It’s important to feel accomplished in one’s profession. CDPs are not exempt from the possibility of professional dissatisfaction.   

A Brief Overview of Guidance Counsellors’ Reforms in Quebec  

Towards the end of the 1990s, the Quebec government undertook to reform the education sector to align its policies with the management principles used in the private sector (such as management based on results and individual performance). The profession of guidance counsellors has aligned itself with this new reality in the school system. The desire for greater efficiency has led guidance counsellors to do less individual counselling with students and more concerted work with parents and teachers.   

In 2009, a reform of the counselling professions created a number of “reserved acts”¹ for guidance counsellors in Quebec, including the right to work with students with disabilities and/or learning difficulties. Since then, the practice of guidance counselling has been put under pressure due to the government’s desire to ensure both greater efficiency in interventions AND personalized support for certain students. 

Viviers, Anne and Dionne’s Study  

This type of contradiction in the practice of a profession can lead to suffering. Indeed, it can be difficult to navigate between the expectations one has of a job and the constraints imposed by one’s professional environment. Viviers, Anne, and Dionne aimed to measure this gap between expectations and reality, using a questionnaire listing 84 professional activities. For each activity, the 224 respondents (guidance counsellors in schools) were asked to indicate the extent to which it was an activity imposed by their regulatory body and/or the school setting, and the extent to which the activity represented a desired and/or actual action. 

Five profiles, each representing a different degree of suffering, were identified by the study:  

• Versatile professionals (18% of all guidance counsellors): These guidance counsellors, most of whom work in private schools, are fairly satisfied with their work, and feel that there is hardly any gap between their desired work and their actual work.  
• Satisfied professionals without administrative work (13%): These guidance counsellors, who are relatively more likely to be found in public schools, are satisfied with their job, except for the administrative tasks imposed.  
• Impeded professionals (20%): Often in more precarious employment situations, these counsellors experience a significant gap between the way they would like to do their job and the reality.    
• Pragmatist professionals (31%): These counsellors are characterized by a reluctance to carry out less desirable activities, and a relative satisfaction with activities oriented towards tangible results.  
• Suffering professionals (18%): Guidance counsellors in this group are very dissatisfied with the excessive number of administrative tasks imposed on them, resulting in submissiveness and withdrawal from their profession.   

Based on these results, the authors found that all profiles would like to see more direct intervention with students, especially with the most vulnerable ones. Guidance counsellors in Quebec would also like their work to take on a more consultative and collaborative role. Yet guidance counsellors are often forced to perform administrative tasks that cause them frustration.   

The identity-related suffering caused by professional practice can be damaging to the psychological health of professionals. To overcome this problem, the authors suggest the use of strategies to protect the profession, such as union mobilization, collective action, and promoting the relevance of professional guidance services. This could be an avenue for guidance counsellors who wish to change the constraints imposed by their professional environment and, as a result, be more fulfilled by their job.