Counseling

Counseling is a process of receiving guidance about personal, social, emotional, career, or educational issues from a trained professional called a counselor. There are related fields that try to address these issues, such as social work, marriage and family therapy, and psychiatry. In the corporate world, some individuals who provide counseling related to work performance call themselves executive coaches. Each of these professionals may [Page 129]overlap with the counseling profession, but because of the different training and licensure requirements for practice, this entry will focus on professional counseling.

Following a brief history of counseling, this entry goes on to examine the reasons for people seeking counseling, where counseling takes place, counseling procedures, different approaches to counseling, cultural considerations about counseling, and research evidence about whether counseling ...