Counseling as a profession has grown over the last 100 years, but you can find the origins of counseling much earlier. Counseling incorporates many ideas from the concepts of guidance and psychotherapy; therefore, in order to understand today's counselor you must understand those concepts as well as the history of counseling. Samuel Gladding in Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession (2000) defines guidance as "the process of helping people make important choices that affect their lives such as choosing a preferred lifestyle." Although many still use the term guidance counselor when referring to school counselors, guidance tends to deal more with helping people make decisions, while counseling tends to assist people in making changes. School Counselors do both of these. Gladding defines psychotherapy as a process that "traditionally focuses on serious problems associated with intrapsychic, internal, and personal issues and conflicts." When encountering these serious problems, school counselors refer students rather than treating them. The importance of knowing these factors is that it allows parents and students to know what to expect from the school counselor. As a school counselor, I will work with students to guide them toward making decisions as well as counseling them to make changes that will increase the likelihood that they will live happy and productive lives. If I encounter a student with a problem that is outside the scope of my training and responsibilities, I will refer that student for further assistance rather than trying to counsel them myself.