The Counselor in the School

Abstract

If there is an issue upon which most counseling theorists seem to be approaching a consensus, it is the belief that the effectiveness of counseling is related to the ability of the counselor to establish human relationships. Further, it is a fairly common notion that the counselor's major commitment is to his client. While neither of these ideas sound especially profound, in combination they seem to this writer to have created the great controversy about the role of the counselor in the school. The response of many teachers and administrators to the statement about relationships is, in essence, that any good school person must be able to establish human relationships. Why should the counselor think he is so unique in this respect? The idea that the counselor's major commitment is to his client rather than to the social institution called the has been regarded as somewhat subversive. Many personnel who fail to see the uniqueness of the counselor's position in the see counseling as a kind of coddling of students who should be facing the realities of the classroom. The response of some of our counseling colleagues has done little to clarify the misunderstanding. Stone and Shertzer stated that: