- attracting creative energies from other fields for innovative solutions adapted
to the case.
Examples, case studies^3 , exercises
Description of the situation
The client is an 8-year-old boy, in the first grade, with hyperactive behaviour.
He comes for counselling with his mother, who is worried that her son finds school tasks
overwhelming. The difficulty arose during the first session. The counsellor could not have the
session as proposed due to the constant display of nervousness by the boy. This caused
professional discomfort, in addition to which the room was not suited to counselling (they were in
an office and the child was attracted to everything in the room: computer, video recorder, TV,
books, tape recorder, etc.). The mother was also there in this first session and she was
permanently tempted to scold her son and threaten him to punish unless he behaved.
In short, the counsellor could not establish a direct contact / exchange with the child.
The counsellor’s attitude and the approach to the problem
For starters, the counsellor decided to accompany the client in his “exploration” of the office
environment, trying to make him talk about the object(s) of his attention.
This “exploration” lasted an hour (standard time allocated to one counselling session).
Particular problems
The counsellor keenly felt the lack of adequate space for counselling, as well as her lack of
training as regards to the counselling of hyperactive children. In addition, she remarked that the
mother’s presence was an obstacle in the way of establishing a direct relationship with the child.
The counsellor’s reaction to the problems
At the end of the meeting, the counsellor agreed with the mother on an intervention plan, raising
the necessity of counselling the mother.
The child was also assigned a task: draw a picture on a given topic until the next session.
The results obtained and problems unsolved
A concrete and clear intervention plan was set in place.
The mother received advice on how to motivate the child for school tasks, phasing things out.
The need of information (for the counsellor) on the most adequate counselling technique with
hyperactive and hyper-kinetic children arose.
There still remained to be found a more adequate space in school for the counselling office.
(^3) Case study taken presented in the Euroguidance meeting with the coordinators of local centres of psycho-
pedagogical assistance, 11 October 2002, by Mrs. Adina Ignat, school counsellor in Suceava.