Abstract

The counsellors have journeyed with their clients to a considerable extent of helping them at different points in their life. With a curiosity to understand the experiences of what it feels to be in a helping profession of handling different issues faced by people, this research sought out to study the counselling journey mainly to understand the challenges and stress faced by counsellors while dealing with different clients in their profession. The paper opts for a qualitative study to understand the challenges and stress among the women counsellors in Guwahati city. The study also explored the different areas of self –care and coping strategies adopted by counsellors in stress. The finding from the data collected showed the different experiences of stress that takes place at a personal and professional level among the women counsellors. Findings described sources of personal stress as financial difficulty and gender roles at home. And at the professional level, workload, lack of knowledge on counselling work culture and ethical dilemmas such boundary setting and confidentiality issues are found as a major source of challenge. The findings include the implication of stress affecting self and relationships. And hence, the study explored the different areas of counsellor’s self-care and ways of coping with stress. The study suggests the need of having an organized support system among counsellors along with recommendation to further carried out the research in order to understand the intricacies of stress not only in terms of occupational demands and personal needs but also values based aspirations of that causes stress in people.