Counseling Goals

I especially liked this definition and counseling goals from my practicum class.

"COUNSELING DEFINED: Counseling can be defined as an interaction in which the counselor focuses on client experience, client feeling, client thought and client behavior with the intentional responses to acknowledge, to explore, or to challenge.

COUNSELING GOALS: Counseling has specific goals, the first of which is to facilitate awareness. This is achieved by keeping the focus on the client, acknowledging feelings, experience and behavior. By exploring feelings and behavior and future options, the second counseling goal, healthy decision making, can be maximized. Further exploration and challenging can lead to the third goal of counseling, appropriate action, resulting in more fulfilling personal and social functioning."

From Basic Counseling Responses, 1999, James Hutchinson Haney and Jacqueline Leibsohn (Seattle University), Brooks/Cole Publishing.

Facilitate awareness
Maximize healthy decision making
Leading to appropriate action
Resulting in more fulfilling personal and social functioning

Of course they gloss over and almost avoid the part where I believe the client's values and goals should determine what constitutes appropriate action and fulfilling personal and social functioning. I don't have the answers, only sometimes I see a way to assist someone else in finding their answers or maybe at least help in finding and clarifying their questions. And those two things go a long way towards "maximizing healthy decision making leading to appropriate action" which can result in "more fulfilling personal and social functioning".