Counselling 101
Who needs counseling? Someone who needs counseling is a person who is tangled in a web of events or situations which he cannot free himself from. A person who needs counsel is an individual who is trapped within a complex maze of life's difficulties such as career, relationship, family and social connectivity. That person may just be a friend of yours who is having a hard time traversing the bridge between the single life and the married life. That someone may be your sister or brother who finds it quite challenging to stay put in one job or avoid resigning and resigning. That being may be your boyfriend or girlfriend who simply cannot find the right path to freedom from all the bad relationships he/she had been in and out. That somebody may be a cousin who has or is going through rough sledding in handling his or her addictions in dangerous and abusive substances. That lost soul may be a neighbor who cannot decide whether to keep her baby or not, or whether to put the baby for adoption when he/she is born. Or it may be a classmate who cannot decipher if he/she is a male, a female, or a member of the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals). Counseling simply is like giving a hand to someone who is on the verge of a cliff, or pulling the rope when someone in dire need is tugging it.
Some professionals who are qualified to give counseling include psychologists, guidance counselors, therapists, educators and life coaches. But you too can give counsel to anyone who needs it, just like your mother or your father. Just make sure that the counsel you give passes moral standards, ethics and laws. The activity requires the counselor to listen to the person in need with sympathy and to help the person manage any negative thoughts, according to UK's National Health Service.
Counseling is one of the most important keys in helping you make a good decision in life, especially when you have no idea where to go or what to do. That is why such specialists on counseling exist; it is their life to help other people solve and manage their issues. If financial advisers can help you acquire a lot of money and invest them in a good business, a counselor will help you acquire life skills you can use in sticky social and personal situations. Remember the ancient times when kings and emperors had a council of elders or a grand vizier to help them make important decisions for their people and territories? In the same way, counselors will guide you on how to do the right thing in your own social sphere.
Counseling is such a significant aspect in people's lives and everyday decisions that even the American Psychological Association (APA) has a division called Society of Counselling Psychology whose members are “dedicated to promoting education and training, scientific investigation, practice, and diversity and public interest in professional psychology,” according to the organization's official website.
