A counselling cell plays a key role in every educational institution, especially in the present scenario. In this college, psychological counselling for the students began in the year 2016. Since then the college has been conducting regular sessions in counselling. The main purpose of counselling is to address the emotional, cognitive and behavioural concerns associated with the students’ psychological, intellectual and social dimensions. It enables the students to reduce their stress levels and aims to facilitate personal well-being. All the students are given the opportunity to meet the counsellor on a voluntary basis and if needed on the ground of referrals. The process of counselling allows the counsellor to know the students personally so that they could conceptualize their problems and tailor effective and counselee friendly psychological intervention strategies. The counselling cell encourages the students to understand themselves and their problems and helps them resolve it. These problems range from personal, emotional or academic issues to those relating to the society, family or peer groups. Special care is taken to solve the students’ psychological distress arising from a broken family, by visiting their house and providing counselling for the parents. All this is done to help the students attain academic goals, social and personality development and career goals. It also increases their listening skills, empathy and interpersonal skills to have healthy relationships as well as healthy lifestyles.
The role of a counsellor is to support the students and carefully and patiently listen to their problems and respond to it in a non-judgemental manner. The goal of counselling is to facilitate positive behavioural changes and to help the students workout a plan for solving their problems. It also promotes decision making in students, by helping them to understand their own potential and cope effectively with the problems that they face. Thus the counselling cell acts as a powerful source of empowerment and consolation for the students in the campus.
