Educational counselling and humanistic psychologies. Perspectives, criticalities and pedagogical horizons
Andrea Bobbio
The essay intends to frame the practice of counselling in the pedagogical perspective by identifying the pivotal categories that inscribe it within the educational horizon. Using a phenomenological perspective, the paper outlines a possible point of encounter (epistemological, praxeological and transactional) between humanistic psychologies — in particular the Rogerian approach and that proposed by Transactional Analysis — and the eidetic vision of general pedagogy, highlighting how the helping relationship is an action of growth facilitation, existential clarification and empowerment of individual capacities in view of the elaboration of an autonomous life project. This approach presupposes an andragogical, long-life perspective, capable of reconciling, in the operative intervention, the pursuit of the client’s objectives with his or her actual existential conditions, including the physiological difficulties in adapting to a world that is now hyper-complex and influenced by a progressive fraying of social networks and axiological paradigms. Particularly challenging periods, in this perspective, are the seasons of adolescence and the condition of the young adult, with their respective evolutionary crises and related developmental tasks. This analysis is completed by a reading of the professional competences required of the counsellor as well as an examination of the deontological aspects that characterise the counsellor’s operational horizon.
Keywords
Educational Counseling, Andragogy, Life Cycle Pedagogy, Lifelong Education, Transactional Analysis.