Counseling is a dynamic interaction between counselor and counselee where a counselor adopts certain attitude and uses knowledge and skill to introduce and sustain in the clients learning process of self-expression leading to self understanding, leading to action so that the client changes his behaviour and solves his problems. Counselling is a non-directive talking therapy, which creates a non-judgemental space in order for you to work through your difficulties in a safe therapeutic way. Counselling can empower you, giving you the strength to move towards a happier well-being.
Components of Counselling |[pic] | Problems Problems to be handled by the Counselor The problems coming under employee counseling in a hospital setting are 1. Emotional problem 2. Behavioural Problem 3. Personal Problem 4. Environmental Problem 5. Organizational Problem Emotional Problem Unpleasant emotions like fear, anger, and jealousy, which are harmful to the well-being and development of individual employee in hospital setting. Personal Problems Common personal problems include, housing, transportation, admission of children in schools etc.
Behavioral and Organizational problems Major organizational problems are lack of group cohesiveness, role conflict, feeling of inequality, role ambiguity, role over load, and lack of supervisory support, constraints of rules and regulations, job mismatch, inadequacy of role authority, absenteeism, job dissatisfaction, labour turnover and job stress. Person The benefactors of the counseling practices in hospital setting are; 1. Service staffs 2. Supporting staffs, 3. Administrative staffs, 4. Technical employees 5. Casual employees Place
The place is the professional setting or an agency or a place at which the counselling practice is carrying on. It can be within the hospital premises or other auxiliary setting, which is accessible to employees and staffs for getting counselling practices, Process Employee counselling is a process of adjustment of establishing a new emotional equilibrium for an employees feelings cannot be ignored or argued. They are situational factors, which needs to be accepted, understood or dealt with because modern management supervise the whole man, not just his work. The process of counseling involves few phases.
It can be detailed as follows; 1. Establishment of rapport: The inter viewer should make all out efforts for establishing rapport – a relationship of confidence, trust and mutual appreciation which help the counselee to express himself without inhibitions and resistance. The atmosphere should convey an impression of friendliness and informality. 2. Help the interviewee, feel at ease and ready to talk: The interviewer should begin with topics, which are easy to talk about and thus warm up the interviewee. After getting on the main topic, the counseling officer should make the interviewee talk freely. . Understanding and responding: The interviewer should develop the skill, of attending and listening. The interviewer should not only listen but listen with the third year. He must go beyond the words of the interviewee to the hidden feelings, unexpressed ideas, and reactions. The counselor should stimulate them to come out. He must use unambiguous and diagnostic equations to understand more about the problem situation. 4. Personalizing: The counselor must not only help the client to interpret the problem but also help him to understand or internalize the problem.
Here the client always externalizes the problem. During this process, counselor makes the counselee understand where he presently stands in respect of the goals to be reached. 5. Initiation: The unwritten contract should make in between counselor and counselee. It will lead to the self-understanding by the counselee. Here both have to think of planned change rather than a sudden one. 6. Action period: Client is activated to a change his attitude, actions and behaviour. It would result in the development of self-confidence and will be able to solve the problems, the client develop coping ability. . Assessment: Here the counselor must have to find out the effectiveness of decision taken and contract made. The counselor has to understand what extend the problem has solved to and to what extend the client has changed. The Assessment should be non threatening, and non judgmental. 8. Recording: There should be effective system of recordings and maintaining the interview notes.
The summary of the record should be kept confidential. The counselors should follow professional ethics. Related to counseling practice. Professional Agents in the Hospital settings The professional agents who are supposed to perform the role of a counselor can be: Personnel Manager/ HR Manager: A person equipped with counseling techniques and skills. Employee Counselor: A person other than personnel manager employed by the hospital authority for employee counseling Professional social worker: A person specialized in psychiatric counseling Medical Social worker: If the hospital is too small to warrant appointing a separate employee counselor, the work of the medical social worker can be combined with employee counselor.
Public Relations Officer: A person having additional charge of employee grievances handling function. Benefits of counselling The major benefit of counselling reported by respondents in the survey by Rogers and Sharpley (1983), was having access to talk to an uninvolved and objective person. Other benefits indicated included helping people solve their problems and helping people to gain a better understanding of their problems. Similar results were evident in the study by Sharpley, Rogers and Evans (1984), where respondents reported a number of benefits of counselling.
These included having a confidential and objective viewpoint, consulting a trained listener, having help to solve problems and make decisions, saving marriages, increasing self and other awareness, and Helping with effective communication. Furthermore, data compiled by Sharpley (1986) showed that 46% of respondents believed that counselling would help to solve problems and find directions. Having a caring person and someone to talk to were considered benefits by 14. 9%, and 8% thought counselling was beneficial in that it helped the community and was practical. The benefits of insight and confidentiality were reported by 3. %, while 2. 6% stated that being affordable was a benefit, and 0. 2% thought counselling would ease the pain of mental illness. Of some concern in this study were the 23. 5% of respondents who either did not know of any benefits of counselling or thought that there were none. However, in order to obtain a balanced view of the regard in which counsellors are held, the perceived drawbacks of counselling need to be assessed. Conclusively, Counseling is an important treatment method of tackling the personnel and organizational problems of employees in an organizational setting.
The man who heads an organization may not be able to get a chance to interact freely privately and personally with his employees in order to solve their problems Drawbacks of counselling Dependency on the counsellor was considered the main drawback of counselling according to Rogers and Sharpley (1983). Other concerns of respondents of that survey were that the counsellor might give the wrong advice or provide misleading information, or that the client may misconstrue the input from the counsellor.
Similar concerns were expressed by respondents from the study conducted by Sharpley, Rogers and Evans (1984). Over-reliance on the counsellor was again reported by many as a drawback. Further perceived drawbacks recorded were lack of counsellor credibility, invasion of privacy, lack of client co-operation with the counsellor, and some saw marriage counselling as potentially doing more harm than good. Of those surveyed by Sharpley (1986), 32. 1% of respondents did not know of any drawbacks of counselling, while 20. 1% stated that there were none.
Lack of training, being too theoretical and only giving personal opinions was reported by 14. 1%. A further 8% thought that counselling was not practical and caused more problems, 6. 4 % stated that counsellors were underpaid, not given enough government support and did not have enough time and 6. 2% believed that counselling was costly in terms of time, money and taxes. The drawback of causing emotional dependence was reported by 5. 6%, and 5. 1% thought that counselling was impersonal, intimidating and bureaucratic. Two percent believed that public stigma was a drawback.
Therefore, from the literature reviewed, there are a number of perceived drawbacks of counselling that are prominent issues for those who offer counseling services. Since the perceptions of the public regarding counselling are paramount to the utilisation of counselling services, issues that might influence an individual when accessing a potential counsellor are relevant. Cultural issues have been explored by a number of studies. However, since cultural issues were not included in the current research, the relevant literature will not be extensively reviewed.
