Page 172 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Guidance and Counseling

Notes experiences and become important skills. For example, some counselors go out to receive their
clients when they arrive. Others warmly greet them and yet others just smile at them. All the three
approaches may be good and successful in securing rapport and a feeling of trust. Some clients may
react warmly to the counselor’s reception, others may not be very much concerned with it. The next
question is that of breaking the ice. What kind of topics should be talked about ? Would it be better
to plunge into the counseling session straightaway or would it help to have a brief conversation on
non-affective items such that the client feels comfortable and gets a sort of breathing time to put
himself at ease ?
16.4.1 Structuring the Counseling Relationship
The counselee arrives with several feelings, attitudes and expectations. He is often nervous and
wonders what is going to happen. It is essential that the counselor makes it very clear to the counselee
regarding what may take place in the counseling situation. This is called ‘structuring’. Much has
been written about this. Sometimes counselors are said to use an unstructured situation. But the
problem is quite ticklish or sensitive in that there can be nothing like an unstructured relationship.
We could speak of minimal structuring as contrasted with structuring the situation.
What do we mean by structuring ? For most counselors, structuring concerns the nature of the
counseling relationship and indicates the limits, roles, goals and the like. In short, structuring concerns
the practical mechanics of the counseling relationship. If dispels many initial misconceptions about
counseling. This kind of initial understanding, according to some counselors, could be of great
value to the clients. It is good if the client has some understanding and grasp of the matter. What
does he expect from the counseling relationship ? What would be his responsibilities and
commitments ? What is the amount of time that would be available to him? What fees, if any, does
he have to pay ? and the like. When a client does not know anything about such matters, he is
obviously going to feel uncomfortable and anxious.
Structuring has other important goals. Most clients have faulty notions about counseling. Some
clients ask the counselor to psychoanalyse them. Others may want the counselor to give a few tests
and interpret the results. While the counselor may do what the clients expect him to do, if found
necessary, it does not mean that the counselor will always have to do what the client asks for. Thus
structuring the interview dispels some of the misconceptions. It also provides the counselee with
the necessary orientation to the counseling situation. Usually in referral cases clients tend to become
truculent or assume a taciturn attitude because they labour under a misconception that the counselor
is part of the establishment and that the counselor is only an agency to justify the action of the
management. This is frequently the situation with clients referred to by industrial managements or
by school or college authorities. Structuring helps to reduce anxiety in the clients. There is yet
another category of clients who are convinced about the wastefulness of this process and believe
that it is not going to be of much consequence to them. Such clients tend to respond at the superficial
level and may not actively participate in the counseling relationship. Structuring in this situation
may help save much of the time of the counselor as well as that of the client.
Most importantly, structuring thus helps clients obtain a certain amount of orientation to the
counseling situation.
16.4.2 Degree of Lead
The second technique or style of functioning concerns the degree of lead to be taken by the counselor.
Since a lot of material is written on this issue, we shall attempt to give a very brief description of the
different leads. Robinson (1950) has used the term ‘lead’ to connote, “a team like working together
in which the counselor’s remarks seem to the client to state the next point he is ready to accept”.
Lead refers to the kind of communication, verbal or otherwise, made by the counselor which helps,
invites, directs or prods the client towards making a response. For example, the counselor may use
silence as a lead. The counselor’s role in this context would be one of receiving. The counselor may
merely restate what the client has said. In this the counselor’s role is one of acceptance. The counselor

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