Introduction to Guidance and Counselling
Senior 6 · Psychology (Languages)
Introduction to Guidance and Counselling
Lesson 2 of 4
20 min
In 1969 a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, told his psychologist at the university health service that he intended to kill a young woman, Tatiana Tarasoff, who had rejected him. The psychologist alerted campus police, who questioned the student briefly and let him go. Nobody warned Tatiana or her family. Two months later he killed her.
Her parents went to court. In 1976 the Supreme Court of California ruled that when a therapist believes a client poses a serious danger of violence to someone, the therapist has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect that person. “The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins,” the judges wrote. The Tarasoff case shaped professional ethics far beyond California, and it shows why counselling needs clear principles: confidentiality is precious, but it is not unlimited.
Definition
Principle: a basic rule or value that guides how guidance and counselling are carried out.
Confidentiality: the counsellor’s duty to keep what a client shares private, except in specific, explained situations.
Informed consent: the client’s agreement to take part, given after they understand what counselling involves, including the limits of confidentiality.
Self-determination: the client’s right to make their own decisions.
Referral: passing a client, with their knowledge, to another professional who can better meet their needs.
| Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Acceptance | Valuing the client as a person, whatever they have done or feel. |
| Non-judgemental attitude | Not blaming, mocking or moralising; the counsellor’s own views stay in the background. |
| Confidentiality (with limits) | Information stays private, except where there is serious risk or a child is being harmed. |
| Voluntary participation | Counselling works best when the client chooses to come; a student sent by a teacher still decides how much to share. |
| Self-determination | The client makes the decisions; the counsellor helps them see options and consequences. |
| Informed consent | The client knows what will happen, how long, and the limits of confidentiality, before starting. |
| Respect for individuality | Each client’s situation, culture, faith and values are different; there is no single solution. |
| Professional boundaries | No romantic, sexual, financial or exploitative relationships with clients; avoiding conflicting roles where possible. |
| Competence and referral | Counsellors work within their training and refer when a problem is beyond it, for example to a health centre for possible depression. |
| Do no harm | Every action is weighed against the risk of hurting the client. |
Guidance programmes add some principles of their own: guidance is for all students, not only those “in trouble”; it is continuous through schooling; and it works best when teachers, parents and the community cooperate.
Confidentiality is the foundation of trust, but it is not absolute. Professional codes, such as those of the American Counseling Association (2014) and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and the law in most countries, require a counsellor to act when:
Figure 1. Deciding when confidentiality must be limited.
Consider Mutoni, an S5 student who asks her school counsellor, before saying anything, to promise not to tell anyone what she is about to share. A promise of total secrecy might later have to be broken. The right answer is honest: “What you tell me stays between us, unless I am worried that you or someone else is in serious danger. If that happens, I will tell you first and we will decide together how to get help.” Saying this at the start is part of informed consent.
In Rwanda, as everywhere, any sexual contact with a child is abuse and a crime: under Rwandan law, a sexual act with a child under 18 is the offence of child defilement, whatever the child appears to agree to. A counsellor who learns of it must make sure the child is protected. Help is available from the Rwanda Investigation Bureau’s free lines listed on its website (116, 3512, 3029 and 166), from Isange One Stop Centres at hospitals, from a health centre, or from a trusted adult.
Dr. Todd Grande: “Explaining the Limits of Confidentiality to a Counseling Client”. Watch how the counsellor explains the limits at the start, in plain words, and compare it with the answer suggested for Mutoni.
Important
Evaluate: principles in tension. Principles can pull against each other. Self-determination says the client decides, but “do no harm” may require acting against a client’s wishes when there is serious risk. Confidentiality protects trust, but in a small community or boarding school, information spreads easily, and a teacher-counsellor who also disciplines students faces a conflict of roles. Good practice resolves these tensions by being open with the client, consulting a supervisor, following the law and keeping the client’s welfare at the centre.
Warning
Never promise total secrecy. A promise that may have to be broken damages trust far more than an honest explanation of the limits at the start.
Tip
Memory hook: the core principles spell “A New Counsellor Values Safe Boundaries”: Acceptance, Non-judgement, Confidentiality, Voluntariness, Self-determination, Boundaries.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the text, the table, Figure 1 and the exercises.
