CHOICE AWARENESS is designed for use by counselors and others who work with clients in a variety of settings. It is intended to help counseling professionals explore their own choices and consider how they might use the concepts and strategies of CHOICE AWARENESS to help their clients.

Chapter 2 of CHOICE AWARENESS explores one of the unique aspects of the theory: counseling as spa. It suggests that counseling, while a serious matter, needs also to be made a joyful, positive, reinforcing experience.

Choice Awareness posits three levels of counseling: spa, learning, and relearning. Counselors generally focus their efforts with individual clients at one of two levels: learning or relearning. Here we suggest that they also always incorporate Level I counseling, counseling as spa. The focus in counseling as spa is on encouraging clients to appreciate themselves, their strengths, their abilities, and their interests, and on helping them to re-create themselves through enjoyable experiences.

When people seek counseling, what do they really want? Assistance with a long or short term difficulty or help with a decision, certainly. But do they want more?