By Ogova Ondego
Published March 1, 2019

PRINCIPALS’ USE OF COUNSELLING SKILLS. Dr. Geoffrey Wango is a Senior Lecturer and teaches counselling and psychology at the University of Nairobi. . Dr. Wango has authored several publications on Counselling, Education and Gender including: Counselling in the School: A Handbook for Teachers (Wango and Mungai, 2007); School Administration and Management: Quality Assurance and Standards in Schools (Wango, 2009); School Finance Management: Fiscal Management to Enhance Governance and Accountability (Wango and Gatere, 2012) and Counselling Psychology in Kenya: A Contemporary Review of the Developing World (Wango, 2015). Dr. Geoffrey Wango. Psychology Department. University of Nairobi.
Counselling has been proposed as the solution to stemming student unrest, curing depression occasioned by economic uncertainties or even saving malfunctioning marriages in a fast urbanising modern society like Kenya.
But isn’t the advice given by counsellors just an opinion, very much like what you get from a friend, a colleague, a parent or a pastor? In short, does a stranger have to talk to us about our emotional problems for us to cope?
While some people attach stigma to counselling on the contention that any one seeking it is either mad, has a weak mind or is a failure in life, others feel seeking counselling not only creates a culture of dependency but is also a waste of time and resources as it makes no difference.
RELATED:Overreliance on Religion, Witchcraft and Magic Can’t Solve Africa’s Problems
Never mind that counselling is getting entrenched in urban Kenya as a profession or career, complete with many counselling centres that handle problems related to , anxiety, addiction, phobia, depression, stress, childhood problems, family relationships, sleep and dietary difficulties, alcohol and drug abuse and bereavement.
So confusing is the subject, however, that I have had to consult various local and western sources to try and put it in perspective.
RELATED:Adventure Travel Market Registers Exponential Growth
What makes counselling necessary in Kenya today?
Protasia CN Gathendoh, a part time counsellor and trainer at Amani Counselling Centre in Nairobi, tells LADY magazine of Nairobi that many people are seeking help through counselling because of the breakdown of traditional support systems in society.
“Counsellors are bridging the widening gap in Africa occasioned by western influences,” the late Emmy Mwenesi Gichinga, a clinical psychologist, had told ArtMatters.Info.
RELATED:Russia Issues Travel Advisory to Kenya
Dr Tonya Shaw, who has set up a counselling centre with emphasis on women’s psychotherapy in Nairobi, tells LADY, “Living in Nairobi today poses particular conflicts for women many of who have traditional expectations on them while living in a very western city, holding down jobs and leading very western lives. Trying to balance the two is an enormous issue.”
At this juncture it may be necessary to hear the opinion of real westerners.
RELATED:Africa Sets Up Market-Relevant Education Centres
Good Housekeeping magazine of Britain quotes Virginia Ironside, a columnist on The Independent and The Daily Mail, agony aunt on the Sunday Mirror and author of 13 books, as seeing little value in counselling.
“After 30 years of counselling, psychotherapy, analysis and group therapy,” Ironside writes, “I’m only now starting to understand how this mysterious process is meant to work. All of the counselling practices, from Gestalt, to Jungian, to Freudian, to transpersonal, are only theories. None of them has ever been proven to work. And when people do seem to recover, counsellors and therapists never seem to take into account the fact that the majority of symptoms of neurosis actually go away with time, untreated.”
Counselling, Ironside contends, can be a tremendously risky business.
RELATED:Digital Technology to Fuel Growth in Africa’s Entertainment Industry
She quotes a psychiatrist called Martin Deahl who, after conducting a study on UN peacekeeping troops in Bosnia, concludes that counselling after traumatic events can be harmful. Dr Deahl’s survey shows Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) rates being the same whether the men receive counselling or not.
Ironside, Good Housekeeping says, quotes an NHS research in 1997 as having concluded that counselling offers no long-term benefit to people with a high risk of mental illness: sufferers of bereavement, divorce, trauma and the unemployed.
RELATED:Why Nairobi Youth Idolise ‘Socialites’ and’ Sponsors’
But Zelda West-Meads, a marriage counsellor, advice columnist for You magazine in The Mail on Sunday and author of three books, insists counselling is useful.
“With 25 years of experience, I know counselling can turn people’s lives around.”
She says counselling is provided for disaster victims to help them cope with nightmares, the loss of loved ones or the ‘guilt’ that they survived while others died. Without help, she says, many victims bury their feelings without realizing that “unresolved anger and depression can lead to serious health problems, alcohol and drug abuse or even suicide.”
RELATED:Art, Music and Rugby Mark International Women’s Day
She acknowledges that some people believe counselling is no better than talking things through with a friend.
Unlike friends whom she says often take sides, a counsellor is objective and will help the counselee to make one’s own decisions.
Zelda West-Meads however admits that like in every profession, there could be charlatans in counselling.
“It will remain true that your experience of counselling will only ever be as good as your counsellor. It’s also a profession that comes under attack because of its lack of proper accreditation.”
RELATED:‘Food versus Fuel’ Debate to Aggravate Hunger for World’s Poorest
So what should you do when it comes to selecting counselling services?
Good Housekeeping suggests that one should begin with definitions and then move on to qualifications of the counsellor, accreditation, and experience.
Counsellors, according to Good Housekeeping, are ‘listeners’. Consequently, it is possible to set up as a counsellor with little or no formal training. However, reputable counsellors have a qualification accredited by an umbrella organization such as the British Association For Counselling, which has set up the United Kingdom Register Of Counsellors. Always try to find out what training counsellors have, whether they have completed an accredited course; which methods they use; whether they are supervised; when they trained; and how long your course of therapy is expected to last.
RELATED:Kenya Launches Maternal and Newborn Health Innovations Project
Psychotherapists are psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers or therapists who use the techniques of psychotherapy. Here, practitioners should have four years of postgraduate training in a type of psychodynamic (to resolve a predicament about past experiences), behavioural (for phobias, anxiety disorders or obsessions), cognitive, (to change thinking patterns) and family/marital (for relationship problems).
Psychiatrists are doctors who have studied general medicine, then specialised in disorders of the mind. Unlike counsellors and therapists, they can prescribe drugs.
RELATED:African Football Forum to Meet in Nigeria
Like in Britain, there are no minimum qualifications necessary to practise as a counsellor in Kenya.
The late Emmy Mwenesi Gichinga, founder of Gem Counselling Centre and former chair of Kenya Counselling Association (KCA) and part time lecturer at Tangaza College, had in an interview said counselling was still new in Kenya and that KCA had been launched on August 12, 2000. She said Kenyans had started recognising the importance of counselling by seeking counselling while schools, colleges and hospitals were hiring counsellors.
RELATED:Can Kenya and Uganda Really Ban Gambling?
“When looking for a counsellor, make sure you know their qualifications as some people are not trained but are masquerading as counsellors,” Mwenesi Gichinga, a clinical psychologist, had said.
Gichinga, like Zelda West-Meads, argued that counselling works.
“Many families have benefited from it. When some counselees refuse to cooperate, counselling may not help them,” she said. “If you go to the wrong person, counselling may appear not to work. A counsellor must have connecting skills to make a client talk even if they don’t want to. Some come with lies perhaps to test you. Some eventually talk but others never come back.”