School Counseling

Counseling is:
- a relationship
- a special form of communication
- a confidential way to provide aid
- based on the principle of personal development
- performed by specialists

Counseling:
- involves listening
- prevents crisis situations – proactive role
- another person is being helped
- the counselor assists a group of people
- involves empowering the people who seek help
- implies helping other to identify and clarify issues
- is guided by certain psychological methods and theories

The most important features of school counseling:
- it is a process of development
- has a proactive and prevention role
- it approaches different problems of the counseled subject (personal, educational, social, vocational and professional guidance)
Through the counseling process, the challenge of a voluntary change in client’s attitude and behavior is intended.
The main target in counseling is supporting the client (student, teacher or parent) so that he becomes able to help and understand himself and also to understand the reality. Therefore, the school counselor task is not to give advices but to help the person in difficulty to become capable of solving his problems independently. The counselor never has pre-established solutions for a case. He is helping the person to find the most efficient solutions.
School counseling aims to provide psycho-educational guidelines for mental health, emotional, physical, social and spiritual development of children.

Principles of school counseling:
- All people are special and valuable because they are unique
- Each individual is responsible for his own decisions
- The client (student, parent, teacher, family) must feel empowered, “satisfied and full of resources” (see Russell, in Pete Sanders, 1999) and show personal independence and self-understanding.
- The student is accepted and treated as a person
- The counseling relationship is a tolerant relationship
- Counseling is based on how to think together with the client

School counseling targets:
- Promoting the health and well being of the student – the optimal functioning in terms of somatic, physiological, mental, emotional, social, spiritual components.
- Personal development, sell-knowledge, self-image, decision-making ability, harmonious interpersonal relationships, stress management, effective learning techniques, creative attitude, realistic vocational options
- Prevention of negative affective disposition, lack of self-confidence, risk behaviors, interpersonal conflicts, learning difficulties, social adjustment, psychosomatic disorders, crisis situations.

The state of well-being has the following components:
- Self-acceptance – expressed through a positive self-esteem, acceptance of personal strengths and weaknesses, positive perception of past and future experiences
- Autonomy – manifested by independency, determination, self-evaluation by personal standards, not under group pressure
- Control – sense of competence and personal control over work, identifying opportunities for valuing personal needs, choices consistent with own values
- Positive relationships with others – based on trust, the need to receive affection, an empathic, open and warm attitude.
- Personal development – achieved through new experiences, valuing own feelings, positive perception of self-changes, efficacy, flexibility, creativity
Counseling does not resolve independently the development and maintenance of wellness. There are many other factors that influence this process: the family, school, other educational environments. Unfortunately, it has been found that family and school are perturbing conditions and contexts of students self-confidence.

Counseling relationship characteristics (Pete Sanders, 1999):
- I am being heard – the feeling another person is genuinely interested in me and tries to understand me and listen to me
- Warmth – I feel well received by someone, as if they are really happy to see me
- Confidentiality – it’s very important to feel safe, to be sure no one will find out what I say so that I would feel embarrassed
- Equality – I like to feel equal with someone else; the counselor doesn’t act as if he is the expert, as if he has power over me.
- Non-judgment – I do not like to feel judged or be told what to do. Some people make me feel as if I did something bad. I feel safe when I feel accepted as a person
- Only for people with problems – counseling is only for someone who has problems; I don’t have problems, so I don’t need counseling
- No limits – if I go to counseling, I will be able to talk about everything I find important
- Crying – It’s ok to cry when you’re angry. Counseling helps expressing your emotions, feelings
- Relationship – counseling is a helping relationship. It’s about what happens between two people. Each relationship has unique aspects. Counseling relationship is built with communication tools and knowledge of everyday life. The client provides his own life experience.
- Respect for the client, trust and cooperation – counselor must learn to appropriately relate to and respect the cultural differences and attitudes that influence the relationship.
- Responsibility in reaching the goals: “being ready” and the expectancies are important factors in building the relationship between counselor and client
- Self-revealing: the client, as an expert of his life, is helped by the counselor, an expert in counseling strategies, to find himself. The human side of the counselor is the one that matters the most.