Educational Counselor Guide

A set of notes has been prepared that counselors may find useful in the counseling process.

Ladies and gentlemen counselors, the counseling process is an easy process and not as difficult as you imagine, and you can certainly do it. It does not require professional specialization and can be done by any human being.

You are more knowledgeable, certainly older, more mature, and thus more experienced in the learning process and in life in general than your students. Therefore, you are certainly able to help your students in these aspects so that their lives are less suffering and pain within the learning environment and the age stage they are going through.

Dear counselor, you can follow the following steps when meeting with your students:

1. Ask about general topics, for example (How are you with attendance, how are you with studies).
2. Propose some topics for discussion, such as having a specific time for counseling, voluntary or mandatory attendance, the student's preference for a specific counselor or preference for a male or female counselor or vice versa depending on the student's gender.
3. During the conversation, strive to make the student feel safe, i.e., that he can talk about anything that comes to his mind without feeling that he might be punished or rejected because of what he said. He can express, for example, anger towards a professor, or not accepting the deanery's opinions, or even discussing political, ethical, or religious opinions without you feeling angry or threatened by what he says.
4. Strive to make the student feel accepted as he is, without criticizing what he wears, how he styles his hair, how he speaks. In counseling, we must keep our ethical standards to ourselves without imposing them on the student.
5. Speak naturally without affectation. Talk to your students as if you are discussing the teaching schedule with one of your colleagues in the branch. There is no need to worry; counseling is help, nothing more.
6. Over time and with repeated meetings, you will notice that your relationship with your students grows and becomes deeper and safer for both the student and the counselor, in the same way that any relationship with a new colleague in the branch grows. It needs time and repeated meetings to become deeper, warmer, and less anxious.
7. Then you will notice that the conversation begins to become more diverse, warmer, and enriching for the experience of both parties.
8. Then it is possible to include types of help that can be provided: Counseling is simply a helping process, and certainly every person is capable of providing this help, especially if he is more experienced than the group that needs help. Providing this help can simply be done by just giving information that the student may ask about regarding daily questions that come to his mind about the learning process and the educational curriculum, and he may not find someone to answer him. Or you may notice that the student's imagination regarding an educational problem has gone too far, and it is possible to alert the student to that. Or this helping process may include taking a specific action to help the student, of course within the limits and capabilities of the counselor. For example, but not limited to, a student needs a specific resource that is not available to him and is available to the counselor, or the counselor knows where it can be found, so the counselor lends the student this resource for a certain period or guides him to the place where he can find it. Note that the idea of giving this example is not the example itself, but the idea that the counselor takes an action to help. Or the helping process may include making a change in the system. For example, a student faces difficulty in preparing for a seminar in a specific subject, so the counselor initiates working with the relevant branch to distribute the topic among a group of students. Or the counseling process may include adopting a position. For example, students believe they have a specific demand that the deanery does not respond to, so the counselor adopts their position and negotiates with the deanery regarding this demand. Or the helping process may include giving feedback on what the counselor sees in the student of thoughts, feelings, and actions. For example, a student complains that he cannot form social relationships with his colleagues, so the counselor gives the student an idea of what the counselor sees in the student of feelings, conclusions, or actions that may be the reason behind the student avoiding social relationships or others avoiding him. Or it may include giving the opportunity to express repressed feelings. Simply expressing them to a counselor who listens attentively may be sufficient to vent feelings and feel relief, and even to organize thoughts and understand them in a more realistic way, even without the counselor saying a word. Talking and expressing worries helps to organize tangled thoughts into a more logical and understandable form. Finally, and this point may be the most difficult in the counseling process, the counselor listens attentively to the student and helps him understand his feelings and thoughts in a more realistic way, and perhaps tries to change them into feelings and thoughts that are more adaptive to reality.

During the conversation, you may notice that the student begins to tend to talk at length about the past more than the relationship with the current problem requires, or to delve into the future with a wide imagination. That will not be useful, and then the student's mind must be brought back to what is here and now, i.e., dealing with the current problem without wasting time with analyses that cannot be accurate of the past and unrealistic imagination of the future.

You may notice a pattern of thinking that seems extreme and non-adaptive, for example (I must be first, if I don't answer in an exam then this is the end of the world, I must always have high grades, everyone must like me). That is, the conversation revolves around what "must" and "should" be. Here it is possible to intervene by clarifying that things in reality are not like this "either-or" picture, and there is no "in-between", and reality indicates otherwise.

Also, it is possible to notice that students come to us with a contradiction between what they do and what they feel, and they avoid their feelings and repress them. For example, and certainly not limited to, a student feels anger towards a person who hurts him while trying to hold on to him and try to please him. Here it is possible to intervene by clarifying that the student feels emotions but ignores and neglects them despite their importance....

And thank you very much.