Module 1

Lesson 1:
The Discipline of
Counseling
Aaron M. Pepito, RPm
DIASS
At the end of this module, I can:
• Define counseling.
• Discuss the application of the counseling as a
discipline of art as discipline of science.
• Enumerate and discuss the goals, and scope of
counseling.
• Explain and provide a rationale about the
principals of counseling.
• Enumerate and discuss the core values of
counseling.
There are common misconceptions about
mental health services that have negative
connotation to the idea of meeting with a
counseling professional or practitioner,
especially in the Philippines. These
misconceptions include the following:
1. A person seeing a counselor, a
psychologist, a psychiatrist, or any mental
health practitioner has mental illnes.

• A person can freely consult any mental

health practitioner and share his or her
concerns so that he or she can deal with
them affectively. For instance, symptoms
such as frequent feelings of anxiety with
excessive worry may not worsen and
develop into panic attacks. This is
possible if contributing reasons or factors
are processed before an individual’s
condition has worsened.
2. Counseling means giving advice
• A professional counselor is trained to avoid advice. When
a counselor gives an advice, the client is kept from
gaining a better position to understand, analyze, and
solve his or her own problem. Instead of giving advice,
the primary goal of the counselor is to assist the client to
identify and address the factors in his or her problem.
3. Counseling is part of the Discipline
Board
• Students who have violated the
school’s code of discipline are
referred to the counselor. However,
this not mean that the counselor’s
role is to reprimand and discipline. In
this situations, the counselor provides
the following assistance to the
student concerned:
1. facilitation toward an
understanding of the factors
that caused him or her to
disobey school rules and • 2. reorientation of the
regulation, school policies,
3. referrals to or
recommendation for seminars 4. psychological support
or workshops aimed to impart should the student’s action
the characterization of the merited dismissal from the
school’s values, school.
4. A counselor is a problem-solver
• Counselor do not dispense an easy
solution to fix problems. In fact,
counseling work best through
collaboration with the client. A
counselor is a facilitator who guide
you toward the possible solutions to
understand the entire situations
could he or she best help the client.
 The Goals of Counseling
• According to Kottler and Shepard (2007), the
goals that are common to counselors and
that are essentially indicate of their
professional identity include clients in the
following:
• 1. Plan and work in a
constructive manner
in training life
success;
• 2. Learn, anticipate,
and react positively
to issues brought
about by
developmental
changes;
• 3. Express their
uniqueness in diverse
circumstances
through socially
accepted integration
of their thoughts,
feelings, and actions;
• 4. Respond with
resilience to stress
and be able to
buffer themselves
from its negative
impact on their
functioning;
• 5. Develop effective
skills in relating with
others in order to
enhance abilities in
establishing
harmonious
relationship;
• 6. Increase
awareness of the self
by identifying their
strengths and
weaknesses;
• 7. Become mindful of
the realities of life and
be able to apply
effective principles of
coping and adjusting
to the different
experience they
encounter in life;
• 8. Learn to speak for
more options or
choices to be well-
informed before
making a decision;
and
• 9. achievement
autonomy from
counseling as they
have learned life
skills.
• One of the important goal of the counseling
process is to move the client toward proper
and empowered self-management.
• If you seek counseling so that can get
immediate solutions to your problems, you
might feel disappointed in your guidance visit.
• The counselor introduce tools, such as
• time management skills,
• stress management skills, and
• social skills, that you can use to manage and
solve your problems.
 The Importance of Counseling
• Counseling programs aim to provide preventive
measures to you as a client. This is achieved as the
counselor assist you to anticipate the challenges
that may arise from a situations.
• As the counselors points these out, he or she will
then discuss and provide guidelines about how
you may properly deal with these situations. In
doing so, you can function better by being wiser
in choosing your decision
• Professional counselors are trained not to give you
direct advice or act as you problem solvers. Rather,
• they listen to you,
• guide you to see the whole picture of your
situations,
• present options to you,
• and facilitate your informed and wise decisions.
The Nature and Scope of Counseling

• Counseling deals with

a myriad of human
concerns. The
following are general
classifications of
problems and reasons
why clients to consult
counselors:
• 1. Academic difficulties
• these include the students’ difficulties in
accomplishing various requirements and meeting
the standards of education,
• adjusting to teaching methods used,
• handling academic pressures,
• maintaining good grades,
• managing time,
• learning how to focus, and ensuring effective
study skills.
• 2. Personal concerns
• These involve the difficulties that the clients
• encounter in planning and setting their goals,
• handling stress,
• sustaining their motivation,
• making informed decisions,
• identifying priorities,
• and solving problems.
• 3. Social concerns
• Difficulties encountered by counselees in relating
with others includes dealing with
• rejections,
• Handling peer pressure
• Coping with the challenges of romantic
relationship
• and bullying.
• 4. Emotional difficulties
• Problems related to clients’ emotions include
dealing with
• Anxiety, nervousness, and heartache;
• Coping with the loneliness due to homesickness
and rejection;
• Managing negative emotions, such as
depression, anger. And fear;
• And attaining emotional stability.
• 5. Psychological challenges
• These include
• Handling persistent suicidal behaviours;
• Managing some forms of addiction such as
smoking, drinking, and computer gaming;
• Dealing with eating or sleeping problems;
• Understanding one’s identity;
• Handling painful experience.
• 6. Family problems
• Clients’ primary concerns usually involve
• separation of parents,
• Absence of parents due to work abroad,
• Single parenting,
• Infidelity of parents,
• Hostile parenting,
• Favoritism in family,
• Pregnancy and parenting,
• and unpleasant home environment
• 7. Career-related concerns
• These difficulties can be addressed by
• identifying the clients’ strengths, interest, and personal
traits and matching them with career choices;
• Accessing information regarding career choices;
• Reconciling personal career choices with those of
family members;
• Identifying unclear career goals and lack of career
plans;
• Preparing for job application;
• and attaining job satisfaction (Hurlock, 1980)
 THE CORE VALUES OF COUNSELING

• Your values constitute your beliefs, which in turn

affect how you view the persons you deal with
and how you understand your situations.
Hutchinson (2014) offered a synthesis of moral
values for effective counseling. These include the
following:
• 1. Each person is, in essence, naturally pure
and good.
• If you share the same belief, then you treat
every individual with care and respect,
operate from a non-judgmental point of view,
and try to understand why some persons
cannot perform or function well.
• 2. The primary role of a counselor is to give
support so that the client will be able to attain
autonomy.
• This would enhance the clients’ sense of
responsibility so that he or she could later arrive
at a better positions and see how he or she
influences and is influenced by social forces.
• 3. The essential values that will compel and
sustain you in doing this work are love and
compassion.
• In order for you to become an effective
counselor, you must have a big heart because
as guidance counselor, you should learn to
prioritize the needs of your clients.
• 4. An effective counselor finds the job’s intrinsic
rewards more interesting than its extrinsic ones.
• This job’s intrinsic rewards come from the
counselor’s sense of fulfilment in seeing his or
her clients achieve life success, attain
autonomy, and exercise effective coping skills.
• 5. Deal with life through an attitude of gratitude
and forgiveness.
• You have to keep inspiring other people to be
well and do well; to be hopeful and confident in
facing life’s challenges; and to stay positive in
times of problems and difficulties.
• What have I Learned So Far?
• 1. What is counseling?
• ___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
• 2. What is the importance of counseling?
• ___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
• 3. What do you think are some of the human concerns that bother most adolescents
in this modern day?
• ___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
• 4. How will you differentiate personal concerns from emotional concerns?
• ___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
BEYOND WALLS 1.1 (Apply IT IN Real Lfe)
• As a career counselor of a university, you are tasked to
prepare a 30-minute talk on the discipline of counseling
of junior high school students. You have to prepare a
PowerPoint presentation which highlights the nature and
scope of the discipline, the career opportunities with
compensations, and educational preparations and
trainings needed to become a counselor.
• Make sure to sufficiently cover the salient features of
counseling, use the appropriate jargons in the discipline,
and check your sentence for correct grammar.