Counseling for the promotion of well-being and sustainable lifestyles.
“The counselor is a professional of interpersonal relationships and communication, their role is to facilitate people in reaching a higher level of autonomy and responsibility in their life; the counselor accompanies people in facing temporary difficulties through the enhancement of internal resources and functional connection with external resources; the counselor facilitates orientation and greater awareness of perspectives, changes, actions that support the person in taking steps towards self-realization goals.
They favor this process thanks to their cultural background, based on human sciences, the use of empathic and generative communication techniques and tools, as well as personal dispositions of authenticity, empathy, and unconditional acceptance.
The counselor uses active and deep listening techniques. Clarifies, reformulates, asks questions that facilitate self-exploration regarding the objective of the path, encourages and supports the connection with the emotional world, through a non-interpretative, evaluative, and judgmental mirroring, which offers the client the possibility of seeing themselves reflected in a mirror and moving with greater awareness towards what they desire or taking distance from what they no longer desire.
This relational process is based on respect and the circularity of communication and is based on fundamental conditions, namely:
- the role and competence of the counselor, the clarity of their professional perimeter, ethical behavior;
- the client's request to be facilitated in relation to specific, current, and defined situations in their life;
- a clear contract that defines the objective and working methods;
- a shared monitoring between counselor and client of the ongoing process and its congruence with the path objective;
- a conclusion of the path that highlights changes, actions, perspectives, and new understandings/abilities of the client.
Extracted from “being a counselor” identity and perspectives of a profession” A.B. Caporale Franco Angeli, 2022