Counseling (sometimes written as counselling) is an accessible form of (emotional) assistance.

The goal of counseling is to help people:
- Solving problems or handling
- Finding answers to questions
- Exploiting unused resources
- Developing knowledge and skills

Counseling is result oriented and pragmatic in nature. The point is that a client will formulate goals and will act to achieve these goals.

Background:
People go to a counselor for problems and questions with emotional (psycho-social) backgrounds.

Humanistic perspective
Counseling is originally based on the humanistic psychology movement. Carl Rogers is a central figure within this perspective. Roughly, he claims that people are helped and helper in attitude on three conditions:
- Empathy
- Unconditional acceptance
- Congruence

 Empathy:

Empathfocuses on the emotional experience and perception of the client. If a client will recognize these feelings and will recognize the client is able to understand problems from that body to answer questions.
If the counselor is to feel reflects and understands the emotions and experiences, helps the client to concentrate (focus) on his or her own inner experiences. This will provide sufficient identification and recognition, important in solving problems or finding answers to questions.

Unconditional acceptance:
The second important aspect was that Rogers is unconditional acceptance. This is not so much the behavior of the client. It is precisely focused on the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the client.
Rogers assumed that people with problems to be blocked in the personal growth and development. These blockages are often shaped by feelings of shame. If a rescuer all thoughts, feelings and experiences of a client accepts a client learns that he is his own thoughts, feelings and experiences can also accept. This expresses the client's thoughts, feelings and experiences impossible, but he opened his own being.
If this openness is present, it is possible for the client for his personal growth and development to resume.

Congruence:
The third aspect that Rogers was important is consistency. This refers to the 'real' of the worker towards the client. This means that a worker must be sincere in what he verbally and nonverbally to his client says.
Rogers assumed that people with problems not congruent through life. What they inwardly thinking, feeling and experience, that they do not express outwardly. However they express thoughts, feelings and perceptions that the area can be entered. In other words, they behave as they think others want them to behave.
Clients to clarify that the "inner person" and the "outer person" can and should be identical, according to aid workers themselves are congruent Rogers. Only then clients learn that this also applies to themselves. In other words, Rogers suggested that if the behavior is congruent care to his client, the client automatically learns to also congruent behavior.

Counseling and psychotherapy:
Counseling has many interfaces with psychotherapy. Thus, different insights from psychotherapy applied with the aim to solve problems or to relieve and to answer questions.
Counseling (stress) is no psychotherapy. Counseling does not deal with psychiatric disorders or severe psycho-social problems. This counseling focuses primarily on the here and now '.

Counseling is ideal:
- to problems with a (slight) psycho-social background, think of continuing stress, a feeling not happy or not functioning optimally
- to insights in (life) questions, questions to think about the usefulness of its existence, like where to live in uncertainty or whether it "good busy".
Counseling is focused on problems and questions with a (slight) psycho-social background, there is a psychiatric disorder. This might seem a small area. However, most problems and questions within this field.

Counseling and social work
In regular care for the social sector was the most accessible body for social and psycho-social care. This concern is not entirely comparable to counseling. The difference is sometimes not very bright and is' m mainly in the fact that:
social work beyond just psycho-social assistance
the accents in the social work differently than in counseling,
more than psycho-social assistance.
The social work has summarized four key tasks:
- Psycho-social assistance
- Practical information and assistance
research and reporting
- Identification, prevention and advocacy
Counseling is actually a core, psycho-social assistance. This care is very individualized and focused his experience. It is also in counseling to:
- Gaining insights into their own thinking, feeling, and acting experience
- Using (so far) unused opportunities
- Developing knowledge and skills to improve performance
Accent differences:
The field of social work therefore covers more than the area of counseling. These are the methods in terms of psycho-social assistance often different.

The social work ie offers active guidance to actually do. Within social work is therefore not unusual that sometimes acted for the client.

Within counseling is highly exceptional that the counselor is acting for the client. Counseling works on the principle that the client acts themselves, the counselor provides guidance through interviews with "doing" but "does not do anything for the client.

The focus within social work (in terms of the psycho-social assistance) mainly on the development of the self and the functioning of the individual within his / her own social environment.

Course, are in counseling, self and relationship to the environment is also of great value in counseling. Only focuses on counseling on the more 'internal reflection' and 'inner growth'. Think of the better know yourself, to help deal with their own (negative) emotions and to cope with personal problems and questions.

Own choice
At all times the client itself is the only person to determine what assistance and / or process for him / her the best. Nobody can do that for an individual to determine if only the individual himself!

The choice of the client is naturally dependent on the information that a client to his / her decision. Information is therefore of great importance. Whether a client now with a counselor, social worker or psychotherapist is, a client is to be well informed about alternative opportunities within the rescue.

Aid:
Counseling is primarily curative (healing) of nature and places emphasis on the emotional aspects of problems and questions. A counselor is a counselor with problems approachable with questions and emotional (psycho-social) backgrounds. How the rescue by the counselor in his works is broadly described below.