enlightenment, attaining the

completeness which happens only when we understand the functions of the mind.

✓ Patience, perseverance, and persistence is the key to the counselling process.

✓ The client can be informed about the time factor in the session by limiting the

process to one particular aspect.

✓ The client’s personality can be understood by knowing his interests, likes, dislikes,

hobbies, wishes, strengths, and weaknesses.

✓ Expressing astonishment, and getting carried away with the emotions can be

avoided during the counselling sessions by the counsellor. Human touch, a pat on

the back also plays a vital role in boosting the confidence and positive regard but

depends on the client and the relationship between the counsellor and the

counselee.