What is Counselling and its Role in Promoting Self-Control and Self-Help
Discuss about the Human Communication And Effective Interpersonal Relationships.
Counselling refers to the profession that encompasses psychosocial counselling of several groups or individuals, with the primary objective of problem solving or bringing about change processes, within a relatively short time period. The profession of counselling generally relies on the implementation of cognitive and emotional intervention methods, which are used with the intended purpose of promoting the ability of the service users to enhance their capabilities of self-control and self-help (Ivey & Daniels, 2016). In other words, counsellors have the role of working with discussion and intervention techniques, which in turn are partially comparable to the psychotherapists. The general norms state that the depth of counselling intervention is lower and a holistic approach is implemented to accomplish the intended goals or vision. It has its foundations in psychotherapy where psychological methods are employed for personal interaction, with the aim of changing the behaviour of a person. Thus, application of counselling in the professional context aims to enhance the overall health and wellbeing of an individual, in addition to resolving or mitigating troublesome beliefs, behaviour, thoughts, compulsions and emotions (Nelson-Jones, 2015). This in turn improves the interpersonal relationships and also enhances social skills. This essay will illustrate the role of an effective helper and will also discuss the necessary attributes of cultural competence that an effective helper must demonstrate, while working with diverse clients.
Effective helpers- Helpers refer to people who play an important role in contributing to the fulfilment of distressed people, who are in need. The goal of these helpers is to bring about a facilitation in the life of the people who require assistance. Effective helpers are expected to provide a decent and enhanced quality of life for those who cannot afford a holistic living, without their help. Large differences exist between the roles and responsibilities of a professional counsellor and an individual, who makes utilisation of specific counselling skills (Johnson & Johnson, 2013). The term professional counsellor refers to highly trained individuals, who generally make use of a range of varied counselling approaches, while treating their clients. Thus, an effective helper provides assistance to the service user to explore difficulties that generally includes stressful emotional feelings. Effective helpers also have the responsibility of helping all clients to see and perceive things in a clearer manner, with the use of a different perception of point of view (Corey, 2015). In other words, effective helpers refer to person who use different aspects of psychotherapy for enabling the client to focus on their experiences, feelings, or behaviour, with the goal of facilitating a positive change. Thus, effective helpers are integral in counselling services owing to their role in establishing a relationship of trust with the clients. Maintaining confidentiality is paramount to their role.
Effective Helpers – Definitions and Responsibilities
Role of effective helpers- The role of effective helpers is not just restricted to giving advice to clients. People who take up the role of effective helpers provide valuable service to people who suffer from disturbed emotions and thoughts. Although the act of helping can be rewarding most of the time, it can also create stress for the helper. An effective helper is one who strives to successfully achieve a balance between intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, with technical competence. The role of an effective helper encompasses the process of arranging a quiet, safe and private helping environment for the clients (McLeod, 2013). People seeking counselling services often have to adjust to their surroundings and might not feel the need to talk to others. They fail to maintain openness in their conversation and also display hostile and resentful attitudes, on aggravation of their emotional distress (Okun & Kantrowitz, 2014). Thus, effective helpers create a comfortable environmental atmosphere that helps them to engage in an effective conversation with the clients. These helpers also build a relationship, based on trust with their clients. Helpers are not generally trusted and often have to deal with service users who talk about their problems in a superficial manner (Biasi et al., 2017). Over time, the helpers utilise their communication and empathetic skills to establish a rapport.
The helpers are also entrusted with the responsibility of listening effectively to the emotional stress, uncontrollable fear, constant worry and pain that the clients are suffering from. The most useful role of an effective helper is to encourage expressions of feelings, by demonstrating skills of an active listener (Min et al., 2013). Probing for information to understand the underlying factors that contribute to the emotional distress of the service users and providing necessary support and comfort are integral to the duty of a helper. Their duty also encompasses developing an appropriate plan of action for the individuals who are seeking counselling service.
Cultural competence- Cultural competence involves the process of understanding and appropriately responding to several combinations of cultural variables, and dimensions that pertain to diversity. Cultural competence is usually employed by professionals for fostering an effective interaction with the clients or patients, and their families. In other words, cultural diversity incorporates a variety of factors, which include, but are not restricted to disability, age, gender identity, ethnicity, gender expression, national origin, and race. Cultural diversity also encompasses linguistic backgrounds, dialect, immigration status, religions, sexual orientation and veteran status. Development of a cultural competence most commonly involves a complex and dynamic process that requires continuous expansion and self-assessment of the cultural knowledge gained by an individual (Betancourt et al., 2016). Cultural competency most commonly evolves over time, and begins with an understanding of the own culture. This generally continues through interactions between individuals belonging to a range of cultures, and extends through the lifelong learning process.
Role of Effective Helpers
With an increase in rates of global migration, major developed nations across the world have become profoundly multi-ethnic, multicultural, and a multinational place, with millions of people moving within new cultures. All effective helpers and counsellors are expected to take into consideration the diverse society in which they are engaged in professional practice (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2013). Thus, cross cultural research in the area of counselling has received attention in recent years. The need for culturally competent effective helpers can be attributed to the fact that cross-cultural counselling has become a significant force in the counselling profession, which in turn creates an impact on theory and practice. A primary emphasis for the demonstration of culturally competent helper service is to evaluate the nature of helping relationship, in the presence of significant cultural differences between the effective helper and service user. Thus, intercultural competence refers to the range of affective, cognitive and behavioural skills that are essential for an effective communication with people belonging to diverse cultures (Adigwe & Okoro, 2016). Effective intercultural communication is imperative in establishing a relation between the behaviours that generally culminate with an accomplishment of the intended goals of the interaction, between the key stakeholders involved in the situation.
Working with diverse clients- The cultural differences that exist in the scenario of offering counselling or effective help services to people suffering from a plethora of emotional problems have often been conceptualised in the form of a cross-cultural zone. An effective helper enters this zone, at situations where there are major differences with the cultural background of the client. This zone of providing help and assistance, with the dynamic encounter of the effective helper is envisioned with respect to the way of conceptualisation of issues that the culturally diverse clients face (Ratts et al., 2015). Thus, while working with diverse clients in the setting of psychotherapy or counselling practice, there is a need for effective helpers to promote culturally competent consultative relationship. Effective helpers who are engaged in practicing in a culturally competent fashion that exists within the cross-cultural zone, must get adopted to a broader perspective, related to diverse culture (Tharbe, 2017).
The effective helpers must recognise the need for understanding that culture extends far beyond the dimensions of ethnicity and race, in a culturally pluralistic society. Owing to the fact that the different elements of culture prevail in several aspects of counselling, and the interaction with clients, counsellors and effective helpers require to visualise the multiple dimensions of multi-cultural identity that are presented by the service users, or patients, they endeavour to help (Ratts et al., 2016). Appropriate counselling or psychotherapy interventions are generally predicated by the effective helpers, on the realization that the clients encounter situations where they experience the world and its surroundings on the basis of several cultural dimensions.
Importance of Cultural Competence in Counselling
These dimensions are found to not only include race and ethnicity, but also encompass other aspects of sexual orientation, gender, spirituality, religion, socioeconomic status, and abilities (Berger, Zane & Hwang, 2014). Effective helpers are engaged in a profession that requires them to increase their awareness on the impact of social class, on the lives of their clients. This can be attributed to the debilitating effects of classism create significant impacts on the way by which the clients perceive the help that is offered to them. This holds particular importance in cases where the service user represents a range of societal values that are generally expressed in cultural realities that pertain to middle and upper-middle socioeconomic classes (Frey, 2013).
Effective helpers demonstrate adequate sensitiveness to the experience of the clients, associated with any forms of discrimination and oppression. They are expected to realize the role of delivering a culturally competent counselling service, which in turn acts like a vehicle for empowering the distressed individuals. Cross-cultural counselling encompasses a process for empowering the service users that helps them to fight against or combat the negative effects of marginalization. Empowerment often includes the procedure of assisting clients to refute internalization of any inferiority worldviews that are related to the subordinate status in all societal relationships, as perceived by the clients (Bidell, 2014). Cultural knowledge has been defined as sharing and understanding the perceptions on world view of all clients, with the adoption of a cognitive empathy, in place of affective empathy. Limitations in cultural knowledge have often resulted in reliance on stereotyped generalization that are made about racial and cultural groups. This in turn increases the likelihood of participating in inappropriate decision-making making processes.
Another essential aspect of empowerment that is quite often overlooked while delivering culturally competent counselling services pertain to the promotion of psycho-spiritual realms that focus on personality. Religion and spirituality are considered as integral to the development of holistic health and well-being of many people. In most cultural contexts, it is worthwhile to remember the little distinction existing between religious, spiritual and secular lives. Thus, culturally competent helpers must demonstrate an openness to including and exploring the religious and spiritual dimensions that exist in the counselling process. Effective helpers can provide a culturally competent counselling service by making use of knowledge components in the cultural competence model that they follow (Johnson & Jackson Williams, 2015). Helpers are expected to implement several attributes of cultural competence such as, silence, subjective knowing, received knowing, constructed knowledge, and procedural knowing. Silence is generally characterised by their ability to adhere to a set of stereotypes that might occur during lack of cultural competency.
Working with Diverse Clients
Listening to the voices of the clients, regardless of the diverse backgrounds they belong to, and feeling an obligation towards paying attention to the cultural preferences and demands are crucial. Continuous working towards developing the attributes of cultural competence enhances the ability to provide an effective helper service (Chao, 2013). Helpers with high cultural knowledge, high cultural awareness competency, and low attitudes show an increased likelihood to get engaged in effective cross cultural interactions. This facilitates the process of providing a culturally responsive counselling. The cultural competence of a helper or counsellor refers to the way by which the person is found to gain a cognitive an emotional self-perception, within the contexts of socio-political influences. Clients seeking counselling most often belong to different walks of life. Thus, the cultural values, bias and preferences of a helper should not take precedence with that of the client. This forms an integral component of the ethics of professional counselling.
In other words, the role of effective helpers while working with diverse clients encompasses implementation of psychotherapy approaches that allows the former to provide assistance to people, belonging to the underserved communities. According to the American Counselling Association, multicultural counselling creates provisions for the helpers to gain a deeper knowledge, disposition, sensitivity, and personal awareness.
Innovative approaches must be applied in the context of cultural competency-based training that will assist the effective helper to better understand the differing worldviews and engage in a process of critical reflective thinking. This in turn will facilitate the procedure of making important judgments about situations, which might be different from their own culture and beliefs (Borders et al., 2014). In place of relying on multicultural self-assessments for measuring cultural competence, critical self-reflection thinking will promote a meaningful opportunity that is based on developmental growth and self-examination.
Skills required- Personal characteristics of an effective counsellor that facilitates the process of delivering culturally competent counselling services include presence of a genuine and calm disposition, clear thinking, non-judgmental attitude, and openness, lack of stigmatising attitude, warmth, and respect. Culturally skilled helpers display specific knowledge about their racial and cultural heritage, and the way by which such heritage affects their biases and perceptions in the personal and professional context (Tharbe, 2017). Culturally competent helpers also possess adequate understanding and knowledge about the impacts of racism, oppression, stereotyping and discrimination on their attitudes and beliefs. This creates a provision for acknowledging their racist attitudes, feelings, and beliefs (Owen et al., 2014).
They should also demonstrate the characteristic of recognising the limits or multicultural competency and their psychological expertise. They must also possess a sound understanding of the negative and positive emotional reactions, displayed against other ethnic and racial groups, which might prove detrimental to the relationship between the helper and the service user. Demonstrating a willingness of being aware of the preconceived notions and stereotypes that they hold towards the ethnic and racial minority groups is also crucial (Okun & Kantrowitz, 2014). Possessing specific information and knowledge about the particular groups to which the clients belong helps in gaining a sound understanding of the cultural heritage, life experiences, and historical backgrounds of the diverse clients (Portera, 2014). Efforts must be taken to understand about the effects of socio-political influences impinging upon the life of the clients belonging to ethnic and racial minorities. Effective helpers also take into account issues that pertain to immigration poverty, stereotyping, racism, and powerlessness. This in turn will help them enhance the self-esteem and self-concept of their clients.
To conclude, cultural competence is much more than being aware of the differences that exists in the society. It refers to the set of behaviours, attitudes, and skills that enable an individual for working successfully in cross cultural settings. This competence implies that there is a need to adapt to diversity, which in turn enhances the process of being aware of the identity of self and the clients, thereby facilitating the management of dynamics of the people being treated. A culturally competent effective helper considers the cultural background of the client, while discussing and providing relief from the psychological or emotional distress of the client. This in turn is assisted by engaging in an effective conversation with the clients, for devising appropriate treatment options.
Thus, demonstration of characteristics that pertain to cultural competency makes the helpers acknowledge the benefits of diversity, existing in the world. It also helps in ensuring implementation of accurate psychotherapy approaches that are best and appropriate for the diverse service users. This ultimately encourages self-determination among the consumers, thereby improving their overall health and wellbeing.
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