Counseling and Advice
Advice is not counseling and counseling is not advice. There is an important difference between the counseling and the advice. In fact, it is a big problem to teach the counselors that while counseling they should avoid giving advice to the counselees (those who seek counseling). Generally, during the course of counseling the counselors provide solutions to the counselees. And this becomes providing advices. This is not counseling.
Advice is telling your counselees what you think is best for them. It means giving people directives as to what to do next, what is best for them etc. Advice is the opinion of an expert for you. It is judgmental in nature.
In the process of giving advice, counselees are not so much thinking for themselves for solving their own problems, but they generally follow the lead of someone else i.e. the expert having session with them. Sometimes good advice is exactly what someone needs when they can’t seem to solve a problem on their own. Counseling is more about mechanism how to solve the problems. It helps people learn how to solve problems on their own and give themselves their own advice!
Counseling is the process of helping people learn to identify their own issues and resolve those issues on their own. During the counseling process, a counselor will ask open ended questions that lead the counselee to his or her own conclusions and solutions. Counseling is a more long term relationship between a counselee and a counselor. The counselee's past, as well as his/ her thought processes will be examined. Unhealthy thought processes that lead towards negative behaviors will be replaced with healthy thought processes.
One reason professional counseling seeks to avoid giving straight advice is that when the directives do not work out for the counselee; the counselee may resent the counselor or anyone else who told him or her what to do. When the counselee derives his or her own solutions, there is no one to blame but him or herself, which is what is healthy.
Of course, if a counselor gets the feeling that a counselee is off track in his or her solutions, more open ended questions, or non-judgmental comments will be issued from the counselor to help keep the counselee on track.
So please be aware that when you ask for Advice, on this website or any other, and a counselor replies, that counselor is replying with their own personal opinion with a background as a professional counselor, but not in the mode of professional counselor.
When you find yourself thinking "I need counseling," ask yourself what you feel you really need, longer term counseling, or shorter term advice.
Advice and counseling are both very helpful avenues and each has a time and place. You need to decide which means of help is best for you.
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