Relational Approach to Counseling - Essay Example

?Relational Approach to Counselling Introduction The importance of counselling in our day to day co-existence can never be underestimated. The importance and need for counselling lies in the fact that none of us is infallible and all-knowing. Like the proverbial brother’s keeper, we all need the ideas and psychological support of other people at one point in time or the other. Counselling is good not for a specific group of persons even though it tends to be of extreme necessity to some categories of people due to the nature of their daily activities. Young teenagers for instance need a lot of counselling in order that they do not involve themselves in regrettable social practices. But for whatever the need for counselling is, it is extremely important that the counsellor at the hem of the process follows strict principles and guidelines in order to achieved success. The kind of principles to follow in a particular counselling session is largely dependant on the counselling approach used by the counsellor. Among the several counselling approaches, the relational approach is one approach that comes with a lot of principles and conditions that cannot be overlooked in the course of any counselling session. The use of relational approach to counselling has very influential impact on the counselee and even the counsellor. The relational approach also has its own weaknesses and therefore needs a lot care and professionalism in its use. Overview of Relational Approach to Counselling Relational approach to counselling is seen in the perspective of Mearns and Cooper (2005) as a person centred or individual centred technique towards counselling whereby the counselee is given a lot of attention and prominence by the counsellor. In relational approach to counselling, the counselee is seen as an impactful stakeholder in the counselling session. This means that the counsellor sees the counselee as a non-negligible part of the counselling session and therefore involves the counselee as often as possible. The client or counselee is described in relational approach to counselling as an active involver rather than a passive one. This mentality is held and backed because of the numerous research that have been conducted to that effect to proof that the client’s involvement leads to the attainment of the counselling goals. In this direction, Page (1999) explains that relational centred counselling has been tried and proven in research has been found to be a valid therapy that draws upon current developments in not just psychoanalytic but also in psychodynamic and humanistic theories. This confirms the notion by Erskine Moursand & Trautman (1999) that relational approach to counselling goes beyond empathy to include actual participation by the client rather than an assumption of what he or she is going through. With relational approach to counselling, the client is brought closer through contact; such that by the end of the entire experience, there becomes a relationship developed between the counsellor and the counselee. Different perspectives of Relational Approach to counselling – the UK and USA Origins In both the United States and United Kingdom, relational approach to counselling is held in highest esteem. In both parts of the perspectives, relational or person-centred counselling started in the 1950s and 1960s. The little difference is that in the United States of America, relational approach was started as an integral factor of human potential movement that was firmly rooted on the principles of psychotherapy (Mann, 1997). Ever since, relational approach to counselling in the United States of America has followed that perspective whereby not just counsellors back and advocate concentration on the counselee but also involved other psychology experts. In the United States of America, counsellors believe that each individual; including the counselee or the client has potential to achieve success and any changes they want in their life. Because of this perspective, the client is given much room to operate during the counselling session, knowing for certain that the client when aided can make a lot of difference. From a United Kingdom perspective, the relational approach to counselling is typically seen as an industry based phenomenon, whereby counsellors are the major advocates of the relational approach. Unlike the United States, counselees, and other stakeholders are less concerned about the need to use the relational approach. This means that counselees leave a lot of the responsibility to get psychological problems fixed to the experts rather than seeing the client as a person with potential for change. This not withstanding, clients do not reject the use of the relational approach. Impact of Relational Approach on Counselees Counselees whose therapists use the relational approach to counselling benefit in a lot of ways. This essay discusses two of the major potential impacts that relational approach can have on the counselee. In the first place, the relational approach promotes self learning and aftermath sufficiency. This means that the relational approach presents the counselee with an opportunity to learn more about his or her problem. As a matter of fact, if most clients had greater knowledge about their situations, they would not have suffered the effects of the situations (Coren, 2001). If they are therefore given an opportunity to learn more about their individual problems, there is the tendency that future occurrences will be minimised. The second part of this point has to do with aftermath sufficiency. By aftermath sufficiency, it means that because the counselee or client is part of the solution finding process, the client is given much room to contain his or her self sufficiently after the counselling session. It does not happen that the client takes instructions from a distant location where by apart from prescriptive instructions, the client lacks any form of personal diagnostic measures and approaches to handling him or herself. In order that clients possess this all-inclusive benefit, it is advised that counsellors do no just involve clients as a requirement but give clients a lot of active roles in the counselling sessions. The second impact that relational approach to counselling has on the client or counselee is that if promotes what Mearns and Cooper (1999) refers to as comprehensive understanding – comprehensive counselling. The meaning of this is that there is a greater probability: and the client can be rest assured that the result of the counselling session will be result oriented and achieving because the counsellor is able to build deep personal understanding of the problem at hand. Clearly the deeper understanding is built and developed because the client is always present to explain in vivid, what the problem is, how the progress level is moving and whether or not there are ready to end a given session. This also reiterates the point that with the relational counselling, the client or counselee is never dictated for as to whether or not he or she is ripe to end a session. Without comprehensive understanding, there can hardly be any comprehensive counselling because the counsellor will be tempted to be trying solutions and interventions on a trail and error basis. Even though all counselling approaches requires the client to giving the counsellor comprehensive feedback on the progress of his or her problem, counsellors understand the problem better with relational approach because the client is part of the intervention and not just an informer in other cases. As a partaker of the intervention, the client has the potential of landing on an understanding and interpretation of the problem right in the middle of the counselling session. Such understanding can call for changes in the intervention and process and thus result in an eventual comprehensive conclusion. How the model has affected my counselling personally Taking this model has had a personal influence over my life as a counsellor. Personally, apart from the fact that I have learnt some basic rudiments of the relational counselling, which shall be transferred into the bigger world unto my clients, I have also come to appreciate the need and importance of using the relational model of counselling. Indeed before the model, I was often confused on how the relational approach could be said to be different from other approaches to counselling when in all counselling approaches, the counsellor tends to have some sort of one-on-one personal interaction with the client. With this model however, my experience has been affected such that, I have come to know that indeed person-centred approach is not just a personal interaction that the counsellor has with the client but then it also includes involving the client in the actual intervention and giving the client very crucial role to play in the counselling session to ensure consented change and improvement. Again, this model has made me appreciate the true potential possessed by all individuals to bring about positive change to them selves. There is a vivid experience I have whereby I engaged a client in a counselling session. The client was thought to be a person with diagnostic mental retardation. As a matter of fact, I was advised by most colleagues not to use the relational and for that matter person-centred approach in dealing with the client since his contributions could not be regarded as valid for the course of the counselling. I objected to their advice and went ahead to involve the client based on the principle that the relational model does not judge clients on any status. To my surprise, the client’s contributions were very vital to finding lasting solutions to the problem that he faced. There is every evidence therefore that the professed acclamation that the relational approach to counselling is worth using because it makes good out of people’s potential to cause changes in their own lives is very true. I have since come to appreciate the need to respect the abilities of all people – knowing that nothing is all wrong for even a stopped clock is right twice in a day. Strengths of relational approach to counselling For a counselling approach to be established on the basis of thorough scientific and empirical research, the relational depth approach to counselling should have a lot of practical and ethical strengths that it bears. Some of these strengths can be identified as the non-discriminatory nature of the relational approach to counselling. It is globally accepted that discrimination of any kind is an offence especially if it defeats the well-being of a person’s personality. Regardless of this, some counselling and psychotherapy approaches ignore the need to respect the inclusion of all classes of clients and thus discriminate on the grounds of viability of inclusion (Cashdan, 1988). By viability of inclusion, Cashdan is referring to the situation whereby some counsellor refuse to admit some group of clients for counselling sighting reasons of psychological merit. A typical example is a counsellor who will refuse to giving service to a rapist or a drug addict with the judgment that drug addiction and rape are socially frown upon. With rational approach and all person-centred approaches to counselling, the counselee has the liberty to discover all feelings and thoughts whether they are positive or negative (Miller, 1995). This is a major strength that ensures that the needs of all people are catered for and that all people benefit from the professionalism of a counsellor regardless of the client’s background and known history. One other major strength of the relational approach is that the relational approach to counselling does not pride itself in creating falsehood to achieve a state of mental wellbeing in the sight of the client. That is, the essence of the relational approach is not to psych the client for self trust even if there are critical facts that may sound and seem ugly in the sight of the client. This does not mean that the relational approach is judgemental but that it creates an avenue whereby the counsellor comes down to the level of the client. The importance of this strength is that once the client is made aware of the true picture of his or her situation, he or she tends to develop the right attitude towards the counselling session. Sight must not be lost of the fact that in the relational approach, the client is actually a stakeholder in the whole counselling process. As a stakeholder therefore, there should be every need for him or her to know what the actual face of the problem is so that the depth of seriousness to be adapted towards the search for intervention will be greater. Weaknesses of relational approach to counselling Despite the strengths discussed above, relational approach to counselling also has some minor weaknesses. These weaknesses does not validate the idea that the relational approach is not appropriate but then it gives the counsellor the urgency to look out for some possible factors that may be a hinderence to the overall success of any counselling session. One major weakness identified by Mearns and Copper (2005) has to do with reaching some groups of clients. It must be emphasised that the relational approach is a person-centred approach and that it needs the client on a regular basis to ensure the overall success of the program. Most often than not however, the schedule or health state of a counselee may not allow for regular personal interactions with the counsellor. This way, the fundamental ideologies of the relational approach seem to become defeated and inapplicable. In this regard, Mearns and Cooper state that “particular challenges to the therapist seeking to engage the different parts of the client, even those in self-protective conflict with the therapeutic process” may be a failure. Some how, this point means that the relational approach is not always applicable. Counsellors could however overcome this weakness if they will become more focused and innovative. Proper scheduling of sessions may be a strong key to overcoming this major weakness if not eradicating it entirely. Conclusion This essay will be concluded with a recommendation and advocacy to all counsellors to continue to be proactive in their search for result oriented approaches to counselling such as the relational approach. This is because the purpose of their work is extremely important and cannot be underestimated in any way. In the absence of results with what they do however, barely will clients who patronise their services yield any benefits from their profession. REFERENCE LIST Cashdan S., 1988, ‘Object Relations Theory: Using the Relationships. New York: Norton Coren A., 2001, ‘Short Term Psychotherapy: A Psychodynamic Approach. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Erskine R., Moursand J. & Trautman R., 1999, ‘Beyond Empathy: A therapy of contact-in-relationship. Philadelphia: PA Brunner/Mazel Mann, D., 1997, ‘Psychotherapy: An erotic relationship. London: Routledge Mearns D. & Thorne B, 1999, ‘Person-Centred Counselling in Action’, Sage Publications Miller A., 1995. ‘The Pleasure of Being a Child’ London: Virago Page S., 1999, ‘The Shadow and the Counsellor: Working with the darker aspects of the person, role and profession. London: Routledge. Read More