What’s the goal of counselling? At its core, I believe seeking counselling services to be a way to establish a working alliance with a professional who is there to guide and support your journey to personal growth and self-improvement. This process demands the establishment of a plan to get to the place you want to be. While the counsellor implements various techniques from different therapeutic models, it is different from therapy in that it is more focused on the helping relationship, favouring a concrete plan that lays out goals, objectives, and strategies for their attainment. Unlike therapy, it is less focused on the opening, cleansing, and stitching back together of psychological wounds to bring closure and a sense of healing from past traumas; or on analysing behavior patterns to bring about lasting change. I think both serve important roles to the overall wellbeing of clients seeking help.
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Both professions maintain the goal of self-improvement, and both the client AND professional aspire for self-improvement within themselves. It is no wonder then, that continued education is an absolute necessity within the counselling profession. We are called to be evidence-based practitioners and to some degree respect practice-based evidence. This means that helpers are always learning. In fact, we learn and improve just as much from you as you do from us. Outside of the helping relationship, we improve through reliably sourced trainings and through self-motivated readings.
It’s important that in any pursuit, we don’t lose the forest for the trees. Self-improvement is a noble goal, but it is also important to respect your own natural rhythms. Whether you’re seeking help or the helping professional yourself, this is a process that takes time and might even be a lifelong endeavor.
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Luckily for you, professionals are commonly trained in client-centered approaches, meaning the work that gets done is at your pace, and it’s largely your eventual personal success. Not to say that the helper doesn’t play a role, there is great evidence that outcomes are largely based on the quality of the working alliance. But most importantly, the helper is simply a guide, someone to walk beside you throughout the journey, the helper only ever works as hard as you do, never more.
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And luckily for helpers, there are a great many resources to help in their quest for self improvement. There are free articles to be found in certain scientific journals, ensuring that the professional stays up to date with the latest findings. There are formal courses and specific trainings that offer attestations. There are great books out there that can be purchased, or that can sometimes be found at a local library. But most importantly, practice is what develops a helper’s competence. It’s in actually counselling where we learn the inherent strength within everyone which confirms that client-centered approaches do work. It’s the greatest evidence to us helpers that you are much stronger than you might think.
Alexandre G. McGovern 