KAHIHI

Today, hi-tech innovations and scientific revolution have gripped all around us. It has become nearly impossible to imagine a thing without them. Though these innovations have made life simpler mechanically, it has deeply hampered human’s natural behaviour. The psyche to get things (results) immediately has reduced the patience levels of an individual thereby distorting the entire pattern of our society. The structure of our thinking and the building blocks of our society are changing rapidly thus creating a social and mental imbalance. Day to day examples of these can be observed in increased stress levels of employed individuals, rising amounts of divorces, adjusting with the family, fights on petty issues, unnecessary violent reactions, and so on.

Before the picture gets more worrisome, it is the time to heal the society and its habitants. Counselling has become the need of the hour, among one of the basic necessities of life apart from roti, kapda, makaan. Counselling is required for better adaptation of an individual.

Counselling comprises professional experts giving personal help to the distressed mind. More often people get wary of a counsellor, as psychologist habitually equated to someone to cures madness. People fear being called mad or someone taking medical help for mental illness. However, counselling is not about all that. It is in fact to help an individual concentrate on his/her well being.

Counselling is designed to assist a person in accomplishing the purpose of achieving a stable mind that helps induce rational thought process. It does not answer the dilemma of an individual, but facilitates the individual to resolve the problem on his/her own.

It is myth that counselling is about treating mad people or imbalanced minds. On the contrary, counselling focuses on guiding the person by understanding his psyche than focussing on the problem and treating it.

This distinct profession has its interdisciplinary base, interlinked with other fields such as sociology, history, anthropology, psychometric, psychology, ethics, and hence it is a wonderful culmination of theories (& practices) that promote the growth of an individual by self- direction.

Guidance counsellor, an expert who practices counselling, supports an individual by systematic professional process through education and interpretive procedure. This is meant to enable the individual to gain better understanding of his own characteristics and potentialities. Further, in accordance with social & moral values, this helps him to relate himself more satisfactorily to social requirement and opportunities.

With increasing pressures to achieve higher things in life, people have forgotten the basic value of enjoying life. Rather than detaching oneself from the material pleasures, people are today coming loose from nature and simple pleasures in life. It is here that counselling helps you create a balance. It does not set a vision for you, it does not give you direction in life but certainly helps you improve your patience levels and shred the ignorance that has innately leached inside you.