The Counsellor as Decision-Maken Role, Treatment and Responding Decisions

As counselling develops as a specialised area, counsellors are confronted with an increasing need to be effective decision-makers. Broadly speaking, counsellor decisions are of three main types: role, treatment, and responding. The need for more rigorous role decision-making has been highlighted by the challenge of the psychological educator as contrasted with the traditional interviewer model of counsellor behaviour. Whether they are operating as interviewers or educators, counsellors need to be sensitive to their treatment and responding decisions, some of which are discussed. Barriers to effective counsellor decision-making include skills deficiencies, theoretical rigidity, and debilitating rather than enabling personal vulnerability. The notion of the counsellor as decision-maker is useful for focusing the content of counsellor training, and also leads inevitably to the notion of the counsellor as an applied scientist.