History of Counselling
To understand the history of counselling, we begin
with the realisation that human beings find a good deal
of comfort in sharing their problems. Carl Jung, the
father of analytical psychology, put it another way,
“We are all in some way or other kept asunder by our
secrets”[1], meaning that by keeping secrets, especially painful
ones, we separate ourselves from others and create problems for
ourselves.
There is an old saying that exists in many languages, ‘a problem
shared is a problem halved’. It shows that we all fundamentally
understand; that we are social creatures and when we are
suffering we will naturally seek out someone who can hear our
story. There was a Roman philosopher, Seneca, who lived
around the time of Jesus Christ who stated, “One of the most
beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be
understood.”[2] We may not all have perfect friendships, but we
all need to have our problems heard and for them to be
understood.
Although counselling as a profession and discipline is a product
of the 19th and 20th centuries, the underlying principles of
counselling are as old as human problems. Tribal communities
would gather together and talk, tell stories and share dreams. As
our society has become more complex, roles have become more
formalised, and as Jung observed, the origins of psychotherapy
lie in the confessional where priests would act as the listener
and advisor for the troubled individual and still do.
Given this basic human need, counselling as a discipline has
evolved from several other disciplines, including but not limited
to, guidance, teaching, law, social reform and psychotherapy. It
is the study of the last that has developed the intellectual
framework for counselling.
In the 1890s, German neurologist Sigmund Freud developed a
method called psychoanalysis, which allowed individuals to tell
their problems to a ‘psychoanalyst,’ an individual trained in
interpreting the hidden aspects of the psyche, known as the
unconscious. Freud theorised that although we are unaware of
our unconscious, its nature can profoundly influence our lives.
The work of Freud and his students, such as Alfred Adler and
Carl Jung established psychotherapy as a treatment for
numerous mental health conditions. The work of these thinkers
was based on the relationship between the conscious,
unconscious and the external world — psychodynamics.
As a reaction to the emphasis on the unconscious, some
psychologists, such as John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov and B. F.
Skinner, developed the Behavioural approach. They rejected the
unobservable unconscious in favour of a system that believed
our behaviour is the direct response to external stimuli. Actions
followed by reinforcement or reward increase while actions that
are followed by punishment decrease.
Counselling as a method was really as a result of the work of
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. The term “counselling” was
coined by Carl Rogers, who, lacking a medical qualification was
prevented from calling his work psychotherapy[3]. Rogers and
Maslow developed a new person-centred or humanistic
approach. They believed in the innate desire of people to ‘self-
actualise’ and proposed that everyone has an inbuilt tendency to
self-fulfilment and growth[4]. The counsellor’s role is to provide
an empathic and facilitative environment in which the client can
discover their own answers.
Counselling took off after the Second World War, and Carl
Rogers was invited to set up a counselling centre at the
University of Chicago in 1945. The US Veterans Administration
funded the training of counsellors and psychologists by offering
paid internships for graduate study[5].
Counselling psychology programmes proliferated first in the
USA and then worldwide. The therapeutic disciplines have
continued to evolve and develop beyond the three schools of
psychoanalytical, behaviourist, and humanistic, including
cognitive, gestalt, transactional analysis and others.
There have been many developments in counselling since the
1950s. A lot of research has taken place and is still taking place.
Alongside the development of counselling techniques, we have
also expanded our knowledge of the biology of the brain and
how it works. We have a growing understanding of heritable or
genetic components of mental makeup although we are still a
long way from a comprehensive understanding.
References:
1. Jung, Carl (1933). Modern Man in Search of a Soul. 2nd
edition Routledge.
2. Toni Bernhard J.D. (Jun 26, 2014). Surprisingly Modern
Wisdom From Ancient Greeks and Romans. Retrieved
from www.psychologytoday.com
3. Woolfe, Ray, et al.(2003). Counselling Psychology in Context.
Handbook of Counselling Psychology, 2nd ed., Sage
Publications.
4. Rogers, C.R. (1995). A Way of Being. Pub. Houghton Mifflin
Co.
5. Gladding, S.T. (1996). Counseling: A Comprehensive
Profession. Merrill.
