AIDS Counseling Tips

The AIDS counseling profession is part care and part caring. With no known cure for AIDS or the HIV virus, the focus of the AIDS counselor is to provide information about prevention to those who have not been infected, and to tend to the psychological needs of those infected with the virus.

Don't Lose Sight of Your Role

• An AIDS counselor must be dedicated to the client and have compassion for those who are going though a difficult experience. In order to do this correctly, the counselor must never lose sight of the real job at hand. The AIDS counselor's purpose includes helping clients manage their problems and develop opportunities to cope with the disease that have not been used yet or have not been used enough. Secondly, the counselor should promote the idea of self-help for the client and help ensure constructive change in the future.

Advocate Prevention

• For those patients who are high risk but are not currently infected, the counselor should focus the majority of his attention on prevention. Make sure the client is aware of all ways to become infected and how to avoid contracting the disease, no matter how obvious it may seem.

  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AIDS tests should be conducted at least once per year for those in a high-risk category. High-risk individuals include those who are sexually active with multiple partners or with one partner who may be involved with multiple partners. Intravenous drug users are also at a high risk for HIV and AIDS.

  Be sure the client knows where to be tested, how often and what the test involves. Encourage abstinence or a long-term monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner. Demonstrate proper condom use and explain which condoms are effective in prevention and which ones are not, such as lambskin. Explain the risks of sharing needles and the dangers of injecting drugs.

Follow The Eight Commandments

• There are eight commandments for AIDS and HIV counselors that outline the correct path to emotional support for clients. The counselor should avoid being judgmental, be empathetic, refrain from giving advice about emotions, don't ask why the client feels the way she does and never take responsibility for another's problems. The counselor should not try to interpret a client's feelings, but merely listen to her explain it. Help the client deal with her feelings and talk only in the present instead of dwelling on the past or contemplating what might happen later.