Not all counseling problems are of the same order. If a counselor doesn’t recognize this fact he may bypass truly important material while dealing with other matters. In addition, though making an effort to do so, he may fail to reach that material because he fails to handle matters in the correct order. Moreover, when solving one problem, if not careful to avoid doing so, he may create new and (perhaps) more serious ones. Still other grave consequences may arise from ignoring the fact of differences in problems.
What are the differences?
Viewed from one perspective, we may speak of Principal Problems, Ancillary Problems, and Complicating Problems. And it is about these three sorts of problems that I wish to call your attention in this post.
Principal Problems
As the name indicates, a Principal problem is the major problem that a counselee has. Ordinarily, he will be able to identify it as such. But that isn’t always true. Sometimes a counselee may think that a problem belongs to this class when, actually, it is but an Ancillary or Complicating problem. Let’s look at an example.
On his P.D.I. , in answer to question #1 (“What is your problem?”) Bob writes,
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
