This painful experience may well spur them into redressing the situation and so ensure another needy person will not be put through what they had to experience. Someone going through a crisis who receives help from the other end of a telephone may, some years later, become the next helper, the next supporter. The next counsellor. Empathy is learned from one's own experiences of life and lessons learned. The importance of professionalism in counselling The image and reputation of any professional body is based on its individual members and their actions.
Counselling is no exception.
It has both highly professional and ethical members but, unfortunately, also some whose ethics and professionalism and, it has to be stated, whose abilities are questionable. It is the latter who have caused counselling to suffer a negative press. What is, I believe, vitally important, if counselling is to be the highly regarded profession it deserves to be, is correct selection of would-be counsellors and high standards of professional training. The British Association for Counselling ' is the governing body and this organisation requires all members to abide by its code of conduct, covering ethics and practice. And, above all, we must recognise that the process of counselling is a powerful and productive experience. . .