Guidance vs CounselingPsychology, the study of behavior and of mental processes, is a diverse field. It involves the process of understanding the reasons why people behave and think as they do and applies scientific methods in observing and gathering information, in order to come up with an applicable principle of behavior and motivation.It is subjective and is applied according to the specific requirements of an individual. Among the many branches and applications of psychology are the fields of Guidance and

Counseling.Guidance and Counseling both involve helping an individual in making choices about the different things that might confront and confuse him. They are totally different fields though and to help distinguish between the two, here are some of the things that are used to describe them:

CounselingCounseling is a psychological specialty that deals with research and applied work in supervision, training, career development, prevention, and health. It focuses on a persons strengths, assets, environmental interactions, educational background, career development and personality.Counseling started as a result of WWII. Since then, it has been used by individuals, institutions, families, rehabilitation agencies and other organizations. It utilizes psychological methods in the collection of case history data through personal interview, testing and aptitude.It helps clients to choose the best solution to a problem, through the process of listening and questioning. It is important to note that counseling is not a giving of opinion and it is based on a wellness model rather than a medical one.A counselors basic concern should go beyond treating dysfunction or pathology. It should deal with a clients self awareness which should help him towards personal growth and wellness.

GuidanceGuidance is defined as the act of guiding, giving leadership, supervision, direction or professional guidance for future actions. It is usually provided to students in preparation for a vocation.Guidance helps a person discover and develop his psychological, vocational and educational potential in order to be happier and more useful in society. Each person is responsible for his decisions and actions, but when he is young he will need someone more mature and experienced to guide him through life and towards making the right decisions for himself.Like counseling, it assists clients towards a decision or an appropriate course of action. It may be used as therapeutic aid in the treatment of minor emotional disturbances and disorders.

Summary1. Counseling is a psychological field that deals with research and applied work to provide training and supervision, while Guidance is a psychological field that deals with assisting clients in their need to choose the right course of action.2. While both are being used in organizations and by individuals, counseling has a broader reach, while Guidance is usually being used in schools to guide students towards proper actions.3. Both can help in the treatment and rehabilitation of a person suffering from a mental illness or disorder, but counseling is more extensive than guidance.4. Counseling encompasses several other fields of psychology, while Guidance tends to be more specific.

The Meaning of Guidance The word guidance is explained in different ways by various/many writers, but all, having the same meaning. Shartzer and Stone (1976) defined guidance to mean to direct, pilot or guide. Bakare (1996) refers to guidance as a more directive or prescriptive form of assistance. Idowu (1998) sees it as a family name for all the helping service within the general educational and community systems. To make the meaning to be more explicit, Akinade (2002) remarked that some specialists assert that guidance is a broad term used to cover a number of specialist services available in schools. Such services include the information service, testing service, placement service, follow-up service and counseling service. But looking at the modern day global world, the provision of specialist services are no more limited to the school, it now includes the community in general. From the above, guidance can be summarily defined as a cognitive educational services (within or outside the school system) that help people understand themselves, provided the client reveals accurate, reliable and valid information about himself and his environment.

The Meaning of CounsellingCounselling is a process of helping individuals or group of people to gain self-understanding in order to be themselves. Burker and Steffler (1979) see counseling as a professional relationship between a trained Counselor and a client. Olayinka (1972) defined it to be a process whereby a person is helped in a face-to-face relationship while Makinde (1983) explained counseling as an enlightened process whereby people help others by encouraging their growth. Counselling is a process designed to help clients understand and clarify personal views of their life space, and to learn to reach their self-determined goals through meaningful, well-informed choices and a resolution of problems of an emotional or interpersonal nature. It believes that every human individual has the potential for self-growth, self-development and selfactualization.

Types of CounsellingThere are two major types of Counselling, namely: individual counselling and group counselling.(a) Individual Counselling: This is referred to as one-to-one counselling. It occurs between the professionally trained Counsellor (Therapist) and his client (Counsellee). The goal of this is to help the client to understand himself, clarify and direct his thought, in order to make a worthwhile decision. Through this, clients problems are alleviated. Frumboltz and Thoreson (1967) as cited in Ojo (2005) remarked that it is mainly to bring about change in the client either by altering maladaptive behaviour, learning the decision making process or preventing problems.(b) Group Counselling: This is a counselling session that takes place between the professionally trained counsellor and a group of people. Number of this group should not be more than seven, or at least ten, in order to have a cohesive group and an effective well controlled counselling session. Members of the groups are clients/counselees whose tasks or problems that are meant for resolution are similar.During group counselling, a free atmosphere is allowed and freedom of speech is encouraged. The counselees are free to express themselves individually as counselling progresses so that encumbrances surrounding the tasks or problems to be resolved would be open for all to consider and benefit from. All counselees are expected to participate and express their feelings. The responsibility of the counsellor during group counselling is to help remove the marks covering the problem. He helps open up the problem with the professional competence and knowledge he possesses. The counsellor is not just a member of the group; he is to direct the affairs and situations.

Classification of CounsellingCounselling can be classified according to different spheres of life in which human beings could encounter problems. These are: (a) Educational Counselling: problems that could be of learning, teaching and that of education generally are handled here.(b) Marital Counselling: problems that could emanate from married life beginning from spouse selection are resolved here.(c) Personal Social Counselling: problems including personality and life in general are taken care of here.(d) Rehabilitation Counselling: problems emanating from life disruptions such as accidents, retrenchment and natural mishaps are handled here.(e) Vocational Counselling: problems from work and training, career choice making and adjustment are handled here.Only three of the above types of counselling will be mainly practiced in the school setting. These are Educational, Vocational and Personalsocial counselling which will be the full responsibility of the school counsellor. However, a counsellor in private practice might need to engage in the other types of counselling depending on the needs of his clients.

Differences Between Terms

Guidance Counselling vs. Counselling/Psychotherapy

Guidance approaches situations from the perspective that the guidance counsellor has more information or better ways to reach decisions than the person receiving the service. Guidance provides the client with expert advice and solutions, which the client may or may not follow.Those who provide guidance counselling services use counselling skill-sets, but their intentions tend to be more focused on helping clients make a decision(s) about specific, important issue(s) (course selections, jobs, school choices) in their lives.Counselling and psychotherapy are processes that seek to help people improve their well-being and increase their ability to solve problems and make decisions for themselves both in and beyond the current situation. Therefore, counselling and psychotherapy are considered more holistic than guidance. In contrast, guidance focuses on assisting a person to make decisions that are usually time- and context-limited. Of course, such decisions can, and usually will, have longer-term effects for a person's life.Counselling vs. Psychotherapy

Both counselling and psychotherapy focus less on the content of a specific decision than does guidance. Instead, both counselling and psychotherapy focus on helping a person reach the decision that fits best for them with regard to their own values and desires.Shorter-term work focused on dealing with a specific situation (marital breakup, loss of job, etc.) is more likely to be called counselling than therapy (but this is not always true).Persistent and pervasive patterns of maladaptive behaviour are likely to require longer-term service provision, which is more likely to be called therapy. Such situations also assume the need for greater expertise by the provider.Services provided by social workers, pastoral care counsellors, nurses, vocational guidance personnel, and school psychologists are more likely to be labelled counselling than psychotherapy/therapy. Sometimes the employer mandates this nomenclature, and sometimes the service provider prefers this designation.Psychiatrists and (some) psychologists are more likely to call their services therapy than are other care providers. This might be due to history, licensure, specific training, etc.Service providers who use diagnostic systems, such as the DSM, are more likely to call their services treatment (yet another term). Sometimes this term is mandated by the institution they work for and sometimes the practitioner views the service as treatment. Those who view themselves as providing treatment are more likely to call what they do therapy (possibly because this fits with the medical model).

GUIDANCE:- The word Guidance has its root in the word "Guide" which means to direct, steer,inform and to guide. In the society of ours, many people encounter, problem because of lack of guidance. They lack information and direction. It is essential for the purpose of good living that adolescents have enough information to direct them to avoid a wrong step in their endeavor in life.

COUNSELING:- This is a process of assisting a client who is sad, discouraged, disorganizedand need assistance from a professional, who is trained in psychotherapy to identify hisproblem and adjust so he can live an effective life. Perez(1965) says a counseling is a processcoloining a client who is in trouble as a result of which he is now sad, disorganized and a counsellor who is trained to assist him to become happt and live an effective life.Makinde (1985) defines counseling as a process whereby people helped people to adjust, be happyand live effective life. Effective life is a life that is apparently devoid of troubles.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING.

Guidance is for all, everyone need it while counseling is for those who have problems and need assistance. Guidance can be offered by anybody e.g teachers, pastors, parents, even counselor,through media (flayers) SMS, internet,prospect, radio jingles, TV announcement while Counselingcan only those trained in psychotherapy. Guidance is a public thing,it can be done in an open field, assembly hall while counseling is private and confidential.

THE UMBRELLA TERM GUIDANCE AND COUNSELINGThe term Guidance and Counseling are like two sides of a single coin.They are inseparable. Man needs both to survive in life. According to Nwagu (1985), it takes both a man and a woman to bring forth a child. In the same vein, it takes both guidance and counseling to bring forth an effective personality. This is why the umbrella term is used for this course - The two are indispensable.

Both Guidance and Counseling are process used to solve problems of life. The basic difference is in the approach. In the process of guidance, the client's problems are listened carefully and ready made solutions are provided by the expert where as in the process of counseling the client's problems are discussed and relevant information are provided in-between. In the end of the counseling process, the client himself/herself have a insight to the problem and he/she become empowered to take own decision. Since ready made solutions (taking decision for others) were provided in guidance, the client may or may not follow it but most often decision taken in the process of counseling are followed sincerely. The set of decisions comes out from guidance and counseling process may be same but in the first process the decision is taken by the guide where as the client take own his/her own decisions in the later process.

Counseling vs GuidanceMost people often interchange the words guidance and counseling. This is primarily because we are so used to the term guidance counselor from our schools. These professionals we know from childhood usually help students in their way to college, often giving them advices involving personal or educational problems as well as showcasing options for college and future careers. Guidance counselors often function to guide children and young individuals to become mature and responsible members of society by developing the persons way of thinking and motivating them to prepare for their chosen careers and vocations.Guidance and Counseling are both processes that are done to help solve a persons problems in life, however the way these problems are dissected and tackled vary. The way the problems are tackled could ultimately depend on the way the person in need of advice or help may be more comfortable with.Guidance involves listening carefully to the problems of the burdened individuals and discussing possible readymade solutions that could help solve or at least alleviate the problem discussed at hand. In this way, the person who is in dilemma can choose whether or not to accept the said solution and carry out the solution with him. Most often than not, the solutions that are given out sincerely and thus are often followed and carried out.Counseling, on the other hand, involves a series of talking and listening, discussing the problem at hand and sharing relevant information that could help the person understand the problem and make his or her own decision or course of action. The process of counseling usually ends with the advisee having with him an insight of the problem and a more empowered self that could help the person make future decisions. This way the advisee can be more intuitive in the future and can learn to dissect and understand future problems.Some people state that guidance is only a part of counseling wherein the act of listening to the problem and discussing solutions can be done repeatedly until the problem is well understood by the advisee and possible ways or solutions can be extracted from the repetition.Difference between Counseling and Guidance- Guidance is broader and comprehensive whereas counseling is in-depth, narrowing down the problem until the advisee understands his/her own problem.- Counseling help people to understand themselves, it is an inward analysis. Alternative solutions are proposed to help understand the problem. Focus on counseling is not on solution but on understanding the problem. Adviser may be able to bring emotional change or change in feeling.- Guidance on the other hand is more external, help a person understand alternative solutions available across him and makes him understand his personality and help him choose the right solution. Here the focus is on finding solution. The guidance may bring attitude change on the advisee.- Guidance is generally education and career related, it can be on personal problems too, but commonly it is impersonal whereas counseling mostly on personal and social issues.A lot of people are familiar with guidance and counseling but are often ashamed to see a counselor for guidance or attend group counseling to help them understand their problems and discuss possible solutions. It is often difficult to see solutions to problems when one is burdened and having to talk to a person with no bias or pre-judgment is a great way to cope with the obstacles in life. Guidance and counseling, therefore, are great ways to help people handle their problems themselves.Of course, a little help will no doubt cause problems as long as the advisee is open minded and is willing to accept his or her own faults and flaws. Problems can be solved with the right amount of dedication, contemplation and understanding.

GUIDANCE - The help given by one person to another in making choices and adjustments and in solving problems.COUNSELING - Helping relationship, that includes(a)someone seeking help,(b)someone willing to give help who is capable or trained to help,(c) a setting that permits help to be given and received.Leads Help (move) What show the waysDirection G &C? Interaction/ Assist relationshipGUIDANCEAccording to Crow & Crow Guidance is assistance made available by personally qualified and adequately trained personnel to an individual of any age to help him manage his own life activities, to develop his own points of view, make his own decisions and carry his own burdens.In other word It is a continuous educational process which goes on from whomb to tomb.Educational point of view It is an educational service designed to help students make more effective use of the schools training programme.CHARACTERISTICS OF GUIDANCE it help individual to recognize and use his inner resources (a) to set goals, (b) to make plans, (c) to work out his own problems of development. Choice & problem points are distinctive concerns. Assistance to the individual in the process of development rather than the direction of the development. Generalized & specialized service Guidance is centered around the needs and aspirations of students.GuidanceGuidance is pre-problem, there is no specific problem that is identified in an individual.Guidance program is a system of services designed to improve the adjustment of each and every person for whom it was organized.Guidance is the act of making decisions for another person to help them get somewhere or help them to have a better future by showing them how to do it themselves. The Need for Guidance ServicesThe Family SituationFamily life has changed. Within the family, the physical intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of children are initially met and nurtured. It is within the family that questions are answered, errors are corrected, problems are heard and dealt with. If in past, the home was a place of refuge and a source of strength, this no longer seems to be the case. SOME CONDITIONS THE FILIPINO FAMILY HAS TO CONTEND WITH TODAYThe Disappearing FamilyThe Unready FamilyPathological FamilyThe Complexity of LivingBesides the pressures on the family, there are other conditions in the Philippines that make day-to-day living more complex.Increased of Mobility of FilipinosIncreasing Course Options and educational AttainmentNew Job TitlesLack of Job PossibilitiesLack of Job PossibilitiesNew trends in Permanency and TenureIncreased Financial DifficultyIncreasing Possibilities of Experiencing CrisisAll human beings go through crises at some points in their lives, brought about by their developmental stages. For this reason, the guidance goals and programs attend to the persons developmental needs. But there are also unforeseen critical situations which may traumatize a person. CalamitiesCrimesLearning and Other DisordersParents and educators today are intrigued by the behavioral or learning disorders found in children autism, ADHD, dyslexia, which seemed minimal or remained undetected in the early years of Guidance movement. The adults concerned go into crisis upon discovery, especially when they do not have the skills needed to handle such cases.Educational GuidanceProcess of helping students to achieve the self-understanding and self-direction necessary to make informed choices and move toward personal goals. Guidance, a uniquely American educational innovation, focuses on the complete development of individual students through a series of services designed to maximize school learning, stimulate career development, and respond to the personal and social concerns that inhibit individual growth. Although guidance activities are usually associated with educational professionals known as counselors, educational guidance is actually a cooperative enterprise involving the participation of teachers, administrators, other educational specialists, and parents.CounselingCounseling is post-problem, meaning a problem has already been identified and therefore the counselor helps to address the problem but not to solve it. Counseling is the act of steering another's thoughts till they come up with the correct answer or behavior themselves. Neither is foolproofThe Heart of the Guidance Program.

uidance is a continuous process of helping the individuals to understand themselves and their world. Guidance is an organized set of specialized services established as an integral part of the school environment designed to promote the development of students Guidance seeks to help an individual become familiar with facts about himself his interests, abilities, previous development and plans Guidance involves personal help given by someone Counseling is a personal relationship between a professionally trained counselor and someone who aims to assist him to communicate and meet his immediate needs and problems Counseling is a process in which the structure of the self is relaxed in the safety of the relationship with the counselor Counseling is an interaction process which facilitates meaningful understanding of self and environment Counseling is not giving of information, advise, it is not brainwashing, it is not forcing beliefs or behavior by persuasion or coercion. Rather it is providing conditions which facilitates voluntary change.