Religion and Theology

Counseling is a very useful part of any given type of therapy. This is realized if we look at the various positive effects that counseling has on the counselee undergoing therapy. Counseling is therefore very effective in formulation of solutions or strategies towards solutions, as well as enabling the counselee to put their life back in order. Counseling should best be interpreted as part of something else, rather than a free-standing activity.  The word preceding the word counseling is the one that gives it specific meaning, like pastoral for instance is unique to a religious Christian concept (Clinton and Ron 2007, 21).

For counseling to be effective, it has to encompass several key issues one of these very core issues being the willingness of participation in counseling on the part of the counselee (Cloud 2004, 34). Willing participation in pastoral counseling is the measure of readiness or ability to engage with the pastoral counselor in therapy (Warner 2007, 14). It also involves evaluation of how able the counselee is to cooperate with the pastoral counselor in therapy. Willing Participation is very important in creating a good platform for the interaction between the counselor and the counselee. A willing participant is able to engage in the counseling by offering the information necessary for problem-solving to the pastoral counselor, while a non-willing participant on the other hand will fail to engage in the counseling, leaving the counselor unable to determine the problem, how to strategize on a solution, or even how to solve it (Benner 2003, 23). This unwillingness wastes a lot of time that if initially addresses, would have made the counselors time easy.

Assumptions of facilitating willing participation
There are several assumptions surrounding the counselors ability in influencing of the counselees attitude, from assuming an attending role to assuming a willing role, in pastoral counseling. The first assumption according to (Litrell 1998, 45-59) is that the counselee has his own resources to solve his problems and therefore he will be able to focus on his positive side so that he can facilitate the desired change necessary to become willing to engage in therapy. The other assumption is that the counselee is willing to get past his attitude towards the counselor or his introvert nature especially in cases where the counselee is unable to share information. The final assumption is that the counselee will be able to see the external influence advocating for him to attend counseling as goodwill and hence develop a positive attitude towards it (Robert 1993, 39).

Determining willing participation What to look out for
It is very easy to determine the willingness of a counselee towards therapy according to (Kollar 2003, 88) who says that an unwilling participant will exhibit the signs of lack of commitment, lack of involvement in the therapy, lack of goals or agenda to discuss with the counselor, or a seemingly negative inclination towards therapy. He also continues to say that this unwillingness may be influenced by many reasons, the major ones being forced into therapy and a negative perception towards the counselor. In being forced to attend counseling, most counselees assume an attending role rather than a willing one.

How to enhance willing participation Encouraging transition to willingness
Encouraging transition to willingness requires adoption of several key strategies on the part of the pastoral counselor. The first format according to (De Jong and Berg 1999, 17) is using the path of solutions which encompasses the counselee looking at his life in both a hypothetical and realistic manner, as shown below.

Solutions model by Kim Berg 1999
Another effective way according to (Stone 1994, 13-56) is formulation of certain sets of questions to enhance his knowledge of the counselees attitude. Examples of these questions are whose idea it was for the counselee to attend therapy, their understanding of the therapy, if the counselee sees the need for the counseling like the external force pushing for it if any, what this external pressure thinks should be changed by the counselee, what steps the counselee is willing to take to make amends, comparison between the counselees life before and after the problem started, the confidence the counselee harbors, how a change will help the counselee and those around him, and how they will determine what to do to stop the problems.

Conclusion
We can therefore gather that willing participation is a very important aspect in counseling scenarios and therefore it should be approached with a lot of prudence. This is because the effective of counseling, realized by the ability of a solution being found for the problem, is only realized through willing participation by the counselee. Pastoral counselors should therefore be advised to assess the willingness of any possible counselee in pre-counseling sessions even before they commence on counseling.