Section I

Book Review on Personal Counselling by J.M. Fuster

In this book ‘Personal Counselling,’ the author emphasised towards the trained counsellors to
be more effective and expert in this profession.

Nutshell

This book brought out many essential elements and skills for the counselling students as well
as for the trained counsellor to equip and help themselves to be a better counsellor. And thus
the reviewer would like to bring a brief nutshell of this book. The first section starts with the
greetings, introductory of self, what the course offers, and level of functioning and the
background of the counselling. Than followed by a counselling models, the counsellor and
the process of counselling. In the light of this, preparatory stage is specifically seen as a base
for counselling which include, attending, social skills and attending physically. Attitudes and
under it, respect, genuineness and concreteness is also given a prominent role in laying the
foundation of the counselling. For effective counselling; empathy, self-disclosure, spiritual
dimension, forgiveness and also listening skills is incorporated and also responding to their
feeling and content. Then followed with the second stage, where personalizing phase plays a
vital role in this juncture and also confrontation and immediacy come into play at this phase
to help the client to come to the personalization phase. During personalization phase initiating
and evaluating plays a major role in helping the counselee to take further steps on their own.

Part two focuses specifically towards the counsellor’s personal growth. It emphasised on
becoming self and self-concept. It further emphasises on the mental health such as stress,
adjustive resources. Than self-actualization comes into play and how to grow in it, be open to
learn and overcoming shyness, responsibility, joy, committed and be aware of one’s own
defence mechanisms and self-transcendence. This book also takes a trainer to conscious and
superego; its origin and its functions. Nevertheless, Fuster did not neglect to speak about the
ethical concern in counselling profession and the relationship of counsellor with the
counselee.

Section 2

Introduction

Counselling as a base in mending and strengthening any given relationship in any particular
situation or context, has so much to do with the various skills and therapies. And thus this
review is to have a base idea on Personal Counselling by J. M. Fuster. There are different
phase in counselling and according to Fuster, first session is taken into a very important
consideration with the self-introduction. Sitting face to face in a closed circle with greetings
and self- introducing covering three points; name, residence, type of work they are doing.
Share expectations about the course and what the course offers is expected to be known in a
more detailed manner to grasps the most of it to train oneself to help others through this. High
quality training is required to maintain the professional secrecy during sharing in the groups
and to prevent in initiating the personal matter of a person after the session is over. Fuster
also pose towards the importance of one’s own feeling likes and dislikes. He also gives a five
level of functioning in relating to others and i.e., detractor, observer, participant, contributor
and leader.

The author has also emphasised on the importance of rationale of the training course and pre-
training test which helps the trainee to reflect on oneself on how he/she would respond in the
initial phase, such as discrimination of helpful responses, rating oneself after the response and
check on oneself to know his/her position.

Fuster has used the term counselling and psychotherapy interchangeably as he explains that,
psychotherapy is practised mostly by the psychiatrist, the clinical psychologist and
sometimes, by the psychiatric social worker where the goal is to bring about a deep
personality change in psychotic and chronic psychoneurotic patients. And on the other hand,
counselling is practised by counselling psychologists, teachers, parents and friends where the
goal is to achieve a better personal adjustment and growth in maturity. People who go for
counselling are normal people who need help to cope with their personal problem – it’s just
that the length of treatment may differ. The author has put a key frame about the historical
background, the origin of counselling with reference to some of the great pioneers such as,
Sigmund Freud, Carl R. Rogers and Eysenck.

A Counselling Model

In this model, the author attempted to clarify about the wrong notion of counselling – which
he stated as, it is not an advice giving rather helping the client to find his/her own resources
to overcome the situations. And in the process the client also need to make certain changes in
their life – their attitude, perception of self or others, habits etc.

The author has incorporated the importance of learning process i.e., EUA which consists of
three stages: self-exploration leading to self-understanding leading to action. This process is
initiated by the counsellor through entering into the counselee’s frame of reference and
initiating action from within the counselee’s frame of reference. Two basic factors emerges as
essential in counselling, responding first and in initiating action from within the counselee’s
frame of reference. Fuster, has put forth on the importance of personal counselling which he
defined as – it is a human technology to help the counselee realize where she is in her world,
leading, to understanding where she is with respect to where she wants to be.

The author brings different features of counselling models that is understood as something
which can be like a road map showing where you are, where you are going and how to get
there. And here the author emphasise on three main points i.e., on action alone, exploration
and understanding and exploration, understanding and action. Under these points, Fuster also
uses a behaviourist theory, psychoanalysis, Client-Centred therapy, Trait and Factor
Counselling, existential therapy, transactional analysis, gestalt therapy and Carhuff theory.
The need for a suitable counsellor is seen as forefront and some of its qualities are – interest
in person as individuals rather than a material, originality, ethical values, integrity etc. the
personal adjustment of a counsellor and its needs is also given a prominent place. Such as, the
need for social companionship, recognition and prestige, security, being helpful and solve
personal problems. Fuster, has given four approaches of counsellor namely as, evaluative,
interpretive, supportive, probing and understanding: where he gives importance to an
understanding response because it communicates counsellor understanding of the clients
feeling experience and the reason for the feeling.

Fuster has also come up with the counsellor’s limitations such as the limitations arising from
lack of rapport and from the inability to help. After which it is followed by the process of
counselling known as preparatory stage. Here attending is paying to another person which
includes: social skills, attending physically, observe and listening skills. It is given very
important because unless the counsellor gets the counselee interested in beginning
counselling, nothing will happen.

Attitudes: Respect, Genuineness and Concreteness

Here in this session, the author emphasised on attitudes of a counsellor which he described
as, it is different from thought. A thought comes and goes, whereas an attitude stays with us.
It can be defined as a mental set, a habitual way of thinking and perceiving persons and
events. And under this main theme, Fuster also came up with three main points that
specifically speaks about, respect, genuineness and concreteness. The author further explains
on these three points, firstly, respect – it is the acceptance of the counselee as she/he is and
appreciation of he/she as a person. Secondly, genuineness, it is the willingness to be real and
not hide behind a professional façade, to be non-defensive and to be reasonable role-free.
Thirdly, concreteness, it is an ability to be down to earth, practical without resorting to
theoretical abstractions, but to respond from the framework of live experiences. It is
complementary to empathy, for it enables the counsellor to get into areas of personally
relevant concern to the counselee and thus understand exactly how she/he feels and the
reason why he/she feels that way.

Empathy and Self-Disclosure

According to Fuster, Empathy plays an important role in counselling as it gives us an

accurate understanding of the counselee. It plays as the ability to tune in on the counselee’s
wave length with its intellectual identification with a person’s feelings, thoughts and
attitudes. Empathy is an ability to endeavour to understand the forces impinging upon the
counselee and his/her position in that field of forces. The role of empathy in counselling is so
effective as it helps the counselee to develop awareness of his/her own experiences and
feeling. It helps the counselee to expand and clarify his/her own self-understanding as well as
her understanding of others. It makes the counselee to be clearer of themselves and feels a
gentle urge to explore more of themselves. For the author, self-disclosure is the disclosure of
a counsellor himself/herself in order to help counselee achieve the relatedness towards the
counsellor. Fuster also brought out a very significant role of spiritual dimension of the person
that plays a vital role in humans’ life. He also comment on the influence of Sigmund Freud
understanding of this dimension i.e., obsessional neuroses. However in the later part it has
been coined differently and used differently. Now, psychology describes spirituality as what
is missing in mental health: contemplation, meditation, and prayer which have the power to
release the life forces at the deepest level of the human psyche that secular intervention
cannot reach. For the author, spirituality dimension is the source to understand humankind in-
depth where biological, psychological and sociological dimension should be considered.

In this book the author put forth of the importance of understanding our feelings. He
describes feeling as something which arise in us spontaneously and beyond our control. There
are also three levels of feelings, 1. Level of experience of feeling, e.g. anger, 2. Level of
awareness that I am feeling angry, 3. Level of decision on nursing or rejecting the feeling of
anger. What makes a person bad is not experiencing anger and being aware of feeling angry,
but his/her deliberate and free decision to nurse the feeling of anger or to act it out. To Fuster,
feelings are realities, they are facts, and they are the starting points of all our experience. He
further states that feelings cannot be controlled by conscious effort or will power, so change
your metal imagery and your feelings will change. Amidst all these important principles and
skills, Fuster pose very interesting skills in counselling and that is listening. It is known fact
that very few people listen to others. However, on contrary to that, listening in counselling is
inviting the counselee to go deeper into what he/she wants to say according to Fuster.

According to the author, the counsellor ability hears well and recalls accurately all the verbal
data presented by the counselee is the skill of listening. He further states that hearing alone is
not listening. Hearing does not make communication, listening does. Listening has two
levels: the level of words or content. However, according to Fuster we cannot listen to
another if we ourselves are disturbed or preoccupied with something. A counsellor must be
peaceful and serene within and keep a receptive mind and also develop sill of listening to
oneself.

Responding

The author very well stated that – just as attending is the foundation of responding,
responding is the foundation of personalizing, and personalizing is the foundation of
initiating. Thus the whole process of counselling is gradually built up. He further stated that
responding is the first stage of the counselling process. It is the essential first step in
effectively helping a person with a problem. The main purpose is to enter into the counselee’s
frame of reference in order to accurately understand how she experiences the world, his/her
psychological needs and personal resources and to stimulate a deeper self-exploration –
which the author calls it as mirror image. The author further emphasised on the responding to
the feelings of the client and the importance of responding skills such as, attend physically,
observe and listen, identify the appropriate feeling etc. Fuster also stated about the
importance of responding feelings and content and also responding with an open ended
question for better exploration. It is well understood by the explanation given by the author
that responding the silent client has to do with attending presence which means much to the
counselee. The counselee also observes the counsellor and picks up the non-verbal messages
the counsellor sends through body and behaviour.
Personalizing

According to the author, personalizing is to help the counselee become aware of the fact that
he/she is playing a part in his/her problem. The purpose of personalizing is to enable the
counselee to understand where she is with respect to where she wants or needs to be in
his/her world. It is to help the counselee to accept things in a constructive manner. The
counselee should be prepared to receive constructively the personalization of his/her problem.
However if the counselee rejects, then the counsellor has to go back to the responding stage
in order to get a better understanding of the counselee and prepare her properly for a
personalizing stage. The author poses two questions with regard to personalization – why
does the counsellor personalize the problem and the goal together? And he came up with the
following understanding i.e., firstly, because it is a very empathic response. The counselee at
this stage of counselling wants to do something to remedy the situation. Hearing the
counsellor say, “and you want to,” brings out what the counselee really wants and
communicates a deep understanding which is encouraging to the counselee. And secondly,
because it channels the counselee’s psyhic energy into something positive, “and you want to”
rather than leaving the counselee focusing her attention only o what she “cannot do”. Putting
personal deficiency and goal together is like death and resurrection, two inseparable aspects
of the same event.

According to Fuster, in personalizing stage, responding and question response open up the
gateway towards personalizing and followed by personalizing the problem and the goal
together and initiating to make the state of goal clearer and develop steps for personalizing.
After that, the counsellor can assist the counselee to formulate the step to be taken up during
the course of time and evaluate the counselee based on that. And now precede to the most
important aspects that are to help the counselee internalize his/her experience. At this stage of
personalizing the problem and the goal, the counsellors stimulates the counselee to dialogue
with himself/herself and reconsider the statements he/she had made and find out the hidden
meaning behind those statements which affect him/her personally. This stage helps the
counselee to internalize his/her experience by finding the reason for her problem within
herself, become aware of her contribution to the problem and assume responsibility for what
she is doing or not doing. Fuster, also gives a very important keynote to keep in mind i.e., by
personalizing the problem, the counsellor is not assessing blame or fault towards the
counselee rather, he is handing control and power over the counselee. The author also add
one more important aspect of personalizing and that is personalizing strengths, which point
out the negative, “you cannot”. It emphasise on the positive, “you are able”. Strengths mean
specific behaviours which the person has that are contributing to success.

Integrate other Models of Counselling into this Model

The author has incorporated some of the stages for the effectiveness in responding and
obviously this would presupposes that the counsellor is trained in other models of counselling
and is competent to use them. Fuster has brought some of the illustration in order to make
clear in the responding stage. Some of which are Rational Emotive Therapy (RET),
Transactional Analysis (TA), Gestalt Psychotherapy (GT) and Learning Theories (LTh).
Confrontation

There is several understanding of the term confrontation however for the Fuster,
Confrontation in counselling is an action which is initiated by the counsellor based on his/her
understanding of the counselee. The counsellor observer discrepancy in the counselee’s
behaviour and brings it to her awareness; e.g., you say you are very happy, yet your tone of
voice is sad. The two essential ingredients of confrontation is to observe of discrepancy in the
counselee and to bring it to the awareness of the counselee. The purpose of confrontation is to
reduce the ambiguity and incongruities in the counselee’s experience of herself, and in her
communication to the counsellor. It aims at motivating of personal growth, and personal
growth takes place in a series of endless confrontations.

Immediacy

After confrontation the author emphasised on the immediacy, which the word itself is a
technical term and has quite a different meaning from the word ‘immediately’. Immediacy is
dealing with the feelings between the counselee and the counsellor in the here and now/ a
high level of immediacy exists fin the open discussion and analysis of the interpersonal
relationships occurring between the counselee and the counsellor within the counselling
situation. Immediacy, also means that the counsellor is aware of both the counselee’s feeling
experience and his own feeling experience at the present moment. It is very effective because
it facilitates an important learning for the counselee, namely, learning to communicate fully
with herself and with others. Because she dares to face the reality of herself and of others, the
counselee now uses words that convey directly what she wants to say, rather than using
ambiguous words and twisted meaning.

Initiating

According to Fuster, initiating comes after personalization. It is to motivate the counselee to

act in order to solve her problem, by showing what can be done to reach the goal, and by
laying out specific steps in such a way that the counselee realizes that the goal is, in fact,
attainable.

Evaluating

The final stage is subsequent stage addressed as evaluating. It is the most important stage to
ensure that the counselee does take the steps and eventually reach the goal. Evaluating means
to review how the counselee takes the steps to the goal; what modifications should be
introduced; how to sustain motivation in the counselee; how to make sure that the counselee
does reach the goal. It is done through the dialogue between the counsellor and counselee.

Part two – Counsellor’s Growth

Becoming Yourself
In this session, Fuster emphasises on the importance of self and the uniqueness of self. Never
to wanting in becoming someone else we admire but rather we should focus our attention on
developing or own unique personality. Then, only we are at our best and second to none.
During the course of one’s own development in becoming oneself; a systematic process of
development occurs such as, a person experiences the formation of his/her self-concept,
development of self-concept, self-esteem, membership and social roles, communication,
moral principles, identification, realistic self-concept, ideal self-concept and finally
interdependent.

Mental Health

For the growth of the counsellors, Fuster has incorporated the mental health as one basis.
Metal health is not something we are given once for all; it is a job we have to keep working at
all the time. In a world of rapid change like ours, we have to learn to modify our ways, our
habits, our perceptions of people and events, and adjust to a new physical and social
environment. If we are closed to change, we refuse to grow and enrich ourselves, and shall
not be able to survive. The author has also brought out several reasons why does people
suffer from the mental ill health and such can be seen in the form of stress, in which four
sources can be applied responsible to it, such as, biological level, psychological level,
spiritual level and social level. However, the author has beautifully brought out the same four
sources as the resources to adjust with the with stress and overcoming the mental ill health.

Self-Actualization

The author has put forth of the most repeated words here as well, “counselling is as effective
as the counsellor lives effectively.” Self-actualizing does not only applied to the counselee
but rather to the counsellor as well who has himself/herself grown. Self-actualization is a life-
process of self-improvement, which will end only with death. It implies that one lives in the
present and is primarily inner-directed. Inner directed means that you rule your behaviour by
your well-formed conscience and your own convictions, independently of the approval or
disapproval of others. To be self-actualized person, we should know ourself, strengths and
weaknesses and accept ourself as we are.

Conscience and Superego

Fuster has brought out this session in order to remove a great obstacle to self-actualization –
the equating of conscience with superego. The intention here is to clarify the
misunderstanding that if we behave on the assumption that the superego unconsciously
determines our choices, then we are not morally responsible for our decisions and moral
growth is nipped in the bud. Such unconscious determinism undermines our freedom, which
is one of the main factors in actualizing our human potential.

According to Fuster, conscience is thought as ‘the still voice within’. And every human being
is endowed by God with reason and the reason has an inbuilt law that distinguishes right from
wrong. Conscience, exactly is reason applying the natural law to a concrete situation, and
judging its goodness or sinfulness. The origin of conscience is reason, the moral law which is
imprinted in every human being, and a somewhat innate capacity for pleasing others and
avoiding harm to others. Both the psychic and the bodily components constitute a person, a
conscience is a function of the total person. However, superego in psychoanalytic term called
as a sector of the psyche, which consists of two subsystems; ego-ideal and conscience. The
author has also very well distinguished between conscience and superego – superego
originates from ‘libido’, i.e., the form of energy used by our instincts, such as hunger, thirst,
and sex. Conscience originates form reason. Superego works unconsciously whereas
conscience is essentially conscious and acts through reason. In using his conscience, man acts
with full knowledge, full deliberation and full consent. Hence, superego and conscience have
a different origin, different functions, different effects; therefore, they are different.
Therefore, we rule our behaviour by our superego or by our conscience. The two together
cannot coexist. Although, in some occasions, one may be ruled partly by one’s superego and
partly by one’s conscience.

The counsellor’s Professional Ethics

The final and most important session which the author has emphasised is the ethics in a
counselling. Every profession has in some form or other a code of ethics. And by professional
ethics is understood here a systematized body of moral principles that guide or determine the
counsellor’s behaviour in his relationships to the counselee, to the counselee’s relatives, to
his referring agency, and to the society in general. It can also be understood in terms of
values that determine the counsellor’s behaviour.

The counselling profession aims at helping individuals with their personal problems and these
problems often involve ethical issues. Thus the author has brought out fourfold relationship
for the clarity to consider some of its aspects, such as; (a) the counsellor’s relationship to the
counselee (b) the counsellor’s relationship to the profession (c) the counsellor’s relationship
to referring bodies (d) the counsellor’s relationship to himself (e) the counsellor’s influence
on the counselee. In conclusion, it can be said the counsellor should have his own system of
values or philosophy of life and act according to it in his relationship with the counselee.

Section 3

This book has incorporated many important requirements to prepare and equip a
professionally trainees to be more open to various skills in counselling and self-awareness. It
is a very well organised book with rich content to enhance one’s knowledge for a better
understanding in the art of counselling. Personally, this book has terminated the bias
perception of self-actualization that is thought solely framed for the counselee. This book
vividly goes with the title ‘personal counselling’ as in the process of reading, it had me very
close and directs me to the likely future to be sensitive and be cautious of the people’s
emotions and feelings. Being patience and attentive in listening to the counselee both – what
is said and not said with keen observation both verbal and non-verbal communication has a
way an eye opener for me to experience the highest degree of respect towards any humankind
and their life experiences. This book has enriched me so much not only in the art and skills in
counselling but also as an individual – as a counsellor how I need to present myself and
behave towards the counselee keeping in mind of the ethical code of conduct limiting myself
to the principles objectives of the counselling.

Section 4

The detail incorporation from the first phase to the ethical concerns in a professional
counselling has unleashed many dilemma and stagnated perception about counselling.
Especially in the process of appropriate response in the exploration phase – helping the
counselee to open up more to reach the personalization which is a deadlock in the whole
process of counselling. I also personally benefited with the clear exposition on addressing the
resistance and reluctance clients and also to be very caution on transference and counter-
transference. Self-actualization as the ultimate goal in any person’s life in the counselling
process – I got a better insight that it is not confining solely to the counselee but also for the
counsellor himself/herself.

Final Section

As a reviewer of this book ‘Personal Counselling’ by J.M. Fuster, I had a privilege to

experience many real life situation presentations through this book. However, the key
purpose of the author’s that I found personally very helpful is that, he had a very keen
emphasises on the concept of self-actualization and its test to help a trainee to be aware of
own self – whether they have actualized one’s own human and spiritual potential. The
purpose of the book is also to equip trainees to be more effective as a counsellor and create
awareness that, only by endless self-training we can become a true expert in the field of
counselling profession. Thus, in a concluding remark I would say that counselling is best
executed when a counsellor experiences himself/herself as a good counselee – keeping in
mind of the fact that each person is unique and every person has a potential to overcome any
forces that bears as a barrier for his/her havoc lifestyle.