42 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE Obviously, graduate preparation in counseling with deaf persons is primarily a void. Demands for such programs and for their graduates is both determined by and determines the services available to deaf people. Personal counseling, school counseling, parent counseling, and college counseling are fields of almost total undersupply, yet in these areas there are absolutely no adequate graduate-level programs preparing people in deafness or orienting existing professionals. This unmet need is crucial. A similar vacuum exists in the supply of professionals to serve the emotionally disturbed and the mentally ill, the pastoral counseling field, and marriage and family counseling areas. In some of these disciplines there are scattered qualified professionals available, but no solid training program to meet needs. Training grants and fellowship programs similar to those provided by Public Law 565 are now needed to meet the vast needs in counseling with deaf persons. The model provided by P.L. 565 would require little or no change to be broadened to underwrite counseling training. Similar programs have almost overcome what had seemed like an insurmountable under supply of teachers of deaf children. Such laws can perform the same service to the field of counseling if passed by Congress. CHAPTER III Principles of Counseling with Deaf People C. H. PATTERSON LARRY G. STEWART This chapter will do two things: first, it will present the nature and essential principles of counseling, and, second, it will consider the implementation of these principles in counseling persons who are deaf. The nature and principles of counseling with deaf people are no different than those which characterize counseling with other people. It is the application or implementation of these principles that will differ in some respects with deaf clients. THE NATURE OF COUNSELING It is difficult if not impossible to define counseling adequately in a brief statement. There are almost as many definitions as there are authors of texts in counseling. While there are similarities and overlappings in definitions, some include aspects that others omit. Rather than attempting at this point to give a simple, brief definition, or to summarize or combine definitions found in the literature, we shall describe the nature of counseling and the necessary conditions or essential principles of counseling. What Counseling Is Not It is sometimes useful to approach a definition by exclusion, designating what a thing or concept is not. This approach is particularly appropriate in the case of counseling, in view of the many misconceptions of what counseling is. Let us consider some things that are often considered to be counseling, but that are not counseling as a professional activity. 43 79 885 0 72 pt. 2 23 44 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE First of all, counseling is not the giving of information, though information may sometimes be given in counseling. Nor is the giving of advice, suggestions, and recommendations counseling. This is perhaps the lay concept of counseling and is the activity of people in the professions of law, medicine, and engineering that is often labeled counseling. But professional advice is not counseling, nor is a professional consultation a counseling relationship. The giving of advice should be labeled and recognized as such and not camouflaged as counseling. Counseling is not influencing attitudes, beliefs, or behavoir by means of persuading, leading, or convincing, no matter how indirectly, subtly, or painlessly. It is not the process of getting someone to think or behave in ways that we want him to think or behave, or in ways we think best for him. Let us recognize the process of persuasion for what it is and not mistake it for counseling. Counseling is not brainwashing. Nor is counseling the influencing of behavior by admonishing, warning, threatening, or coercing without the use of physical force. Discipline is not counseling. Counseling is not the selection and assignment of individuals for various jobs or activities. Personnel work is not counseling, even though the same tests may be used in both. Finally, interviewing is not synonymous with counseling. Interviewing is involved in the kinds of relationships listed above, as well as in other noncounseling situations. The intake interview to gather information about an applicant or client, or to orient him may be a prelude to counseling but it is not counseling. It may seem to be very elementary to point out these things, but all of these are being done under the name of counseling. Counseling, in many if not most agencies concerned with rehabilitation, is seen as a way of doing something to a client, to get him to do what he should do, or what we think he should do, or what we think is good for him. Counseling is seen as a group of techniques utilized as devices to manipulate or influence the client toward the acceptance of the counselor's goals or objectives. Thus we hear such phrases as counseling the client into, or out of, a vocational field or objective, or counseling a client to accept this or that goal or objective, or toward this or that choice or decision. This kind of activity is not counseling, and it is a misuse of the term to call it such. Counseling is not something you do to, or practice upon, a client. PRINCIPLES OF COUNSELING With Deaf People General Characteristics of Counseling 45 What then is counseling? Isn't it concerned with influencing and changing behavior? Certainly it is. If this were not the case there would be little point to counseling. Counselors are interested in changing the client's behavior. But counseling is a particular kind of influencing, with particular methods and goals. First of all, counseling is concerned with voluntary behavior change. That is, the client wants to change and seeks the help of the counselor in changing. Second, the purpose of counseling is to provide the conditions that facilitate such voluntary change. These conditions respect the right of the individual to make his own choices. He is treated as an independent, responsible individual capable of making his own choices under appropriate conditions. Third, as in any sphere of life, there are limits that are imposed on the individual. These limits are determined by the goals of counseling accepted by the counselor. All counselors have goals that are determined by their values or philosophy and that influence techniques and methods of counseling. Goals apparently vary among counselors, and, although some counselors claim that their goal is only to help the client achieve his goals, they still do not accept all the goals of all their clients. Moreover, such a goal is sometimes a very narrow one and one that is still determined by the counselor and imposed on the client. A goal of counseling accepted by many counselors, and one that appears to be consistent with the goals of our society and with a democratic philosophy, is the development of responsible independence. This is a goal that, while determined by the counselor and imposed upon the client, maximizes the client's freedom in making specific choices. Thus, counseling is concerned with changing behavior by providing a situation in which the client who desires to change can become more responsible, more independent, more in control of himself and his behavior. A common aspect of counseling is the interview. But, as we have seen, not all interviewing is counseling. There are those who feel we can do away with the interview. The application of conditioning in the changing of behavior is having a revival, and conditioning is being used in the interview to condition the verbal behavior of clients. This approach is called behavioral counseling, and it is suggested by some that the interview is not necessary for changing behavior by conditioning, so that counseling can be done without interviewing. But there seems to be a confusion here between behavior change and counseling or therapy. Not all behavior change is counseling, and while conditioning is a method of behavior change it is 46 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE not counseling. Thus, while not all interviewing is counseling, counseling always involves interviewing. The same might also be said of another common aspect of counseling -listening. All counselors listen to their clients, at least some of the time. But not all listening is counseling. Many other people listen to others at times. To be sure, the counselor listens in a special kind of way, but so do some other people sometimes. The counselor understands his client. But again, so do others understand people, although again the counselor usually understands better and in a different sort of way. But the difference is quantitative rather than qualitative, so that we cannot say that understanding alone differentiates counseling from other situations. Counseling is conducted in privacy, and the discussion is confidential. But there are other private and confidential interviews, such as those between the doctor and lawyer and their clients, for example, and between the priest and parishioner in the confessional. None of these characteristics, by themselves, constitutes counseling, or differentiates it from all other interviews or interpersonal relationships. Counseling involves an interview, in which the counselor listens and attempts to understand the client, or counselee, in privacy and with an understanding that what the client says will be held in confidence. It is expected that there will be a change in the client's behavior, in some way or ways that he himself chooses or decides, within limits. This seems like an acceptable definition of counseling. But is it adequate? Not if, as has been indicated, it does not distinguish counseling from other relationships. Even the presence of all these factors does not differentiate between counseling and some other kind of relationship that we would not consider counseling. What is there, then, about counseling that is different? There are two other characteristics that are necessary for a counseling relationship. One is that one of the participants, the client, has a problem. Nor is this any kind of a problem, since the clients of lawyers, doctors, and engineers have problems. The client of the counselor is a person with a psychological problem. Second, and following from the first, the counselor is someone who is skilled in working with clients with psychological problems. This obviously requires some specialized training or preparation beyond that which the usual person has and different from that which other professional people have. This preparation and training is psychological in nature. The unique aspect of counseling, then, is that it is a relationship between a client with a psychological problem and a counselor who is trained |