Lebanon

The history of the counselling profession in Lebanon illustrates the lack of development the career has experienced. However, the need for school counselling services has been emphasized in the last 50 years. Ayyash-Abdo et al. (2010) explained how this is partly caused by the ongoing social change and that students often experience “social, emotional, academic, and/or physical problems to which the school staff, and sometimes parents, were insensitive to or not qualified to intervene” (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010, p. 13). Despite the urgency for school counselling services, the development has been rather slow, while most of the developments that were made are focused on career guidance (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010). There currently is no specific degree that school counsellors receive, rather they just complete intensive training after receiving a degree in education (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010). However, some of the school counsellors receive a master’s degree in educational psychology, educational administration, psychology, or sociology (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010). School counselling is not part of the educational process regardless of how much effort Lebanon’s Ministry of Education has made (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010). This is primarily caused by Lebanon’s constant political instability and conflict which may have hindered the development of school counselling (Ayyash-Abdo et al., 2010).