Current Situation of Counselling Service Availablefor University Students

李萌萌

Abstract：The current circumstances of counselling service is developing rapidly in China. But the development of university counselling is different in developed areas and undeveloped areas， moreover， students knowledge of counselling which was not comprehensive enough.

Key words： counselling；university； students

The current circumstances in China encourage that mental health is brought into the public health and finance security system and it will increasingly set up the counselling centres in hospitals， schools and other community generally. Although， there is no precise definition for university counselling， it aims to help students solve psychological problems， prevent mental illness and enhance mental quality. Li （2012） agree that university counselling concentrates on improving the psychological health of students.

The history of counselling in the Chinese mainland can be tracked back to 1985 when the China Association for Mental Health was established in order to promote the development of mental health technology and popularization of mental health knowledge. While， counselling centres were established in some universities， until 1986， only 30 universities had developed counselling services for students. In the continuing developing， professional committee of university students， counselling was set up in 1990 under the China Association for Mental Health （CAMH）， which is the first professional academic organization about university counselling.

In 1991， just one year after the CAMH was established， the number of university counselling centres rose from 30 to over 100 without reasonable allocation of resources. The “counsellors” would be drawn from psychology teachers， education teachers， psychiatrists， instructors and other people who were interested in counselling. But above all， university counselling in some major cities was implemented earlier and faster than some underdeveloped areas where little was known about the effect of giving counselling to university students. Although the government attached great importance to the development of counselling， few official regulations or criteria for counselling service were implemented to guarantee that counselling services developed well.

Otherwise， university should tell the meaning and function of counselling to students， while consider to improve the quality of counselling so that it would promote the counselling continuously develops in university. Because the counselling is a relatively new concept for students in China， they may curious about it. The most important point to be observed when developing counselling in university is to make sure that the students understand counselling as a general support available for them.

Due to the imbalanced economic development of each region in China， counselling services for students of the universities in underdeveloped areas have lagged behind the universities in the developed areas. Although some universities in underdeveloped areas began to set up counselling services after 2005， they seriously lacked trained counsellors （Luo， 2012）.In fact， the counselling service centre in some universities existed in name only having been built according to the educational policy. Also， some researchers investigated the students attitudes to counselling in order to form the theoretical basis on which to build the counselling service in universities without clearly explaining to students what counselling is and how it works （Feng， 2012）.

Counselling help students solve problems encountered in their daily lives， and promotes quality education. Generally， most students could understand something of what counselling was about but would not consider seeking help. Also， many students still had not heard about counselling or thought that it was specifically for people with mental illness.

Although the counselling service developed rapidly in China， and all universities were asked to set up a free counselling service for students， students were reluctant to seek help from counselling （Thomason and Qiong， 2008）， some studies had shown that over 50% students had a positive understanding of counselling （Qi； Ming &Ge； Xin， Ma & Wang， 2014）. The reason might be the imperceptible influence of the traditional thought about counselling.

Counselling in university which is different from counselling agency outside of university that needs to charge clients. However， the counsellors in university in the UK are people who have been professionally trained. The same in China， counsellors in university are composed of professional counsellors with a psychological background， trained teachers and amateur part-time counsellors （An， Jia and Yin， 2011）. Some researchers have suggested that the counselling service of the university should develop along the lines of the counselling agency to make it more professional. In China， people are more likely to trust someone who has a professional background， so changing the composition of those who deliver the service having more professional trained counsellors， might help people more easily accept counselling. In this study， students attitude for professionalism of counsellor in university was investigated to find out whether the professionalism of counsellor is a factor which affects students decision to attend the counselling service in university.

A wealth of information is to be found in the quantitative literature， for example， regarding the current situation of university counselling and the students awareness of counselling. First the key issues students may suffer that need to be brought to counselling were identified. Zhu and Luo （2011） found that interpersonal relationships， love-related problems， emotional problems， study problems， graduation and employment problems were the most frequent issues for which students seek help from counselling. These issues were identified as general problems for university students and were found in other studies that were carried out in different part of China. The areas with which student may need help might include choice of career， emotional issues， study problems， relationship difficulties and other personal difficulties.

Meanwhile， with regard to what students know about counselling， and how they decide when they have their problems are seriously distressing them， previous works such as Wu， Wang and Dong （2010） have looked at this area. They found that most students know that counselling is in place to help them solve their problems and improve themselves， but still some student mistakenly believed that counselling was chatting or that it was psychotherapy for mental disease. Research has indicated different proportions of students who have approached counselling services. Some studies conducted in developed provinces or cities have shown that a high percentage of students attended counselling which conducted the researches in developed provinces or cities. In contrast， other researchers found quite a low number of students attended counselling but they did not state the location of the investigation. In spite of some studies providing useful findings， they did not mention about the area or the specific universities， therefore it is hard to apply their findings to suggest areas for future research and also hard to find the meaningful comparative results with the present study.

As mentioned above， university counselling is a popular topic in China， and many researchers intended to study in this field. Indeed， many studies have already been carried out on this topic. But， most of the researches I can find that investigated in the universities which itself is excellent school or locate in developed cities. Generally， they found something helpful to develop counselling in university and covered all Chinese universities. However， it is not feasible that the research carried out in one place can be representative of the whole country. Counselling services were established in some places earlier than in others over a period of ten years therefore there must be some differences in the development of counselling between those places. It cannot be that findings from developed areas apply to the underdeveloped areas. It was for this reason that I searched for literature on university counselling for underdeveloped areas， and I found that， little research has been done in this field， including qualitative and quantitative research.

Overall， this literature review suggests that the counselling set up is necessary and helpful for students， and the attitude of students toward counselling must be taken into account to develop the counselling services in university. The results from most of the research show the unequal proportion of students who understand the exactly what counselling is in different part of China. This means the paces of counselling development of each part is quite different and each place needs to find a suitable mode and direction of university counselling development.

（作者單位：遵義師范學院，貴州 遵義 563006）