Some Useful Dealings ☼

Assertiveness, motivation, supportive councelling and helping relationships link up to one another. Sides to it are laid bare by Buddha in his counsels to householders [Link].

Changing one's motivations could bring about conflicts, depending on others in the conglomerate or networks of living and functioning where many evidently fit in to their harm, as alarming stress (Sanskrit: dukkha, stress, suffering) research suggests, for example.

There are reasons to assume that good contacts and fair friends lessen the need for paid counselling.

1. One may fit in to one's good or harm; in the latter case counselling might offer some help

Examination of the following characteristics indicate that they are interrelated to some degree. The helping relationship - and by interpolation, perhaps also the useful dealing:

1. Is meaningful.
2. Integrity of person is present.
3. Is marked by mutual consent and enough sensitivity (Rogers and also others). (Stefflre and Grant 1972, 8)
4. The individual to be helped needs information or treatment.
5. Depth of involvement may vary. (Ib., 17)
6. "Ad hoc" is applicable to the counseling conversation. (Ib., 17)
7. Conducted counselling is confidential. (Ib., 19)
8. Is conducted through articulate communication and interaction, while eliminating (reducing) competing responses.
9. Structure is evident.
10. There is collaborative effort and in part an exchange of ideas. (Ib., 6-8, 17)
11. The helping person is approachable and secure as a person. (Ib., 6-8)
12. The focus may be study of the total personality, and deviations should be studied too. (Ib., 16)

The demand for a helping relationship in our society has resulted in the establishment of several types of professionals. Boundaries, focus, goals, and significance of their service are transitory, uncertain, and often the subject of dispute. (Ib., 15)

Listening is present in counselling, but not all counselling is listening. And there is an element of empathic understanding in some cases (Einfühlung). (Ib., 19, 105-6) ◇

The title "counsellor" is in some cases self-conferred, and attempts to differentiate psychotherapy and counseling have not had much success. (Ib., 14, 16)

2. A change of motivations could end conflicts or end up in conflicts, depending on others of the environment. Thus, smartness is not to be dispensed with

The effect of counselling is improvement or change in client behaviour. (Ib., 19)

To a much similar or identical end psychoanalysts aims at treating neuroses and a variety of other disorders - Psychoanalysis is based on concepts of unconscious motivation, conflict, and symbolism. Its boundaries are not sharply defined. (Ib., 11)

Length of treatment may vary – A great aim is to deal more effectively – Counselling facilitates meaningful understanding of self and/or environment and results in clarified conduct. – One is to improve social and personal functioning, or standing. (Ib., 17, 18, 20, 9) ◇

3. Accommodating oneself all passively is hardly the best accommodation to be found. Having many options may be good, and a firm resolve. But it depends on such as one's circumstances

The preferred setting in a helping profession would quite naturally be one's own clinic. However, through infancy, childhood, maturity, and senility man accommodates himself in some manner to the tasks, demands, and realities expected of him by others as well as by himself. (Ib., 13, 4)

One has the opportunity to achieve role by experimentation, routine work, labels, interaction with the public, discussion, and by significant work work. And there are differences in approaches. They involve such as:

• Ambiguity of therapeutic role;
• The amount of therapist warmth;
• The emphasis on recall of the past versus dealing with present problems;
• The degree of activity of passivity of the therapist;
• The emphasis on client affect versus cognition. (Ib., All, 15, 13) ✩

By a helping relationship Carl Rogers understands "a relationship in which at least one of the parties has the intent of promoting the growth, development, maturity, improved functioning, improved coping with life of the other." Other aims are more appreciation of and/or more functional use of the latent inner resources of the individual. (Ib., 5) ◇◇

Accordingly, one may deal with milder forms of emotional stress, including anxiety, mild psychosomatic forms, phobias, tics, motor and sensory manifestations. (Ib., 11)

So

One should seek to fit in to one's good first and foremost, and in such cases counselling is not so often desperately needed. And in dealing with conflicts, one should enhance one's winning chances. There are many ways of doing it. A firm resolve helps too, in its way.