CHAPTERONE

HISTORYOFGUIDANCEANDCOUNSELLING
Objectives

By the end of this topic the learner should be able to:

 Discuss history of guidance and counseling
 Discuss the contribution of Jesse Davis,Alfred Binet and Frank Parson in development
of school counseling
 Describe the development of guidance and counseling services in Kenya

HISTORY OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING

The term counseling has been defined differently by different people.

A way of relating and responding to another person, so that the person is helped to explore her/his
thoughts, feelings and behaviors to reach a clearer self understanding and then is helped to find and
use her/his strengths so that he/she copes more effectively with life by making appropriate decisions
or taking relevant action. (Inskipp and John1984).

It is helping process that uses the safety engendered by a special kind of relationship to help
individuals to get access to a greater part of their personal resources as a mean of responding to the
challenges of life. It uses specific skills and techniques in that relationship to help people become
more competent, more contented and more creative. It does not deal primarily with the mentally ill
but with normal individuals facing all the difficulties involved in domestic, work oriented and social
life. It is about helping people grow in emotional fitness and healthy. (McGuiness, 1998).Therefore,
counseling is the process of establishing a relationship to identify people’s needs, design, strategies
and services to satisfy these needs, and actively assist in carrying out plans to help people make
decisions, solve problems, develop self awareness, and lead healthier lives. Thus counseling refers to
a wide selection of services and activities that counselors choose to help people prevent disabling

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events focus on and develop human potential and remedy difficult situations. School counseling on
the other hand describes a broad program of services provided by professionally trained counselors
who practice in schools.

School counseling describes both the profession and the programme of services established by
counselors in schools. It refers to a wide selection of services and activities that school counselors
choose to prevent disabling events, focus on the students overall development and remedy existing
concerns. These services are rendered to teachers, parents, students and administration. Guidance is
a process developmental in nature by which an individual is assisted to understand, accept and
utilize his/her abilities, aptitudes, interests ’and attitudinal patterns in relation to his/her aspirations.

School guidance identifies planned activities that help students focus on a particular issue or topic.
Guidance is not the sole responsibility of school counselors nor is it the domain of any single
professional group. Everything done in the school can be related in some way to the concept of
“guiding students”. Guidance and counseling is therefore an important service in educational
institutions because it contributes to the self knowledge, determination, realization, acceptance and
self development of the individual by identifying his/her abilities, interests, attitudes, values,
potentialities and developing item to the fullest.

Development of School Counseling

The counseling profession entered the U.S. schoolhouse in the early twentieth century. Up to that
time, classroom teachers provided whatever social, personal or career assistance students needed.
The school counseling profession began as a vocational guidance movement that emerged from the
industrial Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some negative by-products of the
tremendous industrial growth of the period were city slums, ethnic ghettos and apparent neglect of
individual rights and integrity. In response to these conditions, proponents of the Progressive
Movement, a reaction to the negative effects of industrial growth, advocated for social reform.
Vocational guidance was one aspect of this response. For example, in 1895 George Merrill began
experimental efforts in vocational guidance at the California School of Mechanical Arts in San

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Francisco (Miller, 1968). Merrill’s program offered exploratory experiences for students in the
occupational trades taught at the California School, and these experiences were accompanied by
counseling, job placement, and follow-up services.

Generally, the guidance movement of this period instructed school children, adolescents, and young
adults about their moral development, interpersonal relationships, and the world of work. Jesse B.
Davis is thought to be the first person to implement a systematic guidance program in the public
schools (Gladding, 2000). From 1898 to 1907, he was a class counselor at Central High School in
Detroit, Michigan, and was responsible for educational and vocational counseling with eleventh-
grade boys and girls. Davis became Principal of a high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1907
and at that time began a school wide guidance program. He encouraged his English teachers to
include guidance lessons in their composition classes to help students develop character, avoid
problem behaviors, and relate vocational interests to curriculum subjects.

Frank Parsons is often mentioned as the ‘’Father of Guidance’’ and is credited by most historians as
the person who began the guidance movement in the United States. In 1908, Parsons organized the
Boston Vocational Bureau to provide assistance for young people. The bureau was based on
Parson’s ideas and plans for vocational guidance, which stressed a scientific approach to Selecting a
career (Gysbers and Henderson, 2000). Parsons’ attention to vocational development was framed by
his concern about society’s failure to develop resources and services for human growth and
development. At the same time, he was concerned about helping young men make the transition
from their school years into the world of work. In his book “Choosing a Vocation”, which was
published after his death, Parsons (1909) highlighted three essential factors for choosing an
appropriate vocation:

(1) Clear self-understanding of one’s aptitudes, abilities, interest, resources and limitations;
(2) Knowledge of the requirements, advantages, disadvantages and compensation for different types
of employment; and
(3) An understanding of the relationship between these two groups of facts. This conceptualization
of successful career development still holds credence today. Self- understanding and knowledge of
one’s career interests go hand in hand for a person to be successful in life.
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Parson’s plan also includes training counselors to help young students with vocational development.
Nine months after establishing the vocational bureau, he began a program designed to train young
men to become vocational counselors and managers of vocational bureaus for YMCAs, few years
later, the School Committee of Boston created the first counselor certification program.
Requirements for this school counselor’s certificate included study of educational and experience in
a vocational school or vocational service. This certification program was eventually adopted by
Harvard University as the first college-based counselor education program. Frank Parsons’ work had
a significant impact on the vocational guidance Movement. In Boston, the superintendent of schools
designated over 100elementary and secondary teachers to become vocational counselors (Nugent,
2000).

Early developments in the guidance movement were complemented by the creation of the National
Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA) in 1913.This organization began publishing the National
Vocational Guidance Bulletin on a regular basis in 1921. Over the next several decades this
publication underwent several name changes, eventually becoming the Career Development
Quarterly. In 1952, when NVGA joined with the American Personnel and Guidance Association
(APGA), the personnel and guidance journal became the major publication of this national
association of counselor. Later, this publication was renamed the journal of counseling and
development of the American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD). The creation
of the NVGA is significant because it began the unification and identification of what has become
the counseling professional of today. This is especially true for the school counseling profession.

Emergence of Guidance and Counseling in Schools

The work of Jesse Davis, Anna Reed, Eli Weaver, Frank Parsons, and a host of other pioneers
created the momentum for the development of a school counseling profession. Coincidentally, many
of these developments, with their roots founded in the vocational guidance movement, raised
questions about the profession’s narrow focus on vocational development. Eventually, some leaders
of the counseling movement began to encourage a broader focus that included issues of personality
and human development beyond vocational guidance. This broader view laid the groundwork for
many of the counseling theories and approaches that were created in the years that followed.

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Before World War II After the vocational guidance movement of the early1900s, World War I was
the next major event that had an impact on the developing counseling profession. During the First
World War, the United States military began using group-training procedures to screen and classify
draftees. Intelligence testing developed in the beginning of the decade, was the catalyst for his
movement. In particular, work begun by French psychologist Alfred Binet, and later expanded by
Lewis Terman and Arthur Otis, was adapted by the military. Arthur Otis developed an intelligence
test that could be given to large groups and administered by unskilled examiners. Nevertheless, the
military’s interest in using group measurement techniques was embraced by schools and the
education profession when the war ended. The potential for applying testing and other measurement
techniques to pupil assessment helped catapult the development and expansion of standardized
testing in United States schools. The 1920s also saw the rise of progressive education in the schools.
This movement, introduced by John Dewey, emphasized the school’s role in guiding students in
their personal, social, and moral development (Nugent2000). As a result schools began in co-
operating guidance activities in to the curriculum for the purpose of developing skills for living
(Brewer, 1932). This movement was short-lived and was criticized by parents, teachers and others
for been too permissive and anti-educational. These critics wanted to focus on fundamentals of
education and claimed that moral development was in the purview of the home and the church. This
criticism in addition to declining public funds brought on by the Great Depression, all but cost the
abandonment of support for guidance activities and counseling services in the schools.

The late1930s saw the first theory of guidance and counseling called Trait and Factor theory,
developed by Williamson at the University of Minnesota. Using Parson’s vocational program as a
spring board, Williamson and his colleagues became reading advocates for what became known as
the directive or counselor centered approach to school counseling. In this book “How to Counsel
Students” Williamson (1939) note that counselors should state their point of view with definiteness
attempting through exposition to enlighten the student. In this direct approach counselors were
expected to dispense the information and gather data to influence and motivate student. Later
Williamson softened this view to some degree. In 1958 he wrote that the counselor is responsible for
helping the student become more sophisticated, more matured in understanding the value option that
he faces and to identify clearly those that he refers. At the same time the directive approach
maintained that counselors could not give complete freedom of choice to students who were not
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capable of making the best decisions for themselves. According to this view counselors were obliged
to protect the interest of society, the school as an institution, and the student. Williamson believed
that the development of individuality on the part of student must be balanced with concern for self
destructive and anti-social behaviors. In his approach to counseling, Williamson (1950) developed
six steps for assisting students:

1. Analysis-the gathering of data about the student and his environment.

2. Synthesis-the selection of relevant data, the summary and organization of these data to understand
the strengths and weaknesses of the student.
3. Diagnosis-the development of rationale regarding nature and etiology of the students’ problems
4. Prognosis-a prediction of outcomes based on the actions chosen by the student.
5. Treatment-various approaches and techniques selected for the counseling relationship
6. Follow-up-an evaluation of the effectiveness of the counseling relationship and the student’s plan
of action. Counselors and psychologists alike echoed this concern and stressed that vocational
choice is simply one of many developmental issues with which counselors should assist students.
These views began to broaden the goals of guidance and counseling in education. As a result,
resurgence in school counseling began.

World War II to the Space Age

The 1940s saw major changes in the counseling profession, and these developments had significant
impact on the practice of counseling in schools. Among the influences during this period, three
major events seem to have shaped these developments:
(1) The popularity of the client-centered to counseling developed by Carl Rogers
(2) The onset and impact of World War II on U.S. society
(3) Government involvement in the counseling and education professions after the war. In addition,
organizational changes within the profession and emerging theoretical models of counseling were
significant and direction of the counseling profession.

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The Rogerian influence. Roger’s gave new direction to the profession by focusing on the helping
relationships established between counselors and their clients and by recognizing the importance of
personal development in these relationships. This focus moved the profession away from the
counselor-centered perspectives of earlier items and emphasized a growth oriented counseling
relationship as opposed to an informational and problem solving one.

Opinions about Roger’s influence on the school counseling profession are not uniformly favorable.
Wittmer (2000b) noted that inordinate attention placed on the individual by the client-centered
approach ‘’somehow took us off-tracking school counselor preparation and may have contributed to
the inappropriate training of many school counselors’’. In particular, the emphasis on individual
counseling processes tended to neglect preventive and developmental interventions needed in school
environments. Nevertheless, the impact of Roger’s work on counseling practices both in and out of
schools was remarkable.

World War II and Government Influence Two other events that influenced the counseling
profession during this period were World War II and increased government involvement in the
counseling and psychology professions. As the United States entered the war, the government
requested assistance from counselors and psychologists to help in screening, selecting and training
military and industrial specialists. After the war, the Veterans Administration (VA) provided funds
for graduate students to become trained as counselors and psychologists. About this time, the term
counseling psychologist emerged in VA specifications, further distinguishing psychologyfrom
vocational guidance (Gladding, 2000).Another example of governmental influence in the counseling
profession was the George-Barden Act of 1946.

This legislation provided funds to develop and support guidance and counseling activities in schools
and other settings. For the first time in history, school counselors and state and local supervisors
received resource, leadership, and financial support from the government. This action fueled the
start of a period of rapid growth for guidance and counseling services in schools. One governmental
change that occurred in the 1950s was the re organization of the Guidance and Professional Branch
of the U.S. Office of Education (Gysbers and Henderson, 2000). In 1955, a Guidance and Personnel
Services Section was reestablished. The development of this office helped to move the school
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counseling profession further away from its original vocational emphasis to a broader student
services perspective. This trend continued through the 1950s and into the 1 960s. the ensuing public
outcry and criticism of educational institutions eventually led to the passage of Public Law 85-864,
entitled the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA).

Some of the recommendations of NDEA were:

• Support the improvement of guidance and counseling programs in secondary schools, and
• Establish vocational education programs. Title V of the NDEA focused specifically on school
counseling and guidance services in two important ways. First, it provided funds to help states
establish and maintain school counseling, testing and other guidance-related services. Second, it
authorized the establishment of counseling institutes and training programs in colleges and
universities to improve the skills of those who were working with students in secondary schools or
of persons who were training to become school counselors.

Organizational Changes and Professional Influences.

As a result of these national initiatives, the 1950s saw a continued acceleration of the
schoolcounseling profession. This development was marked by particular events that altered the
national counseling associations spearheading this professional movement. Another phenomenon
that influenced the development of the counseling profession during this time was the introduction
of several new theories of counseling. The 1950s continued this dialogue and witnessed the
emergence of several new theories including behavior approaches such as implosive therapy
(Stampfl, 1961) and systematic desensitization (Wolpe, 1958). The humanistic and existential
movements, illustrated in the writings of Combs (1962), Jourard (1964), May (1966), and Maslow
(1957), and the emergence of group counseling also influenced the profession. Although there was
much overlap among the concepts of some of these theories, there were enough differences in
terminology and philosophy to create an array of counseling models, methods and strategies. In
1976, Parloff identified more than 130counseling theories and approaches and since that the number
has continued
to grow. Some approaches to counseling, such as Reality Therapy (Glasser, 1965), multimodal
counseling (Gerler, 1990), Adlerian counseling (Sweeney, 1998) and invitational counseling (Purkey
and Schmidt, 1990, 1996), are more popular and compatible with school counseling programs.
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Expansion of School Counseling
Federal legislation during this period of 1960s, continued to have an impact on the counseling
profession and the role of counselors, particularly school counselors. For example, the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of1965 (Public Law 89-10) provided funds and supported special
programs to help schools improve educational opportunities for students of low-income families.
This bill also provided funds for services that would not normally be available in most schools. The
1960s saw a new, expanded role for school counselors, with movement away from an emphasis on
guidance programs. The counseling literature of this time, particularly The School Counselor journal
and a few major texts began to delineate the role and functions of counselors in schools. During this
period, the term guidance was targeted by some authors as a vague and sometimes confusing label
for counselors, teachers, and other people who attempted to define the role and functions of
counselors in schools. Nearly forty years later, the discussion about guidance and the choice of an
appropriate language of identity the school counselor’s role and functions continue to be important
professional issues. Many programmatic conceptsand goals expressed in these and other texts are
similar, yet there remains this unresolved difference in language used to define and describe the
school counseling profession. The confusion over the terms guidance and counseling is compounded
by the absence of a theoretical foundation for guidance as a professional function.

Muro and Kottman (1995) have note, ‘’ While there is some theory available to guide counseling
practice, formal guidance theory still needs elaboration and definition’’. It is difficult to comprehend
how any profession could establish a credible identity on a nonexistent theoretical foundation. In the
period following 1960, the role and functions of school counselors emphasized in the professional
literature included programmatic and process functions. Programmatic functions emphasized
strategies to develop comprehensive programs of services, such as defining goals and objectives,
assessing students’ needs, aligning services with the school’s curriculum, coordinating student
services, and evaluating results. In addition, educational and vocational planning, student placement,
and referral systems frequently were included in this category. Process functions described specific
activities by which counselors provided direct services to students, parents, and teachers. These
functions included individual and group counseling, student assessment, parent assistance, and
consultation with teachers and parents.
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In 1968, Miller wrote that an ‘’effective guidance program requires the cooperative effort of every
teacher in the school’’. Yet, this cooperative role for administrators and teachers remained unclear
because of several factors. For one, guidance continued to be associated strictly with the role of the
school counselor. To this day, this perception endures in many schools where the mere mention of
the word guidance has teachers and administrator sturning their heads toward the counselor’s office.

A second factor that made it difficult for teachers to embrace a guidance role was their narrow focus
on the subject matter that they were responsible for teaching. This is true in today’s schools as well.
Sometimes teachers, particularly in secondary schools, place so much emphasis on the instruction of
English, mathematics, science, and other subjects that they forget the broader, developmental
concerns of students. A historic failing in U.S. education has been the inability of our schools to
infuse guidance, which is lessons of self-development and social skills – into the curriculum and
daily instruction.

The emerging emphasis on the role of teachers in guidance in the 1960s and1970s highlighted
specific functions for establishing a foundation of collaboration between school counselors and
teachers. This collaboration continues to be an essential ingredient of today’s comprehensive school
counseling programs.

The Twenty-First Century: A Search for Professional Identity

In recent years, many authors have stressed the importance of counselors’ creating a clear identity
and purpose for the role in schools (Gladding, 2000; Myrick, 1997; Vacc and Loesch, 2000). Despite
this encouragement, uncertainty about the school counselor’s role continues as a major professional
issue and obstacle. In some respects, this is due to the continued confusion regarding the term
guidance and its use in describing guidance counselors, guidance services, guidance programs, and
guidance personnel. The failure of school counselors to choose and use a consistent language in
describing who they are and what they do has contributed to a lack of consistent focus on their role
and functions.

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Another factor that has contributed to the identity dilemma of school counselors is reluctance within
the counseling profession itself to recognize school counselors as trained professionals on equal
footing with counselors in other work settings. School counselors often fail to embrace the self
perception that they are highly trained, capable, ‘’real counselors.’’ The historical perspective in this
chapter is intended to enhance you understanding and appreciation of contemporary school
counseling practices and trends. The future of school counseling as a profession depends on the
ability of counselors to become an integral part of the school setting while maintaining their unique
role and contribution to student welfare and development. To accomplish this goal, effective
counselors identify their role; select appropriate functions; plan programs of services for students,
parents, and teachers; strengthen their professional development; and evaluate their effectiveness in
schools.

Development of Guidance and Counseling services in Kenya

The need for Guidance and Counseling Services in Kenya became more important in the early 1960s
when the country was anticipating independence. There was need to train human-power and
vocational guidance was part and parcel of this preparation. At the end of 1962, the Ministry of
Labour in collaboration with the Ministry of Education came up with a plan to offer vocational
guidance with the help of career masters in schools. In 1964 and again in 1970 it was recommended
y the FORD Foundation report that all career masters and school libraries should be supplied with a
comprehensive career guidebook. In 1965, the Ministry of Labour produced a booklet called
‘’Choosing Careers.’’ The book gave information on career selection to secondary school students.
In 1967, Guidance and Counseling Services was introduced in Kenya under the Ministry of
Education. It was to be coordinated and supervised from the head office. Its main objective was to
come up with definite recommendations on how guidance and counseling could support all learning
activities of students.

In 1967, the ministry of labour produced another booklet entitled ‘helping you to choose a career’.
The booklet aimed at finding out what careers were available in government and private sector. It
was also to help school leavers to get started on careers they could succeed in. In 1970, a career hand
book was launched ‘’careers guidance for Kenya’’. This book was revised in 1971. In July 1971 the
guidance and counseling section was moved to inspectorate section. Since its inception, the
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Guidance and Counselling unit has been responsible for organizing in service courses, seminars,
conferences and workshops for both teachers (career masters) and heads of schools. At the same
time the head office carries out regular routine supervisory and advisory visits to all schools. The
unit also prepares and disseminate guidance resource materials for teacher counselors e.g. a hand
book for guidance and counseling which covers aspects of guidance and counseling such as
classification and description of career and training opportunities open to school leavers. The book
gives information on career selection for secondary school students. Guidance and counseling has
been the concern of some of the education commissions. In 1976 for instance, the Gachathi Report
recommended that the Ministry of Education expand its services to include guidance and counseling
services. The head teacher of each school was to assign a member of staff to be responsible for
providing information on guidance and counseling to all stakeholders’, teachers and parents
inclusive. It was recommended that each school was to build and use cumulative record of students’
academic performance, home background, aptitudes and interests and special problems to facilitate
guidance and counseling.

The report also recommended the establishment of courses at the university for training professional
workers in guidance and counseling. The Kamunge report (1988) further recommended that schools
should establish guidance and counseling services with senior teachers being responsible for them.
This policy still stands as noted below: It is the responsibility of the head-teacher to ensure that
Guidance and Counseling Services are offered to the pupils. Each school should establish a guidance
and counseling committee headed by a teacher appointed by the head teacher (Ministry of
Education, Human Resource Development, (MEHRD), 1999).The Presidential Committee on
students’ unrest and indiscipline in Kenya Secondary School, (September 2001) in its report shows
that the above directive has not been implemented in most schools. At the same time, the
Ministry does not have a strong guidance and counseling division to coordinate all the activities of
guidance and counseling in the country. The division needs to be equipped with relevant personnel
and resources to facilitate its functions.

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 SUMMARY

This topic has embarked on defining terms related to school counseling. Ithas also traced the
historical background of school counseling bringing outsome of the major milestones in its
development, in the United States andKenya.

SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1) Define school counseling and school guidance
2) Trace the historical background of school counseling in America highlighting major milestones
and contributors
3) Discuss the contributions of various government commissions in the development of counseling
in Kenya.

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