Counselling is a process of communication between the counsellor and client, that is usually conducted with the goal of helping the client to gain a greater sense of wellbeing in life, or to overcome a crisis situation. Counselling has gone on in one form or another for millennia, but is now a formal discipline. A counsellor has undergone a course of training and should be a member of an ethical professional body. Counselling is an ethical and friendly relationship between the counsellor and client. In this relationship the counsellor applies counselling skills, qualities and techniques with the goal of assisting the client to overcome their problem scenario and also act as facilitator to help the client to work towards their aspirations.

Counsellors recognize that all people sometimes need help and social support as they move through the normal stages and transitions of life. This support may come in the form of moral support and the friendship of friends, family members or religious workers, or it could come in the form of a theraputic relationship with a counsellor. Unlike friends, family members or religious workers, counsellors hope to help the client with an ethos of facilitation rather than giving advice. The counsellor hopes to provide a structural, ethical and effective relationship to help facilitate the client in overcoming difficulties and working for personal growth. Counselling may occur over a few or several sessions.

There are various schools and theories of counselling originating with such figures as Carl Rogers, Gerard Egan and others, but all these schools have the shared goal of the greater happiness, wellbeing and functioning of the client. The members of the FETT are counsellors who use an eclectic approach to counselling, utilizing techniques from various methodologies, which can give a greater breadth of practice and allow greater accommodation to the needs of each client. Another term for counselling is 'psychotherapy'. This type of counselling can be seen as talking therapy that focuses on helping with personal and emotional difficulties at a deeper level.

The basic orientations in both counselling and psychotherapy can be seen as:

• the humanistic orientation, which stresses an individual's ability for growth and self-healing.
• the psychodynamic orientation, which sees an individual's problems as originating in unconscious conflicts.
• the cognitive orientation, which sees negatively working thought processes as the origin of emotional problems.
• the behavioural orientation, which lays stress on a person's environment in the causation of emotional problems.

All of the above schools use methods based upon their underlying propositions, and all of them have been shown to work with a high percentage of clients. The eclectic approach may utilize the best elements from all four of these systems (as well as others such as Neuro Linguistic Programming and Transactional Analysis) to the therapist's toolbox. Effective eclectic therapists generally work from a basically humanistic therapeutic outlook, but in in accordance with sound research on the effectiveness of different techniques for particular presenting concerns.

What can Counselling Help With?

Counselling may be helpful with;

• Overcoming Emotional Problems
• Managing and Overcoming Depression
• Overcoming Grief and Loss
• Understanding Identity Issues
• Dealing with Life Changes
• Overcoming Interpersonal Problems
• Overcoming Negative Thought Patterns
• Overcoming Neurosis
• Overcoming Relationship Problems
• Self Exploration
• Overcoming Stress and Anxiety