Same basic method, namely, a series of direct contacts with an individual, aimed at helping him change his mental attitudes and behavior. It used to be called “counseling” single and superficial contacts with a client; more intensive and long-lasting contacts aimed at deep reorganization of the personality were designated by the term “psychotherapy”. Although there may be some reasons for such a differentiation, it is clear that intensive and successful counseling is no different from intensive and successful psychotherapy. Accordingly, we will use both of these terms, since both are equally used by specialists in this field.
Using counseling methods
How widely are various methods of counseling and psychotherapy used in connection with adaptation problems? There are no statistics on this topic, so the answer to this question will be descriptive, but it will help to establish the importance of counseling as a process.
Children’s development clinics
In clinics for child development, psychotherapy is one of the most developed tools that are used in various ways when working with children (especially adolescents), with adjustment problems, as well as when working with their parents. For a number of years in this direction there has been an intensive development of clinical thought, and we can definitely say that psychotherapy techniques have developed more successfully in the development of the child than in any other.
Counseling in the student environment
Analyzing the scope of work on the problem of adaptation in students of higher educational institutions and colleges, we see that counseling is the most common method of individual work. It can be said that the closer the clients are to maturity, the more promising will be counseling and psychotherapy as methods of work for solving the identified problems. We will discuss the reason for this later.
When working on solving the problems of personal and emotional adjustment, both in higher education and in colleges, almost all counseling techniques are used. In the field of education and vocational guidance, various psychometric tests are used, but counseling in almost every case constitutes a significant part of this process and, according to experts in the field, should take an even larger place in such activities and make a useful source to find the further information.