History of Counselling

To understand the history of counselling, we begin with the realisation that throughout the years, human beings have found comfort in sharing their problems or telling their story to others. Counselling history can be traced back to tribunal times where people would come together in a group and share their experiences and sometimes their dreams.

In the 1890’s, German neurologist Sigmund Freud developed a theory later called psychoanalysis that allowed people share their problems with a ‘psychoanalyst’, a person trained to interpret the “subconscious” part of our psyche, that we are not aware of but influences what we do. Freud played an important part in the history of counselling, but the actual word “counselling” did not come into everyday language until the 1960’s.

Counselling really took off after the Second World War. There have been many developments since then. A lot of research has taken place and this has given us a better understanding of what makes human beings think and act in certain ways. However, most counsellors and psychologists would agree that we are a long way from fully understanding what makes each human being unique.

It is worth considering that counselling has rapidly developed since Freud’s time with his ideas and approaches emerging from late 1800s till the present day.