The Growth of the Counselling 'Industry'

Counseling has become another ‘Industry’ in the ‘Developed’ world. As the traditional role of the cleric has declined the role of the counselor has increased in status and the planet is now awash with a spawn of parasites that are out to make money at the expense of the most vulnerable in the population.

I am not just talking about private counselors here. The private counselor is an ugly form of parasite who preys on clients who can afford to pay. Each is as morally bankrupt as the other and each deserves the other..

No, I am talking about the small number of counselors who have remained with the Medicare system in Australia ( at their own expense)  They have the same opinion as I do of private counselors


I actually see counselors as much better than clerics as long as they are qualified to counsel.

But sadly, that is often not the case as there are so many “specializations’ in counseling that the unqualified counselor is sometimes not able to resist the chance to counsel someone who can’t tell his arse from his elbow anyway, even though, with respect to the particular problem the ‘client’ is presenting with, the counselor doesn’t know his arse from his elbow either!  This can often makes a bad situation worse.

But the main reason counselors fail is because they ‘cop out’ on their ‘clients’.

They provide a diagnosis of the problem. But in many cases the diagnosis is already known to the clients themselves. In many others the diagnosis is not understood by the client. In the former case why should clients waste time getting counselors to tell the client what they already know- in some reformulated format? In the latter case what is the point of telling the client anything?

Worse still, because of the threat of litigation, counselors are afraid to grab the bull by the horns and be proactive in their interventions.

They tell the client that it is entirely up to the client to choose a course of action, when in fact the client often requires precisely the encouragement offered by an active intervention (with the consent of the client of course) by the counselor to facilitate progress towards a solution.

This is all made more complicated by the legal confidentiality procedures which circumscribe the counselor’s options and which hamstring the counselor so he can achieve little without compromising the confidentiality of some party involved in the problem.

No! No! says the counselor it’s up to you or x or y, the two of you or three of you to decide…

Rubbish counselor-get your finger out! - We all already know what the problem is here- stop counting your money, roll up your sleeves, and assist us by mediating between the parties!

What is the counselor for if not to get involved, roll their sleeves up and engage with the parties involved?

To seek reasons to stay aloof is a cop-out. As the situation now stands the counselor gets paid whether he engages or not.

The result has been the spawning of a gigantic army of ‘Counselors’ who seem to know little more (often less) than their clients about life, and who literally feed off the trials and tribulations of the latter.

Finally, counsellors should be obliged to be counselled themselves before counselling their clients. So often, the counselor brings his own 'baggage' to the sessions and confuses it with the client's baggage.

At each session the counselor should be obliged by his professional association to show the certificate showing that he himself is being counselled by another counsellor.

It should be mandatory practice that a copy of the certificate should be provided to the client so that he/she can check up that the certification is valid.