COUNSELING FOR FAMILY LIVING

• Published in: American journal of orthopsychiatry 1951-07, Vol.21 (3), p.612-620
• Main Authors: Lyndon, Clara B, Lyndon, Benjamin H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Counseling; Counselors; Family; Family Members; Family Relations; Family Therapy; Human; Humans; Old Medline; Psychology; Self-Perception
• ISSN: 0002-9432; 1939-0025
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.1951.tb00016.x

This article discusses family living counseling. Since family-life counseling is a function which uses a professional team of many skills, it is the purpose of this article to attempt to describe the area within which it operates, for whom, how, and what is required of the counselor whatever his basic professional discipline. As this field has developed there has arisen a classification system based on categories of service rather than one based upon personality difficulty. These areas of operation have been counseling on the premarital, marital, preparental, and parental levels-a progression which parallels family development. Included too should be those problems not directly related to either marriage or the family, if such can be said to exist. However, whatever the grouping, even the most superficial scrutiny of problems of family living reduces them to the human being under emotional stress, so that basically our concern must be for the people who come seeking help. There are two types of attitudes without which no individual can counsel another. The first of these relates to the client and may simply be stated as the philosophy that each man has the right to live his own life, on his own terms, in his own way as long as his way is not injurious to others. The second attitude of importance is that toward self. Finally, the skills of the counselor must be highly developed, involving, as they do, the transmission of knowledge, limited by self-awareness, through the interview or group relationship to the client. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)