Student Counseling in Catholic Education

Abstract

O RGANIZED guidance, which prior to the present was beginning to reach its maturity, may well be expected to blossom forth in its full vigor in the postwar educational situation. The importance attached to personnel work in military circles may well precipitate a development that will parallel the growth of the testing movement following the last war. It would seem that this will be particularly true at the higher educational levels where guidance and personnel have not previously enjoyed the same organization found in elementary and secondary schools. The fact that the greater proportion of veterans seeking formal education will come to the colleges and universities constitutes a challenge to existing programs at this level. If, then, the wish is father to the thought, we may anticipate a hearty growth in the collegeguidance program. There is evidence, too, that the growth will be a healthy one since the shafts of the structure are sunk in solid ground. In both its viewpoint and approach, the modern trend in guidance is fortunate. Taking its frame of reference from the American approach in psychiatry and clinical psychology, the present trend in guidance endeavors to consider the total individual and to remember, at the same time, that he is and always remains an individual. This has resulted in an equally healthy broadening of the concept of guidance to include all aspects of the total personality. Classifications of types of guidance become somewhat artificial in view of the fact that educational, vocational, and personal problems, when they affect the individual, are interlinked in the field of the whole personality. Such a concept when adhered to by counselors becomes a safeguard lest, in the pursuit of a particular problem, they overlook its extension and thereby fail to see the woods because of the trees. The present trend in guidance is fortunate also in that it recognizes the fact that the dynamics of the personality are as important as are its abilities. In the concrete, this has meant a fuller awareness of the motivational forces behind the personality, an awareness that motivation is as important in guidance as it is in learning and, in fact, that motivation must precede guidance both in its educational and vocational aspects, if these are to be effective. The key here lies ultimately in the perception of values. In attempting, therefore, to aid the student in arriving at a better educational and