WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL COUNSELING?

Annals of the University of Craiova for Journalism, Communication and Management, Volume 11, 2025 235 235 Volume 11, 2025, 235-238 h1ps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17882345 WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL COUNSELING? Mircea Florian RUICU Graduate Student, CJRAE Dolj, Romania Abstract This paper explores the etymological, conceptual, and historical foundations of counseling, with a particular focus on the evolution of educational and school counseling. Drawing from Latin, French, and English linguistic roots, the term counseling is shown to encompass far more than the simple act of giving advice; it represents a structured, professional, and ethically grounded interpersonal process aimed at supporting individuals or groups in their personal, emotional, cognitive, and social development. The study highlights key theoretical contributions that define counseling as a collaborative relationship centered on self-understanding, adaptive functioning, and the mobilization of personal resources. A brief historical overview underscores the emergence of modern counseling with Frank Parsons and traces the development of Romanian counseling services from early psychotechnical laboratories to contemporary psycho-pedagogical assistance centers. The re-establishment of professional school counseling in Romania after the 1990s is examined in relation to new social and educational challenges requiring specialized interventions. The paper concludes by outlining the comprehensive roles, objectives, and thematic areas addressed by school counselors, emphasizing their essential function in fostering student well-being, preventing crisis situations, and supporting lifelong development within the educational environment. Keywords: counseling, educational counseling, school counseling, professional guidance, psychopedagogical assistance, student development, counseling history 1. Etymology At first sight, iden]fying what the term counseling means it is not the easiest thing to do no ma1er who or what is interested in these problema]cs. In Romanian, the term comes from French and signify above all to offer advices and, by extension, to counsel someone in a certain problem he/she raises. We rather go to the La]n etymology where consulta]on means a delibera]on, a problem to be discussed in a counsel, an advice/direc]on/good word/word of wisdom regarding of what to do in a due situa]on. Just like in the case of the term counsel, we can appeal the term consilium implying the place, the very loca]on where a case of common interest is to be deliberated. We can easily see from the explana]ons above that the general term of counseling transcends the idea of a mere advice provided to someone in need by an expert – the so-called counselor and addressed to the counseled, also called a client (Egan, 1999) The Bri]sh cogni]ve psychologist A. Reber has named counselling an en]re area of services implying informing, guiding, advising, suppor6ng an individual or a social group in order their problems to be solved or planning their own future. Therefore, through the term of counseling we generally understand the following: a. a human mutual rela]onship between a professional person - the counselor - as the provider of this kind of services and the beneficiary of these - the counseled one - as a client of the former. by extension, in the case of educa]onal counseling – the domain that ma1ers to us right now – or the school counseling as it is commonly known we have the school counselor (the school counseling teacher, to be more precise) who counsels the client (a student, a parent, a tutor, another fellow teacher); b. a rela]onship based on alliance, partnership coopera]on and mutual help respec]vely (A. Ivey, 1994) with the main goal in exploring / experimen]ng emo]ons, feelings, needs, ideas in order to properly counsel the client regarding a harmonious development (A. Băban, 2009); more than that, this rela]onships looks forward for the client to gain a superior understanding of himself/herself (a self-knowledge) and to learn how to use his/her own resources / strengths in order to cope with life’s problems. c. a complex ac]on of recommend the means of proceed or behave in a certain situa]on in the daily ac]vi]es (G. Corey, 2009); it comes from a counselor (here, a school counselor) and addressed to the client (usually a student Annals of the University of Craiova for Journalism, Communication and Management, Volume 11, 2025 236 236 who has a minor interven]on in this); therefore, the counselor has to provide the best way or strategy (from an en]re cluster) according to the nature of the problem and the personality of the la1er. d. a complex process of mutual learning that regards cogni]ve, social, emo]onal skills that help the client to op]mally adapt to the encountered difficul]es and even op]mize various aspects of both professional and op]mal life. e. a long-life process of providing a compa]bility between individual / group resources, demands, expecta]ons, values and interests and real offer coming from domains as educa]on and social-professional integra]ons (E. Cocoradă, 2010). Synthe]cally, the counseling as understood in general terms implies as follows: - a rela]onship between people; - a special form of social communica]on; - a pa1ern of ac]ve listening; - a strategy of preven]ng personal crisis situa]ons (death, war traumas, divorce, separa]on from families, drug abuse); here one can see the proac]ve nature of educa]onal counseling; - a specialized help / support provided to the beneficiary in need; - a form of helping others under the sign of confiden]ality; - an ac]vity according to the principle of human development; - an ac]on to make the client clarify his/her own problems; - an ac]vity at a professional level (implying specialists as counselor, teachers, psychologists); - an endeavor based on scien]fic principles and theories that appeals to special methods, strategies and techniques of professional counseling (of psychological, pedagogical, voca]onal, crisis-oriented types); In the professional literature, but also in daily life (especially in developed countries as USA) someone can make a genuine dis]nc]on between counselling and guidance (which implies provided direc]ons addressed to the client and suppor]ng regarding client’s future career). Therefore, we commonly use the expression school counseling AND guidance. 2. History of professional counseling in brief Frank Parsons (1854 – 1908), a professor and social reformer in Boston, Massachuse1s it is called the very father of counseling thanks to the fact he was the first in the known world who intended the development of special services of career counseling and guidance, an absolute new thing is his era. In Romania, reforming ideas about the domain came early enough star]ng with 1922 and 1925 respec]vely when we have the Ins]tute of Experimental, Compared and Applied Psychology and the Psychotechnical Laboratory of Tramway Society. Star]ng with 1950 we have the first Counsel of School and Professional Guidance together with the laboratories connected to it; later a lot of scien]fically based researches regarding counseling appeared thanks to the Ins]tute of Psycho-pedagogical Studies in Bucharest and other related ins]tu]ons in the main ci]es in Romania. Some]mes in the 80s the school counselors were replaced in their tasks and posi]on by any other teachers and unfortunately no one has done a proper educa]onal counseling since. The importance of school counseling and counselors were seriously diminished. No one in the Communist regime cared about the fact a school counselor is a specialist doing professional ac]vi]es based on certain laws, principles, methodology and professional deontology, dedicated spaces (counseling offices) and special tools and resources. This fact has led to the fading away of the idea of the necessity of school counseling in schools (most of them coordinated through a tough authority) and most of the ac]vi]es a school counselor does were organized by various teachers and educators during guidance classes or parents-teacher mee]ngs (not to men]on teachers-principal mee]ngs). Back in the 90’s Romania felt the need of the presence of a professional school teacher in the most of educa]onal ins]tu]ons (kindergartens, public and later private schools). This need was based of the serious new issues that appeared in schools at that ]me, problems no advised teacher could ever en]rely handle: well-being, leisure but also nega]ve phenomena like school violence, drug abuse, alcohol consump]on, school early leaving and so on. Soon counseling-oriented specialized centers appeared in most of the coun]es under the special name Psycho-pedagogical Assistance Centers. This term, assistance, is not really iden]cal with schooling but equivalent only. These centers func]oned under the coun]es school inspectorates and in ]me they organized under the socalled County’s Center of Educa]onal Resources and Educa]onal Assistance, a parallel ins]tu]on to na]onal school inspectorates. School counseling cabinets were then established and they were useful to every school where more than 500 students were there to study. The school counselors were therefore called teachers in centers and offices of psycho-pedagogical assistance, a long name later replaced by the more proper teaching school counselor name. They were graduated teachers mandatory specialized in Social Sciences, especially Psychology and Pedagogy Annals of the University of Craiova for Journalism, Communication and Management, Volume 11, 2025 237 237 (including Sociology) and every one of them was to prove pedagogical studies in order to become teacher in both secondary and high schools. In brief, educa]onal counseling consists in a human rela]onship of mutual assistance and support between the specialized in Psychology and school counseling and the student (a group of students) in order to provide personal developing and preven]ng (not necessary solving) problema]c crisis situa]ons. The school counselor (more precise, the teaching school counselor) has the fundamental role in helping and suppor]ng students to make necessary steps towards recognizing, clarifying, evalua]ng and upda]ng of the personal system of values (Băban, 2009). Despite the fact a counselor has no competences in psychological evalua]on, he has – when the situa]on demands it – to further recommend to the client the consul]ng of a therapy specialist (medical psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist). The strategies used by these specialists are of cogni]ve, mo]va]onal, emo]onal and behavioral nature both for individuals and groups. The school counselor intervenes both in the school counseling office and classes during the Counseling and guidance sustained by the home teachers (formerly called home teaching classes) and during teachers-parents’ mee]ngs, demonstra]ve lessons and during teachers’ mee]ngs respec]vely. The main objec]ves followed by the teaching school counselor are the personal development of the client, promo]ng health and well-being and so on. The integra]on of ar]ficial intelligence into school counseling prac]ces enhances counselors’ ability to iden]fy students’ needs, personalize support strategies, and proac]vely address emerging academic, emo]onal, and social challenges. (Voinea, 2025) The main subjects approached by a school counselor are more than 20; between them we men]on the following: - knowledge / self-knowledge and developing the personal image; cul]va]ng the self-esteem; - developing skills in school, professional and personal communica]on; - conflict management; - asser]ve communica]on; - developing skills in preven]ng abuses; - developing a healthy sexual life; - preven]ng STD; - improving skills in tolerance against frustra]on and preven]ng nega]ve affec]vity – anxiety, depression, physical and verbal aggressivity, suicidal tendencies, anger management; - stress management; - becoming a volunteer; - problem-solving; - improving learning skills star]ng from the personal learning style (according to Leming); - ]me management; - promo]ng a healthy life style; - crea]vity developing; - promo]ng various na]onal and interna]onal projects (like Erasmus +); - offering specialized counseling to teachers and other educators in need in order their teaching skills to be improved. Conclusions Counseling, par]cularly in educa]onal sejngs, emerges as a complex and dynamic professional ac]vity rooted in a rich historical and conceptual founda]on. Far beyond giving advice, it represents a structured interpersonal process grounded in scien]fic principles, ethical standards, and a deep understanding of human development. The historical evolu]on of counseling—interna]onally and in Romania—illustrates its growing necessity in responding to students’ academic, emo]onal, and social needs. Today, the role of the school counselor is indispensable, as counselors provide personalized support, promote well-being, prevent crisis situa]ons, and contribute to the healthy development of students, teachers, and school communi]es. As educa]onal systems con]nue to face new social pressures and challenges, high-quality school counseling remains a vital component of effec]ve and inclusive educa]on. References Egan, G. (2002). 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