Counseling offers an opportunity to explore and understand issues that may be preventing one from living a full and satisfying life.

Counseling is generally short term in nature, often with a specific focus, perhaps solution based;  examples are;

Career Counseling
Bereavement Counseling
Addiction Counseling

However counseling can also be long term and cover a whole range of issues. For instance, Person centered Counseling tends to be longer term.

Within the UK the boundaries between Counseling and Psychotherapy are unclear because of the cross over between disciplines, but as said above the general "rule of thumb" is the tendency of Counseling to be solution based with specific goals and with a fixed period of time generally set at the outset.

Person Centered Counseling is very closely related to Psychotherapy and is an approach developed by the American Carl Rogers, in the late 1940's and early 50's as an alternative to the prevalent analytical therapeutic approaches initially developed by Freud and others.

It is a non-intrusive approach which places emphasis on the need for acceptance rather than "expert" control or intervention. Allowing the client to trust there own process and building there ownpotential to understand themselves, to resolve their problems; that they are capable of self-directed growth if the nurturing therapeutic relationship is built within sessions. Therefore Person Centered Counseling relieson the personal qualities as well as the professional understanding of the Counselor, and the quality of the counselor/ client relationship.

A "good" counselor will have an Empathic understanding as well as an understanding of the client's experiences, being with the clients experience as if it were your own. This is coupled with the counselor maintaining a genuine unconditional and positive regard for the client.

By focusing on the client's responsibility and capacity to discover ways of discovering more of their own reality, leading to a greater self awareness.

See also Psychotherapy