Original Research Paper The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 4, Issue 3, DIP: 18.01.127/20170403 DOI: 10.25215/0403.127 http://www.ijip.in | April - June, 2017 © 2017 Pereira M, Rekha S; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Problems, Difficulties and Challenges Faced by Counsellors Maxim Pereira 1 *, Surya Rekha 2 ABSTRACT Even though counselling is as old as Psychology in India, counselling education at post- graduate level and counsellors working in diverse settings are of recent origin. Not much is known about the problems, difficulties and challenges the counsellors face. The current study is done within the qualitative framework, with exploratory study design for which 14 participants who were working in different settings like school, college, employee assistant programme (EAP), family counselling centre, psychiatric rehabilitation centre, de-addiction centre, private practice, multiple settings, counselling centre, Christian religious setting, HIV/Aids centre were chosen through purposive sampling and were interviewed. The audio- recorded interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis and the emerging themes were noted. The study showed among others, that the counsellors face several problems, difficulties and challenges like, lack of awareness of counselling among people, inadequate pay, job insecurity, absence of a professional body to regulate counselling, lack of network of counsellors and mental health professionals for seeking supervision and consultation, and so on. Implications for counsellor training, professional development are discussed. Keywords: Counsellors, Counselling, Problems, Counsellor Training Even though the origin of the counselling movement in India can be traced to the beginning of Psychology in India (Rao, 1991), formal counselling is not that old. It is true that the importance of counselling, particularly with reference to vocational guidance has been stressed in India from as early as 1938 (Arulmani, 2007). Short courses on vocational guidance were available in India as early as 1958 (Fuster, 1963; Joneja, 2006). But, postgraduate courses in Counselling are of recent origin. Every year hundreds of students complete their studies in Counselling and get placed in various settings like educational institutions, HIV/AIDS clinics, psychiatric hospitals, family counselling centres, corporate sectors, family courts, rehabilitation centres, de-addiction centres and so on (Janardanan & Rajan, 2015). 1 Ph.D Research Scholar, R & D Centre, Bharathiar University,Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. & Asst. Professor, Montfort College, Bangalore, Karnataka, India 2 Professor, Montfort College, Bangalore, Karnataka, India *Responding Author Received: February 22, 2017; Revision Received: June 13, 2017; Accepted: June 30, 2017