Counselling

Approaches and Issues in Education

Helen Cowie, Andrea Pecherek

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138286436
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351976053
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Originally published in 1994, the main function of this book was to provide to counsellors, trainee counsellors and teachers with pastoral care responsibilities, the knowledge and skills to support effective counselling. By drawing on their extensive pastoral and counselling experience gained in education and counselling, the authors produced a work which will also appeal to others involved in the care and protection of children and young people – including educational social workers, nurses, the police and educational psychologists.

The authors integrate the development of counselling skills with a reflective stance on issues, approaches and ideas. They seek thus to increase the readers' capacity to work sensitively and imaginatively with their clients, the sometimes troubled children and young people in primary and secondary schools.

CHAPTER ONE:

What is Counselling?

The counselling framework

We all engage in helping relationships – either as giver or recipient. Normally we call this friendship. Consider the following dialogue which takes place one evening in a pub between a new teacher and her friend:

Teacher:	‘My head of department doesn’t like me. I’ve had an awful day.’
Friend:	‘Why, what’s happened?’
Teacher:	‘She came into my class and told the children to make less noise. I was humiliated. They were doing group work. I was furious. She doesn’t understand my methods and what I’m aiming to do. She looks at me as if I’m dirt. I can’t do anything because she’s my boss. The kids know. They know I’m not in charge. She completely undermines me. What shall I do tomorrow?’
Friend:	‘God, how awful! I had a boss like that. I left.’
Teacher:	‘I can’t leave. It’s my first year.’
Friend:	‘You did really well on teaching practice. You were really good at it. Silly old bat. She’s got a nerve. Come on, have another drink.’
Teacher:	‘I can’t. I’ve got to prepare for tomorrow.’
Friend:	‘You prepared for tomorrow all weekend. You know what you’re doing. If I had kids I’d want them to be taught by you. Come on, have a drink.’
Teacher:	‘Oh all right. I feel better talking to you.’ (They laugh together and order another round of drinks.)

For the time being, the young teacher’s stress is relieved. Her friend’s sympathetic listening has given her the support which will certainly help her through the evening and may even boost her confidence when she returns to work the next day. The value of friendship in alleviating personal distress should not be underestimated. Even though it is difficult to make precise measurement of the extent to which the positive outcome of ‘feeling better’ is the direct result of friendly support, it is well documented that people who have a friendship network are likely to benefit at times in their lives when they are under pressure. What qualities has the friend offered?

– she has been a sympathetic listener;

– she has shown that she cares for her friend;

– she has given some advice (albeit not helpful in this case);

– she has reinforced her self-image as a competent teacher;

– she has offered a temporary solution;

– she has distracted her from the problem.

Often, this is all that is needed. By sharing her problem with a sympathetic friend, the teacher reports that she feels better. She may find that her belief in herself has been enhanced. At the very least, she knows that she has a friend who accepts her as she is. However, as O’Connor (1992) points out, friendships are not always helpful to people in distress. Even an intimate relationship with a friend can in some circumstances make the person with the difficulty feel worse, for example, through feelings of increased helplessness or dependency. There may be short-term relief, but the friend’s response may not solve the underlying problem. The friend in our example, over a period of time, may become tired of always listening to the same problem. She may feel that her advice is ignored or that she herself cannot see any way out of the situation. In this case, friendship may not be enough.

Let us suppose that six months later the teacher is still experiencing difficulties with her head of department. She starts to take time off school; the children become increasingly unruly; she talks more seriously about giving up teaching. The friend continues to offer support, but at times grows impatient that her advice is not taken. The problem remains.

Recently she has been crying in the staffroom at breaktime. So let us further suppose that the pastoral deputy head with responsibility for new teachers or staff welfare seeks out our teacher after school one day and invites her into the office for a cup of coffee.

Deputy:	‘You don’t seem at all happy this term. Is there anything you would like to talk about?’
Teacher:	‘I wouldn’t know where to start. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher and now I seem to be failing at it. I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking of giving it up. My friend works in a bank, I thought I might look into that for a career.’
Deputy:	‘That would be a shame as you’re obviously so keen on teaching. What makes you think you’re a failure?’
Teacher:	‘It’s Mrs Smith – my head of department. She criticises everything I do. She makes me feel as if I don’t know what I’m doing. She’s behind me all the time, checking up on my marking, looking at my lesson notes. She even comes into the classroom. The children know she doesn’t trust me. I used to get on really well with them but now I’m looking over my shoulder all the time and I can’t concentrate on the teaching. The kids are getting out of hand and I don’t know how to control them. She’s my head of department and there’s nothing I can do.’
Deputy:	‘We can look at that in a bit, but first, tell me, why is Mrs Smith’s opinion of you so important? She doesn’t, as you know, have ultimate authority over you and it doesn’t sound as if she’s been openly hostile.’
Teacher:	‘Oh, I don’t know. She just reminds me of my mother, never trusting me to do anything right. It’s awful.’
Deputy:	‘Mrs Smith reminds you of your mother and that feels awful.’
Teacher:	‘At home I was always made to feel stupid. Not like my older sister who sailed through everything. My mother said I’d never get to university or become a teacher because I’m too disorganised. But when I did my teaching practice I didn’t feel disorganised – for the first time in my life! But now that I’m here, in this job, with Mrs Smith behind me all the time it feels as if I’m back at home and I can’t do anything right.’
Deputy:	‘So you proved to yourself that you’re a competent teacher but now you feel as if you’re losing that confidence.’
Teacher:	‘Yes, and I’m so miserable.’
Deputy:	‘I can see that and that’s not good.’

Like the teacher’s friend, the deputy head is offering support and she is genuine in her desire to help. But the strategy she adopts is a counselling approach. You notice that the deputy head says very little though it is clear that she is listening intently. She uses some specific counselling skills which enable the teacher to explore the issue rather than avoid it. She reflects back what the teacher says in a calm, non-judgemental way; throughout, she demonstrates that she is able to feel empathy for the teacher.

A few sessions of this kind of intervention help the probationer to identify her problem, boost her self-confidence and support her in planning changes in her attitudes towards others and in her day-to-day management of her class. The teacher experiences relief that someone understands her feelings and does not judge them negatively. There is also an opportunity to check out the accuracy of her perceptions of disapproval on the part of the head of department and rejection by the pupils. She experiences empowerment as she experiments with new strategies for relating to colleagues and pupils. Her confidence increases as she finds that her fears and anxieties are normal for a newly-qualified teacher, and that they can be worked through and overcome. Through this supportive, accepting relationship, she begins to behave more positively and less defensively towards others, in particular towards others in authority.

It could happen that the intervention was not successful. Remember that the teacher’s head of department reminded her of her mother. If this reaction persisted it might indicate that she remained preoccupied with unfinished business from the past. At this point it might be appropriate for the deputy head to recommend that she seeks counselling outside of the school setting, for example from a psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker.

The limits of counselling

When a child or a young person comes to a teacher for help, the teacher can advise, give information and practical help, or suggest counselling: counselling is only one of a range of facilities which could be offered. If we consider the case of a 13-year-old girl who tells her form tutor that she thinks she is pregnant, counselling may not be the first, or the most appropriate approach. She may have more immediate needs: for advice about how or when to tell her parents; for information about her body and the options available to her; for suggestions about whom to go to for practical medical or legal help. The tutor may also feel it appropriate to suggest that she would benefit from counselling, in order to help her to come to terms with what pregnancy means to her as a person, in addition to the myriad of practical considerations.

We feel it is particularly important to be clear about the nature of help which is being offered. Unlike a conversation between friends, a counselling relationship is structured in terms of time and place; there is some form of contractual relationship; and the counsellor will make systematic use of a set of skills. In school settings, an awareness of the need for a counselling approach to relationships can take a number of forms. Teachers who understand the value of close relationships will be observant of the quality of friendships among the pupils; they will notice the extent to which pupils support one another; they will create contexts where cooperative learning can take place. These teachers will be concerned to facilitate informal support networks; they will ensure that there are good relationships within the class; they are likely to be alert to children who seem to have no friends; they will notice when a child’s work suddenly deteriorates; they will be on the alert when they observe uncharacteristic behaviour patterns in particular children. Once they have learned a range of counselling skills and strategies they will be in a stronger position to be actively engaged in a helping relationship with pupils at a point of crisis, for example when a child is bereaved. Where necessary and appropriate, they will then be in a position to offer counselling on a longer-term basis.

The effective counsellor

Some people are more comfortable acting in a counselling and supporting capacity than are others. Not all teachers are good counsellors and not all want to be. It is important in this field, as it is in many others, to be able to acknowledge our ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1: What is Counselling?
• 2: Pastoral Care in School
• 3: Attachment Theory
• 4: Rational Emotive Theory
• 5: Ethical Issues in Counselling
• 6: Helping Children to Feel Better About Themselves
• 7: The Abuse of Power
• 8: Separation, Loss and Grief
• 9: Integration of Approaches in Counselling
• References
• Index