Good Counselling is Just Excellent Communication Skills! Or is it?

Abstract

There have been arguments about whether counselling is a new profession while other established professions engage in similar practices and have a legitimacy of their own. Theoretical frameworks for professional counselling are discussed with an emphasis on practice, values and professional ethics. The suggestion that effective counselling is simply effective communication is discussed and it is argued that a unifying basis can only be derived from the assumptions underlying the practice of counselling rather than the theory which informs it.