DIASS

CORE VALUES AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF COUNSELING

*Counselors must try to keep these principles in mind at all times in order to be effective
1. Advice – counselor makes judgments about a counselee’s problems and lays out options for a course of action. Advice-
giving has to avoid breeding a relationship in which the counselee feels inferior and emotionally dependent on the
counselor.
2. Reassurance – a way of giving a counselee the courage to face a problem or confidence that they are pursuing a suitable
course of action. It is a valuable principle because it can bring about a sense of relief that may empower a client to function
normally again.
3. Release of emotional tension – counseling provides clients opportunity to get emotional release from their pent-up
frustrations and other personal issues. Clients become more relaxed and tend to become more coherent and rational.
The release of tensions helps remove mental block by providing solution to the problem.
4. Clarified thinking – tends to take place while counselor and counselee are talking and therefore becomes a logical
emotional release. It encourages a client to accept responsibility for problems and be more realistic in solving them.
5. Reorientation – involves a change in client’s emotional self through a change in basic goals and aspirations. It enables
clients to recognize and accept their own limitations. The counselor’s job is to recognize those in need of reorientation
and facilitate appropriate interventions.
6. Listening skills – the counselor’s attempt to understand both the content of client’s problem as they see it, and the
emotions they are experiencing related to the problem. Counselors do not make interpretations of client’s problems or
offer any premature suggestions as to how to deal with them, or solve issues presented.
7. Respect – in all circumstances, clients must be treated with respect, no matter how peculiar, strange, disturbed, weird,
or utterly different from the counselor. Counselors do not have to like the client, or their values, or their behavior, but
they have to put their personal feelings aside and treat the client with respect.
8. Empathy and positive regard – Rogers combined empathy and positive regard as two principles that should go along
with respect and effective listening skills. Empathy requires counselor to listen and understand the feelings and
perspective of client and positive regard is an aspect of respect. For Rogers, clients have to be given “unconditional positive
regard” and be treated with respect.
9. Clarification, confrontation, and interpretation – clarification is an attempt by the counselor to restate what the client
is either saying or feeling, so the client may understand the issue better. Confrontation and interpretation are other more
advanced principles used by counselors in their interventions.
10. Transference and counter-transference – when clients are helped to understand transference reactions, they are
empowered to gain understanding of important aspects of their emotional life. Counter-transference helps both clients
and counselors to understand the emotional and perceptional reactions and how to effectively manage them.

*Certain values are considered core to counseling and are reflected and expressed in the practice of counseling.
1. Respect for human dignity-counselor provide a client unconditional positive regard, compassion, non-judgmental
attitude, empathy and trust.
2. Partnership – counselor has to foster partnerships with integrity, sensitivity, and openness to ensure health, healing,
and growth of clients.
3. Autonomy – this entails respect for confidentiality and trust in a relationship of counseling and ensuring a safe
environment that is needed for healing. It also means that healing or any advice cannot be imposed on a client.
4. Responsible caring – respecting the potential of every human being to change and to continue learning throughout
his/her life, and especially in the environment of counseling
5. Personal integrity – counselors must reflect personal integrity, honesty, and truthfulness with clients
6. Social justice – accepting and respecting the diversity of clients, diversity of individuals, their cultures, languages,
lifestyles, identities, ideologies, intellectual capacities, personalities, and capabilities regardless of the presented issues.

Counseling as a profession
• Is stimulating and satisfying
• If you find meaning in helping a client become socially functional, if you get excited about the study on human
distress and how to distress, if you are inquisitive on processing feelings, then you are attracted to counseling as
profession.
• It is a helping profession. According to Gibson and Mitchell (2003), a helping profession is composed of members
“who are specially trained and licensed to perform a unique and service for fellow human beings.”

ROLES/FUNCTIONS OF A COUNSELOR
Individual Assessment – seeks to identify the characteristics and potential of every client; promotes the client’s self-
understanding and assisting counselors to understand the client better.
Individual Counseling – considers as the core activity through which other activities become meaningful. It is a client-
centered process that demand confidentiality. Relationship is established between counselor and client.
Group Counseling and Guidance- groups are means of providing organized and planned assistance to individuals for an
array of needs. Counselor provides assistance through group counseling and group guidance.
Career Assistance – counselors are called on to provide career planning and adjustment assistance to clients.
Placement and Follow-up – a service of school counseling programs with emphasis on educational placements in course
and programs.
Referral – it is the practice of helping clients find needed expert assistance that the referring counselor cannot provide.
Consultation – it is a process of helping a client through a third party or helping system improve its services to its clientele.
Research – it is necessary to advance the profession of counseling; it can provide empirically based data relevant to the
ultimate goal of implementing effective counseling.
Evaluation and Accountability – is a means of assessing the effectiveness of counselor’s activities. Accountability is an
outgrowth of demand that schools and other tax-supported institutions be held accountable for their actions.
Prevention – this includes promotion of mental health through primary prevention using a social-psychological
perspective.

COMPETENCIES OF COUNSELORS
We will focus on the input of McLeod (2003)
1. Interpersonal Skills – counselors who are competent display ability to listen, communicate; empathize; be
present; aware of non-verbal communication; sensitive to voice quality, responsive to expressions of emotion,
turn taking, structure of time and use of language.
2. Personal Beliefs and Attitudes – counselors have the capacity to accept others, belief in potential for change,
awareness of ethical and moral choices and sensitive to values held by client and self.
3. Conceptual Ability – the ability to understand and assess the client’s problems; to anticipate future problems; to
make sense of immediate process in terms of wider conceptual scheme to remember information about the client.
4. Personal Soundness – counselors must have no irrational beliefs that are destructive to counseling relationships,
self-confidence, capacity to tolerate strong or uncomfortable feelings in relation to no social prejudice/bias,
ethnocentrism and authoritarianism.
5. Mastery of Techniques – counselors must have a knowledge of when and how to carry out specific interventions,
ability to assess effectiveness of interventions, understanding of rationale behind techniques, possession of
sufficiently wide range of interventions.
6. Ability to understand and work within social systems – this would comprise of awareness of family and work
relationships of client, the impact of agency on the clients, capacity to use support networks and supervision;
sensitivity to client from different gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age group.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AND AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF COUNSELORS

• Marriage and Family Counseling – the efforts to establish an encouraging relationship with a couple or family and
appreciate the complications in the family system.
• Child and Adolescent Counseling – a developing area of expertise in the counseling profession. Common problems
include child abuse and neglect, child/adolescent depression, antisocial behavior. The counseling strategies focus
on helping children and adolescents acquire coping skills through promotion of resiliency, positive attachment
relationship, emotional and intellectual intelligence, and other qualities that promote optional development.
• Group Counseling – a dynamic field in the counseling profession. Group counseling offers the following:
opportunities for members to learn from observing other group members; can function as helpers and helps;
opportunities to discover that others have similar concerns; members are encouraged to offer help to others;
opportunities to enhance interpersonal skills
• Career Counseling – an evolving and challenging field. This type of counseling aids individuals on decisions and
planning concerning their career.
• School Counseling – the process of reaching out to students with concerns on drugs, family and peers or gang
involvement. It requires sensitivity to individual differences and considers diversity in enhancing educational
perspective. It also requires skills on consultation, counseling exceptional students and with the ability to handle
problems such as drug abuse teenage pregnancy, divorced or single parents, and dropping out of school.
• Mental Health Counseling – manifested with the challenges posed by its clientele with mental disorders. Mental
disorders include serious depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse. Mental health counselors have to be
inventive, and creative to address these problems. The job requires patience, humility, kindness, and compassion.
It requires the capacity to determine when to be an advocate and when you let the client take the initiative, must
have support system to be able to work effectively, apply give-and-take approach in establishing support system
and communication skills.

RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND ACCOUNTABILITIES OF COUNSELORS

*Code of ethics help counselors to remind them of their rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities in the counseling
profession. It is divided into seven sections, namely:
a. Counseling relationship
b. Confidentiality

c. Professional responsibility
d. Relationships with other professionals
e. Evaluation, assessment, and interpretation
 f. Teaching, training and supervision
g. Research and publication

Areas
a. The counseling relationships
1. Client welfare – counselor’s primary responsibility is to respect the dignity and to promote the welfare of clients
2. Respecting diversity – counselors shall respect differences and understand the diverse cultural backgrounds of
their clients
3. Client rights – counselors shall disclose the purposes, goals, techniques, procedures, limitations, potential risks,
benefits of the services to be performed and other pertinent information to the client throughout the counseling
process. Counselors offer clients the freedom to choose whether to enter into a counseling relationship and to
determine which professional will provide counseling, except when the client is unable to give consent.
4. Clients served by others – in cases where the client is receiving services from another mental health professional,
with client’s consent, inform the professional, with client’s consent, inform the professional person already
involved to develop an agreement
5. Personal needs and values – counselors shall be aware of their values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors and how
these apply in a diverse society and avoid imposing their values on clients.
6. Dual relationships – counselors are aware of their influential position over their clients and avoid exploiting the
trust and dependency of the clients. Counselors should not accept as superiors or subordinates client’s.
7. Sexual intimacies with clients – counselors should not have any type of sexual intimacies with clients and do not
counsel persons with whom they have sexual relationship. Counselors should not also engage in sexual intimacies
with former clients within a minimum of two years.
8. Multiple clients – in cases where counselors agree to provide counseling services to two or more persons who
have a relationship, counselors clarify at the outset which person or persons are clients and the nature of
relationship they will have with each involved person.
9. Group work – counselors take reasonable precautions to protect clients from physical or psychological trauma.
10. 10. Fees – prior to entering the counseling relationship, the counselors clearly explain the clients all financial
arrangements related to professional fees.
Areas

b. Confidentiality
1. Right to privacy
– counselors respect a client’s right to privacy and avoid illegal and unwarranted disclosures of
unwarranted information.
- The right to privacy may be waived by the clients or their legally recognized representative
- The general requirement that counselors keep information confidential does not apply when disclosure is
required to prevent clear and imminent danger to the client or others or when legal requirements demand that
confidential information be revealed.
- Counselors who receive information confirming that a client has a disease commonly known to be communicable
and fatal is justified in disclosing information to an identifiable third party, who by his/her relationship with the
client is at high risk of contracting the disease.
- When court orders counselors to release confidential information without a client’s permit, counselors request
to the court that the disclosure should not be required due to potential harm to client or counseling relationship.
2. Group and families
- In group work, counselors clearly define confidentiality and parameters for the specific group being entered,
explain its importance, and discuss difficulties related to confidentiality involved in group work
- In family counseling, information about one family cannot be disclosed to another member without permission.
3. Minor incompetent clients
- When counseling clients who are minors or individuals who are unable to give voluntary, informed consent, parents
or guardians may be included in the counseling process as appropriate
4. Records
- Counselors maintain records necessary for rendering professional services to their clients and as required by laws,
regulations, or agency or institution procedures
- Counselors are responsible for securing the safety and confidentiality of any counseling record they create,
maintain, transfer, or destroy whether the records are written, taped, computerized, or stored in any other
medium

- Counselors recognize that counseling records are kept for the benefit of the clients therefore provide access to
record and copies of record when requested by competent clients unless it contains information that may be
misleading or detrimental to the clients
- Counselors obtain written permission from clients to disclose or transfer records to legitimate third parties unless
exception to confidentiality exists
5. Research and Training
 - Use of data derived from counseling relationships for purposes of training, research or publication is confined to
content that is disguised to ensure the anonymity of the individual involved. Identification of client involved is
permissible only when the client has reviewed the material and has agreed to its presentation or publication
6. Consultation
- Information obtained in a counseling relationship is discussed for professional purposes only with persons clearly
concerned with the case. Before sharing information, counselors make efforts to ensure that there are defined policies
that effectively protect the confidentiality of information with other agencies serving the counselor’s clients.

Areas
c. Professional responsibility
1. Standards knowledge – counselors have a responsibility to read, understand, and follow the Code of Ethics and
Standards of Practice
2. Professional Competence – counselors practice only within the boundaries of their competence based on their
education, training, supervised experience, state and national professional credentials and appropriate
professional experience

Counseling and Its Work Settings

1. Counselors in Schools – the counseling service in the schools is usually located under the student affairs program. It is
under the supervision of the Dean of Student Affairs
2. Counselors in Community Setting – counselors can be found in community and mental health agencies, employment
and rehabilitation agencies, correctional settings, and marriage and family practice
3. Counselors in the Private Sector – counselors who decided to do full time work as private practitioners or engage in
part-time private practice while employed by community agencies.
4. Counselors in the Government – counselors are also present in various agencies of government or institutions
supported by government that are into social welfare, health and education. Relevant agencies include public schools,
public hospitals, public social welfare agencies such as that for the youth, children, and the aging.

Processes in Counseling
Stage 1: Relationship Building – the heart of counseling process because it provides the force and foundation for the
counseling to succeed. This stage involves establishing rapport, promote acceptance of client as a person with worth,
establishing genuine interaction, promote direct mutual communication, helping clients understand themselves, helping
focus and slowly promote counseling relevant communication from the client

Stage 2: Assessment and Diagnosis – one of the most crucial stages. This serves as the window for the counselor to have
a thorough appreciation of the client’s condition. It entails analysis of the root causes of the problem. The data will be
gathered in the diagnosis will be utilized in the formulation of goals

Stage 3: Formulation of Counseling Goals – goals are important as it sets direction of the counseling process. It shall serve
as the parameter of work and the client-counselor relationship. Counseling goals may be treated as a process goal or
outcome goal. The client and the counselor must agree on the counseling goals.

Stage 4: Intervention and Problem-Solving – upon formulation of counseling goals, the strategies for intervention may
now be outlined. Interventions comprise of individual, group, couples, and family counseling. Cormier and Cormier (1998)
as cited by Tysul (2003) recommended some guidelines which will motivate client participation. The guidelines include the
following: (a) the counselor has to provide a mapping of the different approaches offered, (b) describe the role of the
counselor and client for each procedure, (c) identify possible risks and benefits that may come and (d) estimate the time
and cost of each procedure. Problem-solving approach may be applied in the counseling process. Kanfer and Busemeyer
(1982) as cited in Tysul (2003), identified six stage model for problem-solving: problem detection, problem definition,
identification of alternative solutions, decision-making, execution, and verification.

Stage 5: Termination and Follow-up – the essential goal in counseling to witness a client progress on his/her own without
the assistance of the counselor. There are 4 components of termination which were identified by Quintan and Holahan
(1992) as cited in Tysul (2003): a) discussion of the end of counseling, b) review of the course of counseling, c) closure of
the counselor-client relationship, d) discussion of client’s future and post-counseling plan. These four components
indicate that the client-counselor relationship must be ended aptly.

Stage 6: Research and Evaluation – this stage can be undertaken at any point in the counseling stage. Research and
evaluation are fundamental part of the evaluation. Results of the research provide a scientific appreciation of the
counseling situation.

Methods in Counseling
1. Classic Theories – the psychological theories developed by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung are considered
as the classic for the reason that they primed the underpinning of clinical practice.
 a. Frued’s Psychoanalytic Theory – popularly known as Psychoanalysis which is an analysis of the mind. Its
objective is to restructure the personality by resolution of intrapsychic conflict, which focuses on the internal forces such
as unconscious processes. It has three goals: a) to help clients gain insights about themselves, b) to help clients work
unstuck issues, through a developmental stage, not settled in the past, and c) to help clients cope with the stresses of the
society (Gladding, 2000).
Methods/Techniques
1. Free Association – a method to encourage the patient to discuss whatever comes to his mind in order
to release suppressed emotions
2. Dream Analysis – a method to explore unconscious processes using dreams
3. Confrontation and Clarification – a form of feedback procedure for patients to become aware of
what is happening to him/her and to determine areas for further
analysis
4. Interpretation – a process of giving insights to the patients about their inner conflicts which can be
reflected in resistance, transference, and other processes

b. Adler’s Individual Psychology – it focuses on the role of cognition in psychological functioning. Its objective is
to gain understanding of the clients and assess why clients behave and think in certain ways. It focuses on four goals: a)
establishment and maintenance of an egalitarian relationship, b) analysis of client’s lifestyle, c) interpretation of client’s
lifestyle in a way that promotes insight, and d) reorientation and reeducation of the client with accompanying behavior
change
Techniques/Phases
Phase 1: Establishing the relationship
a. Use of listening skills – effective listening skills are necessary to promote mutual trust and respect
b. Winning respect and offering hope – winning respect of clients and offering hope can increase the
client’s motivation towards becoming involved in counseling
c. Encouragement – it gives the feeling of support to the clients which can help believing in themselves

Phase 2: Performing Analysis and Assessment

a. Lifestyle Analysis – identify client’s strengths that may be utilized to overcome the client’s problems
b. Dream Analysis may be used to conduct lifestyle analysis – a method to see dreams as an attempt to
deal with difficulties and challenges of life

Phase 3: Promoting Insight

a. Insight Process – allows clients to understand the dynamics of self-defeating patterns and utilize the
insights to correct the said patterns during the orientation process

Phase 4: Reorientation
a. Spitting in the Client’s Soup – involves determining the pay-off of the game and interpreting it to the
client; this can be used for clients that engage in manipulative games.
b. The push-button techniques – focusing on pleasant and unpleasant experiences and the feelings they
generate. The push-button symbolizes the amount of control clients can
exert when they push the button and put the stop to self-defeating
process
c. Catching Oneself – used to avoid old defeating patterns such as humor when the clients catch
themselves. Counselors may encourage clients to learn to laugh at their self-
defeating tendencies
d. Acting as-if – method that advances “can do” spirit and a self-fulfilling prophecy, which can help
clients experience success. It involves acting as if the client can do whatever s/he wants
e. Task setting and commitment – provides a structure as homework assignment which can be useful in
instilling the value of ‘effort to change’

c. Jung’s Analytic Psychology – referred to as Psychotherapy. It highlights the task of unconscious processes in
“psychological functioning.” Its over-all goal is to work for client’s transcend and move towards self-realization by helping
the self emerge.

2. Experiential Theories – fall under the affective theories which are concerned about generating impact on the emotions
of clients to effect change. The well-known experiential theorists include Carl Rogers (Person-Centered Therapy) and Fritz
Perls (Gestalt Therapy)

a. Roger’s Person-Centered Counseling – it has been described as “if-then” approach because this approach
considers that if certain conditions exist in the counseling relationship, then the client will move toward self-actualization.
Tysul (2003) identified the said condition which were formulated by Rogers:
 Condition
1. Counselor Congruence – counselors must be congruent with what they experience and what they
communicate. Ex: “If you feel threatened by the client, you cannot say you
enjoy their company” will create confusion among the clients.
2. Empathic Understanding – counselors must attempt to understand the client from the client’s
perspective or frame of reference
3. Unconditional Positive Regard – it is vital for counselors to a sense of acceptance and respect to the
client. It does not mean accepting and tolerating anything about the
client’s actions or words but to see and consider the client as a person
Manifestations that the client is ready to move toward self-actualization: openness to experience, self-trust,
possesses internal source of evaluation, and willingness to grow.

b. Perl’s Gestalt Therapy – focuses on the here and now. It refers to a dialogue between the therapist and client
wherein the client experiences from the inside what the therapist observes from the outside. The goal of the approach is
awareness on the environment, of responsibility for choices, of self and self-acceptance. This is appropriate for people
who lack awareness and have a feeling of “out of touch”
Techniques
a. Assuming Responsibility – requires the client to rephrase a statement to assume a responsibility. Ask
the client to end all statement with – and I take responsibility for it. Ex: I will
report to the principal what David did to Diana and I will take responsibility
for it.
b. Using Personal pronouns – encourages clients to take personal responsibility by saying “I or me”
instead of stating in general terms such as “we or us”. Ex: Instead of saying,
we got scared of the angry people who mobbed our car, say; I got scared of
the angry people who mobbed our car.
c. Now I am aware – assist the clients in getting in touch with her/himself. Counselor may ask clients to
close their eyes to get in touch with inner world and say, “Now I am aware….”. Ex:
Now I am aware of the silence and I am afraid that I will hear something scary.
d. The empty chair technique – help clients to work through conflicting parts of personality. It is done by
putting an empty chair in front of the client. The empty chair is the chair
of the personality that avoids to do what the client wants to do. Ex: A client
wants to give feedback to the teacher but is afraid of negative reactions.
The counselor will instruct the client to start the conversation with his/her
other personality seated at the chair in front of him/her stating why
he/she wants to give a feedback and what is the feedback all about. After
that, the client will be asked to sit on the empty chair and express why
he/she does not want to give feedback. Then the client will move back and
forth until the issue is resolved.

3. Cognitive Behavioral Theories: Rational Emotive Behavior and Transactional Analysis – highlight the task of cognition
in psychological functioning. According to Holden (1993) as cited by Gladding (2000), cognitions are thoughts, beliefs, and
internal images about events in their lives. It underscores mental processes and their effects on mental health. The
renowned cognitive theorists include Ellis (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), Beck (Cognitive Theory), Berne
(Transactional Analysis).

a. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy of Ellis – views that emotional disorder is associated with cognitive
processes that are not rational. Its main goal is to reform the self-
defeating cognition of the client and assist him/her obtain a more
reasonable viewpoint in life. The type of therapy is didactic and
provoking.
Techniques
a. Cognitive – focuses on helping clients conquer “defeating cognitions”. It involves reforming ideas that
are unreasonable and irrational
b. Emotive Techniques – focuses on client’s affective or emotional domain. This helps in assisting clients
learn to acknowledge themselves
c. Behavioral Techniques – focuses on the full array of behavioral methods such as assertiveness training,
relaxation therapy, self-management, self-monitoring, and homework
assignments.
b. Beck’s Cognitive Therapy – appropriate for people suffering from depressions and anxieties. Clients are led to
be more practical in their understanding and explanation of events by “projecting
less (anxiety) and generalizing less (depression). Beck does not try to invalidate
client’s beliefs but let his clients investigate “beliefs’ functionality.”
Techniques
a. Decatastrophizing – referred to as “what if” and includes priming clients for results that may strongly
affect the client
b. Redefining – assists clients to drum up clients who have a lost sense of control on an obstacle by
rearticulating an obstacle to something that may be useful. Ex: “I am ugly” to “I am
beautiful”
c. Decentering – instructing clients to observe and get a practical appreciation of other people’s response.
This will help clients apprehend that they are not the “center of attention”
d. Behavioral Techniques – assists client in obtaining “essential skills, relaxing, preparing for difficult
situations, and exposing them to feared situations

c. Berne’s Transactional Analysis – examining and dissecting transactions between people. Includes evaluating
the “three ego state of parent, adult, and child of each person”. This is to
detect if transactions are balanced and harmonized. The fundamental goal is
to assist clients to reach a stage of being “autonomous, self-aware,
spontaneous and have the capacity for intimacy.”
Techniques
a. Structural Analysis – assists clients be conscious of their “three ego”
b. Transactional Analysis – assists clients to “learn to communicate with complementary transactions, i.e.
adults to adults”
c. Script Analysis – looks into the “type of life script the client has developed and how it can be re-written”
d. Analysis of Game – determining what games the clients play and how the games interfere with
interpersonal functioning