Over the past year, several people have asked us, “what’s the difference between case management and counseling?” A simple answer might be that case management deals mainly with the pragmatic and objective aspects of counseling, and counseling deals with the abstract and subjective aspects of case management. In other words, they are two sides of the same coin.
Imagine a river. As it bends and curves and ebbs along, there are breaking points along the water’s surface – turbulence that disrupts the otherwise tranquil waterflow. Although we can’t be certain exactly what’s beneath the surface causing the turbulence, we are right to suspect something is down there. Case managers and counselors both employ an ongoing and dynamic process of assessment (to sit beside and weigh) to understand what’s causing the “turbulence” in a guest’s life; but the interventions engendered by our assessment differs for each role.
What is case management?
Case Managers work to facilitate change from outside – how the external world is met. How can we slow or redirect the flow of water such that it does not rush so fast over the debris? How might we direct guests to resources and alternative directions such that the flow of their life is more manageable, and they experience less turbulent moments. These include practical things like finding a better person-job fit, for example. Coming to know and understand the individual’s personality along continuums like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, introversion, and neuroticism is helpful in the process of finding the right person-job fit.
Case Management seems most effective when it is directive and didactic. This approach is designed to help guests learn more about themselves and others through their encounters in and with the world. The work often involves other organizations, resources, and people and thus relies on mutual timelines. This means that there is a unique sense of urgency to the work. There are deadlines, due dates, open-enrollment periods, and other people’s watches – things that we all have to deal with yet seem to be more challenging for some than others. The psychological interventions employed in case management are psychoeducational in nature. We’re teachers and timekeepers. The goal here is to help the guest to understand themselves and navigate the world they live in better so they can love and appreciate themselves more.
How is this different from counseling?
Counselors work to facilitate a change from within – the internal experience of the self. How can we remove or erode or come to understand differently the rocks and debris lodged beneath the surface of the water causing the turbulence? Were they once helpful, but no longer so? What keeps them buried, and how might we facilitate a loosening up of that which causes the water to break? Is this through letting go or integration? What’s the difference, if any, between the two? How might we help facilitate in the client a new contentedness and acceptance of self that opens up the opportunity for change?
Counseling seems most effective when it is non-directive and facilitates the clients own internal learning process through insight. The change comes from within. This work takes time, and the only calendar is the whole of the life the guest has lived before, and the whole of the life to come. This work calls for patience, the time needed for the exploration and gentle challenging of historical patterns and learned heuristics – an openness and trust between the counselor and client that facilitates insight and change in optimally challenging but non-threatening ways so that the client can love and appreciate themselves and their role in and with the world in more healthy and rewarding ways.
At The Davies Shelters, we have robust counseling and case management programs. These programs work with guests, moving towards wholeness from different directions. Your support makes both of these programs possible — thank you.