Meaning & use
counselling
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Meanings
noununcountable
Professional talks with a trained person who helps you work through emotional, personal or social difficulties.
Grammar: Not used with an or a plural: she had counselling, not she had a counselling.
Patterns
- counselling for something
- receive counselling
- counselling service
After the accident, she started counselling to cope with her anxiety.
The school offers free counselling to students who feel overwhelmed.
He found counselling more helpful than he had expected.
noununcountable
The act of giving advice or guidance on a practical matter, such as careers, money or debt.
Grammar: Often comes before another noun or after a field word: debt counselling.
Patterns
- careers counselling
- counselling on something
Careers counselling helped him choose a university course.
The charity provides debt counselling for families in trouble.
Pre-marriage counselling is required by some churches.
Common combinations
- seek counselling
- He decided to seek counselling after his divorce.
- grief counselling
- The hospital runs grief counselling for bereaved families.
- counselling session
- Each counselling session lasts about fifty minutes.
- family counselling
- Family counselling helped the parents and teenagers talk calmly.
- counselling service
- The university counselling service is open all week.
Synonyms and how they differ
- therapy
- Therapy is a wider word that covers longer treatment methods, while counselling usually means supportive talking about a specific problem.
- guidance
- Guidance is general advice from anyone, whereas counselling implies a trained professional and a structured process.
- advice
- Advice is a single piece of suggestion, but counselling is an ongoing relationship that helps you reach your own decisions.
Word family
- counsel verb
- to advise someone
- counsellor noun
- a person who provides counselling
- counselor noun
- American spelling of counsellor
- counseling noun
- American spelling of counselling
Commonly confused: counselling or council? counselling or consulting?
counselling vs council
A council is a group of people who govern or advise; counselling is the help given by a counsellor. They sound alike but are different words.
counselling vs consulting
Consulting means giving expert professional advice to a business, not emotional support.
Practice
After losing her job, Maria booked a course of ____ to help her manage the stress.
Choose one answer.
Counselling is the supportive talking help for personal difficulties. Council sounds similar but means a governing group.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “counselling”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.