Success.

Well to start with where is a start to find again. Who is the counselling for? If you say it is for you that can be so, and if I say it is for me, then that can be so as well. If there is anyone else here it could be for them as well, and there is not, and they are not essential to the process, so if there is an inevitable quality of success within counselling, it cannot relate to somebody who need not be involved in any way. It must be of me or of you. That is a good start.
So who can be you, and who can I be. Well, you could be the client, and so could I, or you could be the counsellor, and I could be either.
One: to simplify. It could be you, or not. There need be a client and a counsellor. There is no need for another, there is no need, so there need be no success inevitably involving the other. So if there is a quality of success within counselling it is the client, or the counsellor that hold it, or it can be both perhaps, or neither.
If it is either do you follow me. If it is so that it is neither then how is it justified? A process with no concept of success. How is that to be justified. Just now I think not and that may change, but it is just now that I think not.
And if it is between, then what of that. If it is between the client and the counsellor that success is found what of that. It could be so. Look at this. It could be so and what is there to be found. What is between the client and the counsellor is the process of counselling. This will return, but there is the process of counselling, and that can be successful, and there is counselling, and that can be successful, and they are not the same thing. What is between the client and the counsellor is the counselling relationship, and that is clear. If the purpose among others is to allow the client to leave the relationship when the situation no longer requires it then it is the process, not the outcome. If you see. What is between the client and the counsellor is the process of counselling, and that can be successful, but that is the process. The outcome of counselling, that is another matter. That is the outcome of counselling. The process cannot be the outcome or what would that be. Then there would be the relationship of the counselling, and that would never end. Then the participants in the process cannot escape. That would be all there is. So there is the process and there is the outcome, and the successes they have in general are different things. That can be undestood here.

So what is success in counselling? There can be success in the client, and there can be success in the counsellor, and there can be success in the process and there can be success in the outcome.

In very simple ways success in the outcome must be located in the client. The motivation for the counselling lies within the client, and so when I say what is success in counselling you will see that what I mean now is what general characteristics does success have with respect to the outcome of the counselling to the client.

What of the other sorts of success. It is simple that they simplify. Success in the process of counselling is to be located within the counsellor. that is where the responsibility for the process rests and with it the success.

And you could say yes, but there is also a success in the process of counselling for the client, and it is around confidence increasing perhaps or with other things during the process. This can be so, but if you look you will see that it is incidental to the counselling, it is not the purpose. The client is concerned with the outcome, and some aspects of the mechanics of that outcome may appear during the process, not only at the end, but they are dependent on the particular situation, not part of the general process of counselling. There is no element for the client within the process that is inevitable, without which success cannot be at the end. You may say that in the process there has to be something for the client to want to continue, that has to be there. But it is reversely so, as it is so. If it is to be successful then it has to end exactly so, not continue. The end and the success are located within the client, and are not part of the process.

And again you could say that there is success in the outcome for the counsellor. That is self delusion. If I had a sugar coated pill, then perhaps, but still it is self delusion. The counsellor can never experience the clients situation. It is only ever reported to the counsellor. That is all. The success the counsellor thinks is experienced at the outcome is not the experience of success. It is the experience of the report of success. It is not the same thing at all, and to think so is to be deluded.
So really we have only two ways of success.

One; there is the success in the process of counselling located in the counsellor, and it has some general properties.

Two; there is the success in the outcome of counselling located in the client, and it has some general properties.

These general properties are not related in any way to the mechanics of the process, or the details of the outcome. Those are not the questions answered here. They are general properties to look at 'What do we mean by success with respect to counselling?'

Once there is understanding of the question, it is very easy to find ways of answering. Statement and critique and restatement and critique. A process of iteration forwards.

Success in counselling is an increase in perception by the client of the assessment of their situation. It differs from self awareness only in addressing specific situations as a starting point.

Looking looking searching searching....There is still a feeling that there is more somehow. That is the feeling of it. Yet when it is looked for it is not there. So that is all there is.

Success in the counselling process for the counsellor is a personal belief in the facilitation of a useful process in the client. (This is a personal belief, not an absolute.) The counsellor will never experience success in counselling, but may receive reports from clients of its occurrence.

What if the conclusions of that are frightening. Then even so.

A counsellors self assessment of success is inevitably the only assessment available. Recognising the dangers of that situation, the counsellor should feel obliged to constantly question their own work, attitudes, morals etc. and constantly seek external challenges and support for that process.

You may want to ask other questions from that. Why is the only assessment of the process the assessment of the counsellor? This is already so.
The outcome of counselling is in the client, and only the client experiences that. To all others it is just reports of the outcome, not experiences of it.
Success in the process is in the counsellor, and only the counsellor experiences that. To all others it is just reports of the process, not experiences of it. You should understand that already. The only question to ask is how do I receive those reports. What are the systematic distortions in them. What are the specific distortions in them.

If you have a word for assertiveness, you may see assertiveness. If you do not, you may see aggression instead. So what are the systematic distortions in words or pictures.

It seems sensible to work towards being able to answer the question 'what constitutes success within counselling'. This would be useful in that it could shed some light on the question 'what is counselling', without some understanding of which it would seem futile to embark on a programme of counselling as a client, and foolhardy as a counsellor.
The question has been confused by the concept that 'counselling can be many things' or 'success can mean many things'. If I am to treat the subject realistically I should not be concerned with what the concept can mean, but with what the concept does mean. I should concern myself with those inevitable attributes of counselling success, not with an exhaustive list of the possible successful scenarios for all eventualities. Cows can be brown, but that does not imply that things that are brown are cows. Success in counselling can result in reduced anxiety within the client, but that does not dictate that the reduction of anxiety constitutes successful counselling, though it may be a frequent element in that success. looking for the things that can be is a red herring, I should be concerned here with what a thing is.

The first thing to identify is the exact location of the success that may occur. It would seem reasonable to say that the client is the purpose for the counselling. Any success as a result of the counselling should therefore be looked for within the client. It also seems clear that success is not only arriving at an outcome that has clearly discernable advantages over the original situation, but success may also be an increased awareness that no improvement in a situation is possible. This may seem to raise the argument of what counselling can be again, but in fact the first issue, of arriving at an outcome with clearly discernible advantages can be an attribute of success within counselling, but that the second issue, of increased awareness within the client is an element in successful counselling.

Success in counselling is an increase in perception by the client of the assessments of their situation. It differs from self-awareness only in addressing specific situations.

'the assessments' of the clients situation may be many. The counsellors assessment, the clients, other individuals, groups and institutions involved and society in a broader sense all have an assessment of the situation. Successful counselling increases the clients perception of these, and so enables any action to be more informed than previously. As it stands, this is pure self-awareness. however, counselling differs from self-awareness only in having a specific issue as a starting point. The client is not asking the counsellor for an opportunity to address self-awareness in the general sense, although this may be an outcome of counselling, but rather to address the clients awareness around a specific issue.

The counsellor will not necessarily ever know that success has occurred. Success for the counsellor is not found within counselling, which can only be experienced by the client, but within the counselling process. Success in the counselling process for the counsellor is a personal belief in the facilitation of a useful process in the client. (This is a personal belief, not an absolute). The counsellor will never experience success in counselling, but may receive reports from clients of its occurrance. A counsellors self assessment of success is therefore inevitably the only one available. Recognising the dangers of this situation the counsellor should feel obliged to constantly question their own work, attitudes, morals and techniques and constantly seek external challenges and support for that questioning.

It is stated then critiqued and so on. Finally there are three statements. Comments were invited and some responses were received. They are listed below.

Success in counselling is an increase in the perception by the client of the assessment of their situation. It differs from self-awareness only in addressing specific situations as a starting point.

Success in the counselling process for the counsellor is a personal belief in the facilitation of a useful process in the client. (This is a personal belief , not an absolute). The counsellor will never experience success in counselling, but may receive reports from clients of its occurrence.

A counsellors self assessment of success is inevitably the only assessment available. Recognising the dangers of that situation, the counsellor should feel obliged to constantly question their own work, attitudes, morals etc. and constantly seek external challenges and support for that process.

I do not feel that "success" can be the correct way to describe the working with a client.
When counselling, objectives and achievements are joint ventures and only when objectives are achieved in totality can the word success be used.
I would agree with the final paragraph with the exception that one should be careful not to impose ones own morals and attitudes onto the client.

Facta non verba.
active listening
a) you can't train a someone to be a counsellor.
b) you either have it or you haven't.
c) it is a relationship - a contact - more than just an interpersonal interaction.

I would agree with the last four lines.
Apart from that it seems that the comments made do not apply to the whole sphere of counselling although they appear to be generalised statements.
Para 1, success in counselling is much more than this.
Para 2, I would not agree with this.

i) "Power in the Helping Professions" Guggenbull-Craig is useful in looking at the difficulties in relating clearly to a client and is accessible without sharing the Jungian perspective.

ii) we broadly agree and I would represent this as a humanistic model which suggests that the counsellor/therapist/analyst is responsible for the generation of insight but not for the change that such insight might give rise to.