According to the American Counseling Association, counseling is defined as, "a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals." Counseling involves helping people make needed changes in ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and is a goal-based collaborative process, involving a non-judgmental, supportive counselor who works with a client in telling his or her story, setting viable goals, and developing strategies and plans necessary to accomplish these goals. For some people this process takes a small amount of time, in some cases as little as one or two sessions; for others, the process may last longer.

An extremely important part of counseling is confidentiality, which means that the information discussed in session will be accessible only by you and your counselor, with a few exceptions. Please see Client Confidentiality for more detail.