86 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE selor becomes a valued member of the team-whether it be in education or in rehabilitation-can he make his maximum contribution. Summary This chapter began with a discussion of the nature of counseling. Some common misconceptions of counseling were pointed out, followed by a definition of counseling in terms of general characteristics, and in terms of more specific characteristics, including those which differentiate counseling from the relationships such as interviewing. The core conditions that must be offered by a counselor include a deep respect for the client, empathic understanding, and genuineness. The implementation of these conditions by the counselor in the counseling relationship was discussed, and the client's major responsibility and activity in the counseling relationship, the process of self-exploration, was pointed out. This was followed by a consideration of the application of basic principles in counseling with deaf people. Some general principles of this application were noted, including assumptions of the counselor about deaf clients. Characteristics of deaf clients that are obstacles to counseling were noted. These include language limitations, conceptual limitations, communication deficiencies, and developmental and experiential limitations. Some common issues in counseling with deaf clients were noted, such as client expectations, situational barriers, the use of tests, information-giving, confidentiality and privacy, applicability of different counseling methods, and administrative support of counseling as related to desirable counseling outcomes. CHAPTER IV Role and Function of the Counselor RICHARD W. THORESON Introduction The counseling profession has made little inroad into the area of deafness-in contrast to counseling with other client groups. The authors of this chapter will outline the professionalization of the counselor, delineating role and function and extrapolating to the specifics of counseling with the deaf person. It is divided into two sections. Section one will deal with the role and functions of the counselor covering general principles of counseling that are applicable to all professional counselors. It refers to rehabilitation counseling for illustrations of paradoxes and problems in the emergence of the professional counselor and his role and functions. Section two will translate the general principles of counseling into the specifics of counseling with deaf persons. Both authors affirm the applicability of general counseling to counseling the deaf person. Both recognize the complexity of the problem of counseling the deaf and the urgency of initiating a broad base of professional concern and action to develop effective programs of professional counseling services for the deaf person. The Counselor's Role and Function The profession of counseling is reality bound. The humanistic philosophy that undergirds democracy in America has been translated into concrete expressions of caring for the dignity of man through a wide array of private, public, local, state, and federal programs of counseling. These programs have focused upon facilitating and maximizing human resources. 87 88 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE Programs of counseling services may be found in public and private rehabilitation agencies, elementary, secondary, and higher institutions of education, divisions of mental health, institutions for the mentally retarded, and a variety of other community agencies. The ultimate goal of such programs of counseling services is to foster the optimal adaptation of the person in significant areas of living-the catalyzing of his human development. Since counseling services are provided to a client within the framework of ongoing programs of educational, vocational, medical, social, and psychological services, one must first look at some of the realities of human service programs to understand counselor role and function. There has been a swelling tide of federal legislation that has designated for counseling a broadened and fundamental role in meeting human needs and solving problems of persons in a variety of life situations. A basic tenet of such programs is that helping people progress in education and engage in productive work requires the service of a professional counselor. Specific federal legislation creating a demand for counseling services includes: the Manpower Development and Training Act, the Economic Opportunity Act, the Vocational Education Act, amendments to the National Defense Education Act, amendments to the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and Manpower legislation. The counseling profession is turned to as the appropriate deliverer of a unique kind of person-services to ameliorate social problems. The chronology of vocational rehabilitation in its programs of services to persons with physicial and mental handicaps toward employment documents the development of the counseling profession and the forces that have influenced counselor role and functions. Counseling services in embryonic form were seen in vocational rehabilitation service program with the passage of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act for civilians in 1920. Legislation during the 1930s, early 1940s, post-World War II, and in the mid-1950s progressively extended the field of vocational rehabilitation, eventuating in the present-day large-scale state-federal program in vocational rehabilitation. The 1954 Vocational Rehabilitation amendments, (Public Law 565), which authorized professional training of counselors, led to concern about training and practice. These relate to the professionalization of rehabilitation counseling. Specification of these standards for training and practice and job tasks was asked of the counseling profession. Without guidelines, the first rehabilitation counselors were overseers of the rehabilitation process-intelligent, educated persons of good appearance and character who liked working in people programs. Such rehabilita ROLE AND FUNCTION OF THE COUNSELOR 89 tion counselors were the first coordinators of rehabilitation services. But with the authorization for training of rehabilitation counselors came guidelines and professional standards for rehabilitation counseling. Graduate training programs in rehabilitation counseling sponsored by the Rehabilitation Services Administration are now predicated upon these professional standards for training as requisites for entry into the practice of rehabilitation counseling. Emergence of Professional Counseling Rehabilitation counseling literature in the 1950s documents the development of counseling in rehabilitation agencies. A number of authors described the lack of clarity in role and functions of counselors. These articles provided theoretical speculation on such topics as: "Counselor versus coordinator"; "Counselor as jack-of-all-trades"; "Counselor as team captain"; "Counselor as psychologist", etc. While the functions of the rehabilitation counselor are all geared to meet the needs of the handicapped client, delineation of his basic duties is complicated by the variety of task functions in rehabilitation agencies. This exemplifies the age-old conflict between professional training standards and practical demands in the field. Nonetheless, such delineation is essential in order to supply adequately trained professional counselors in numbers sufficient for the counseling needs of rehabilitation clients. And the differentiation and specification of role and functions is necessary to delineate the area of professional counseling practice from that of allied professional or "support" personnel now coming into wide use in vocational rehabilitation. The conflicting roles and the variety of functions demanded of the rehabilitation counselor make delineation of role functions a delicate task. In discussing the role conceptualization of rehabilitation counseling, Patterson (1957) saw four possible alternatives to the choice of counselor or coordinator: To consider the counselor primarily as a coordinator and train him for this function; to train an individual for both functions; to concentrate on the training of competent counselors in the available time; and to think of counselors and coordinators, not counselor or coordinators. McGowan (1960, 1967) in two training manuals for the orientation and in-service training of rehabilitation counselors describes the necessary skills, knowledge, and duties of the rehabilitation counselor. A summary of these is still a demanding list. Included are skills ranging from the ability to establish and maintain a counseling relationship to utilizing community resources and functioning in a public-relations role. Basic knowledge required includes a spectrum 90 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE from human behavior as it relates to personal, social, and vocational adjustment, to local, state, and federal laws relating to rehabilitation and local employment policies. Necessary duties include collecting information for evaluation, diagnosis, and integrating it into a sound plan for rehabilitation and arranging for services and follow-up. Job descriptions published by state personnel boards for rehabilitation counselors confirm this wide variety of skills, knowledge, and duties. This wide variety also lends itself readily to a variety of subroles of the rehabilitation counselor. This subrole model, without specification of the role for the rehabilitation counselor, appears to be the core of the debates on rehabilitation counselor role and function (e.g., Anderson, 1958; Lambert, 1952; Patterson, 1957). The rehabilitation counselor is caught in the middle of a role conflict situation in which the educators of rehabilitation counselors and other "experts" in the field prescribe one set of role dimensions while the actual job appears to demand another. Overs (1964) noted that despite the efforts to professionalize vocational counseling, practitioners within the occupation may see this as undesirable. Within this profession, status comes from graduate degrees held. Those with advanced degrees are likely to get better jobs even though they may be no more effective than those without degrees. Downgrading within the occupation is accomplished by transferring the counselor to less desirable tasks, such as clerical work. In support of this, Patterson (1957) said that professional respect for the rehabilitation counselor can be developed only when the counselor serves as a counselor, using his unique skills in counseling rather than coordination. Similarly, Whitten (1951) noted that the rehabilitation counselor is that professional person directly responsible for counseling handicapped persons; he may or may not have the additional responsibility for arranging the necessary services for a rehabilitation plan. The complexity of the problem was discussed by Anderson (1958) in a rather blunt statement that the rehabilitation counselor should accept the reality that he cannot do counseling of the sort defined by the leaders in the field. The rehabilitation counselor must work within the limits of his specific role, seen by Anderson as that of a rehabilitation consultant. Burdett (1960) stressed the importance of a rehabilitation counselor as a counselor, assisting the client with the psychological aspects of a disability, which may be more harmful than the physical aspects. |