Introduction to Professional Counselling

1427 Words6 Pages
Today, counselling is gaining momentum in our country, Kenya. There has been a mushrooming of higher learning institutions and colleges that are now offering counselling as a certified course. Such institutions include: Africa Nazarene University, Kenya Institute of Development Studies, Kenya Institute of Professional Counselling Association and Maranatha. Also, organizations like Kenya Counselling Association have been registered so as to set standards and regulatory procedures, ethics and legal parameters, and registration of practicing counsellors. In addition to the training institutions, counselling firms have also been established due to an increased demand in counselling services. They include: Tumaini counselling centre, Maranatha, mzima springs, and SAPTA. They all offer outpatient counselling services. Some of the facilities inpatient that offer inpatient counselling services are Asumbi, Redhill place, Nairobi place, Jorgs Ark, among others. The above is accurate evidence on how counselling has and still is gaining momentum in the country. Therefore, it is worth exploring the underlying factors that continue to increase the demand for counselling services. Below is a detailed discussion on the growing need for counselling. What is counselling? Counselling is a need based helping process in which a professional relationship is formed between a counsellor and a client by use of certain skills and principles that objectively are geared towards empowering the client meet their needs. In Kenya today and with the overly increasing demand for counselling, a variety of issues are being presented in pursuit of a balanced life. Generally, some of the dynamics that are perpetuating the gain in momentum for counselling include; change in lifestyle, the drastic social, cultural, economical, political changes, emotional imbalance and psychological
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