Counselling; Humanistic Counselling Theory Outcome 1 - Essay Example

Due to the complex nature of today’s modern life, people feel a need for professional counselling which can help them to understand the essence of their life. Professional counselling is one such discipline in which a competent counselor helps people suffering from distress and unhappiness, to resolve their emotional and psychological conflicts by guiding them in adopting new life supporting behavior patterns (Oates, 1974, p.9). In an attempt to be socially and professionally successful, people have ignored the importance of the emotional and spiritual fulfillment.

Psychologists realized that the reason behind people’s unhappiness is that they are trying to fulfill the needs of the head by ignoring the needs of their heart (Nelson-Jones, 2001, p. 67). For a person to be completely happy, what is necessary is an integration of both, the head and the heart . Hence, to help people achieve a complete and happy life by developing a ‘wholeness’ in their personality, a discipline of psychological counselling called the ‘humanistic’ counselling , was introduced.

Social structure plays a very important role in the development of human being. The society and the culture in which a person is born plays a very vital role in the development of his thoughts, beliefs and values. ‘Religion’, ‘faith’ and ‘philosophy’ are the most influential aspects of his life. Hence, if one has to understand and change the human nature, one has to study not only his mental aspect but also his beliefs, values, philosophies and spiritual aspects.

People working in the field of psychology realized the need of integrating the philosophical and spiritual aspects of life with psychology to make the