The Practitioner Role and Effectiveness of Interventions With Clients - Paper Example

An Exploration Of The Advice, Guidance And Counseling From The Perspective Of Health And Social Care, The Practitioner Role And Effectiveness Of Interventions With Clients

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Section 1

Advice, guidance and counseling are three important concepts in psychology that are used interchangeably although they have different underpinning principles and meanings. Essentially, psychology deals with the wellbeing of human behavior and mind. As a result, the three concepts are used to identify problems in human behavior and design relevant intervention necessary for human physical and emotional human development (Aubrey, 2007). While advice and guidance have somewhat similar theoretical framework, counseling aims at elaborating, understanding, guiding, and empowering a client in making the correct life choices. Notably, little literature exists about advice and the concept is commonly discussed as guidance. Generally, advice is psychology refers to prudent recommendations availed to a client often buy a knowledgeable or informed profession (Ivey, D'Andrea, & Ivey, 2011). The advice given must be aimed at improving, guiding or correcting the action or conduct of the customer. Advises which do not caution or build an individual character or development is unwarranted. In summary, the main characteristics of advice include , advice offers information which is current and accurate, widens a clients choices by providing information on the available rights and options, gives opinions from someone else perspective, provides recommendations and suggestions, and ultimately advice must be persuasive. In order to fulfill the task of providing prudent solutions, advisors are guided by 6 core principles (Bond, & Griffin, 2013).

The first guiding principle for advisors concerns information and advice delivery. Importantly, advisors must be non judgmental, objective when dealing with a client. While the topic under discussion might be controversial, advisors may not appear prejudiced towards the client personal viewpoint. To achieve impartiality and maintaining respect, the worker must appreciate the diversity in cultures, religion, age, sexuality, race, class and other social constructs (Bond, & Griffin, 2013). Moreover, advisors the advisors must not overstep their assigned roles, procedures or limits. The second core principle of advice is confidentiality of the information gathered by the adviser during interviews with the client. Notably, interviews are conducted using modes that are comfortable with the client including video conferencing, phones calls, and emails. Although at time the worker may be forced to seek professional advice from relevant disciplines, it must be in accordance with the data protection act of 1998 (Sink, 2005). The downside of divulging the client information to third parties is loss of confidence in the advisor and possibly even the process. Thirdly, advisers should provide customers with prudent information that is empowering. While the adviser is not tasked with making decisions on behalf of the client, providing empowering advice will enable them to make informed and wise decisions for resolving existing problems. Moreover, according to the fourth principle underpinning advice, all services should be delivered equally to clients regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion and social class. Moreover, the fifth principle concerns the social policy which advocates for anonymous campaigns of issues raised by clients in order to effect policy change (Bond, & Griffin, 2013). Finally, the sixth guiding principle for advisers indicates that they should be free and independent. While advisers are guided by professional bodies, their work should be free and independent from external bodies.

Contrary to advice which is supposed be persuasive, Guidance on the other hand is a one way exchange process between the client and the guide that is meant to be encouraging. According to psychologists, Guidance is advice or information provided by a superior, expert, or careers coach to encourage a client in resolving a problem or difficulty in their health, vocation, careers, or other life choices. Notably, the core purposes of guidance are showing the way, educating, influencing and instructing a client in realizing the positive or negative impacts of their choices (Bond, & Griffin, 2013). In view of this, guidance is usually offered to students, individuals or clients as a preventive measure. Because guidance is offered by career coaches, the experience is intended to help a client to develop self awareness, make responsible choices, provide prudent, accurate and accessible information as well as offer opportunities required for developing critical decision making skills. Similarly to advice, guidance approach is extroverted and comprehensive in assisting individuals in making the right choices. While different people exhibit diverse attributes, the nature of guidance demands an open and less private atmosphere. This means that guidance may be offered on a one on one basis (Ivey, D'Andrea, & Ivey, 2011). Similarly, other forms of guidance involve one individual offering guidance to many people. Often, guidance deals with education and career related issues provided by an expert or a superior person. Notably, unlike counseling and advice in which decision making is the prerogative of the client, in guidance the guide avails the decision that they deem suitable to the client. Therefore, in guidance the relationship between a client and the guide is hierarchical. For instance, in the interaction between the doctor and patient, teacher and student, and parent and child guidance is voluntarily or involuntarily delivered from the superior or top to the junior. According to scholars, guidance is a process as well as a concept. As a concept, guidance aims at optimal development of the individual. Additionally, guidance as a process enhances self understanding in individuals (Turner, Nicholson, & Sanders, 2011).

Ideally, guidance is based on six core principles dictated in hierarchical manner from the top to bottom. The first principle of guidance concerns holistic development of individual (Bond, & Griffin, 2013). Generally, guidance focuses on the physical, social, academic and wholesome development of an individual. Secondly, guidance recognizes differences, and uniqueness of every individual. As a result, respect and observing personal dignity is paramount when offering guidance to a client. For this reason, sex, age, race, gender, should not affect the respect for others. Moreover, the third principle of guidance concerns individual behavioral process. As aforementioned in the second principles, each individual is different and posses diverse likes, dislikes, tastes, strengths and weakness (Murdock, 2016). In view of this, the guide should conduct personal interviews, counseling, and test to ascertain the individual behavioral processes. Furthermore, the fifth principle of guidance concerns cooperation of the client and the guide. Although the guide formulates the intervention, the clients should not be forced to condescend with the solution. While a client may comply with forced guidance because of fear of authority or pressure, ultimately he/she would not embrace the appraisal services, information, counseling, referrals or evolutions provided by the guide. Lastly, guidance is a continuous and sequential learning process that commences at home during childhood, then into school and ultimately into the society. Nevertheless, guidance is oriented towards a single goal both at home, school and in the society (Schoenwald, & Hoagwood, 2001).

Counseling is another behavioral psychology concept whose core activities are informing, advising and counseling. Ideally, the activity of informing is whereby the counselor provides prudent and appropriate information to the client. Moreover, advising concerns options, and recommendations for a course of action which a counselor offers the client. Finally, counseling is the act of clarifying the feelings, needs, and motivations for the client tom make the appropriate personal decisions. In view of the three core activities, counseling is described as a professional relationship between an expert and client who is seeking to resolve a personal problem. Alternatively, according to the British association for counseling and psychology (BACP) 2002, counseling is a non hierarchical two way process between a counselor and counselee taking place in a confidential environment (Schoenwald, & Hoagwood, 2001). Notably, there are 5 core principles that are relevant to counseling. The five principles include respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and fidelity (Murdock, 2016). While counselors are professionally trained experts in the field of psychology, they must acknowledge the right of clients to choose their destiny. Nevertheless, the rule of autonomy is inapplicable for client with mental disabilities and children who cannot comprehend the consequences of their choices. The second principle of counseling complements the first one and is similar to the Hippocratic Oath taken by medical practitioners (Murdock, 2016).. Generally, non-maleficence means to do no harm or to avoid methodologies that would harm the patients. Moreover, the third principle of beneficence concerns the actions of the counselor with regards to the clients welfare. In addition, the fourth principle of justice asserts the need for counselors to revere clients with dignity, equality, and respect irrespective of their ethnic, social, political, religious or economic backgrounds. Finally, the principle of fidelity deals with trust between the client and the counselor.

Section Two

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapeutic intervention employed by counselors in the treatment of disorders which include addictions, depressions, and anxiety (March et al, 2004). Because of CBT, patients are able to change their behavior patterns, understand the feelings or thoughts and difficulties that influence their behavior. According to the British association of behavioral psychotherapies, there are 4 therapeutic approaches of CBT that are used to by mental health professionals. These types include rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), multimodal therapy, cognitive therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy. The purpose of CBT interventions is to change the clients attitudes and behaviors by focusing on their imaginations, thoughts, beliefs, and relationships. By comparing how the innate personality traits affect clients, counselors may design interventions for dealing with their emotional problems (Murdock, 2016). As a guidance and counseling theory, CBT focuses on the role of guides or counselors towards mental health patients. Notably, CBT intervention takes short period of times of usually between 5 to ten months depending on the extent of the emotional problem (March et al, 2004). Moreover, each CBT session last for approximately 45-50 minutes. During the interview with the client, the therapist involves the client in indentifying the underlying emotional problems. After identifying the psychological issue or issues, the counselor designs intervention strategies relying on the counseling theoretical framework for mental disorder patients such as psycho therapy and behavioral therapy. Importantly, the set strategies introduce patients to mechanisms which they can apply throughout their lifetime. Furthermore, CBT therapy personalizes and customizes interventions according to the specific needs and behaviors of the patients. The r...