The words advising and counselling are often used to mean the same thing. However, counselling is a very special kind of advising.
  Advising simply means telling someone to do something or not to do something. Advising can be done in any matter and by anyone. But counselling means helping a person solve his problem himself.
    The counsellor only helps, shows the way and makes the client understand things and come to his own conclusion.  He acts like a catalyst. He does very little talking but goes on listening intently. Counselling is done when someone has a problem that cannot be solved by themselves, and desires our help.
Let us see the differences between these two activities:
Who can advise/counsel?
Anybody can advise anybody. In fact very often people advise even without anyone requesting their advice. That is why it is said that advising is the easiest thing to do.
True, if a person is knowledgeable and experienced his advice may be valuable. But simply to offer advice one does not need to have any qualifications or experience. But counselling can be done by people who are specially trained in the techniques of counselling. As will be seen later counselling means involving the other person (the person to be counselled) actively in the solution of his problem, helping him to open up and listen to him empathetically.
Who is to be advised/counselled?
Anybody can be advised. Whether he or she has requested the advice or not does not matter. But counselling can be done only to those people who desire to be counselled.
Of course when we say ‘desire’ we can include people who are persuaded to agree to be counselled. (All people with problems are not necessarily willing to be counselled.) Advising can be one-sided matter. You advise someone. Whether he has accepted your advice or not is not known. We often hear people say, “I have given my advice. Now it is up to you.”
Counselling has to be a two-way matter. Unless and until the person to be counselled wants to be counselled, cooperates in the process and responds there can be no counselling.
What is the essential difference between advising and counselling?
When people offer advice they generally do not bother to see whether the advice is understood, accepted and acted upon. In counselling the counsellor will not act unless and until the person to be counselled agrees to listen to him and to discuss matters with him or to be counselled.
Questioning
For example, you may advise someone not to smoke, as it is bad for health. As simple as that. But in counselling you may ask a number of questions and make the man talk and reveal his feelings and then at last, come to his own conclusions as to what should be done.
Take the same case of smoking. counselling can take place if the person who smokes himself comes forward and requests help about his problem of smoking. The counsellor may ask questions like, “What makes you feel that you are smoking too much?”, “What do you feel you should do in the matter?”, “Have you tried any methods so far?” and so on.
Therefore, while a person giving advice does so on his own, the counsellor helps to make the counselee understand the problem in proper light and come to his own conclusions about what should be done.
Skills needed for counselling.
The adviser must have reasonable knowledge and experience in order to be a good adviser. The counsellor must have special skills of listening, empathy and intervention. He should not be judgmental where, he should not say, “No no that is very bad.” Or “You have done a wrong thing.”
In fact if the counsellor feels that the other person’s problem is not a problem at all, he should not simply say, “That is not a problem at all. Why do you worry?”
This won’t help. He should ask questions in such a way that the client should himself realise that he was worrying about something which was, after all, not a problem at all.
Since counselling means asking questions to make the client talk and open up the counsellor must have the skills of listening, patience and asking questions.
Example
Let us take an example and see how advice and counsel can work.
Let us imagine that someone has a problem in the office. He says his boss is harassing him. Let us now see how a person who wishes to advise that man may talk.
“No no. I think there is something wrong with you. As far as I know Gupta is such a fine person. You must have given cause for his annoyance.”
Or, alternately, “Why don’t you go to the M D and complaint against that lousy fellow? You should not be afraid to fight for your rights. Otherwise that fellow will finish you?” Or, still another approach “Why don’t you go and have a heart to heart talk with him? After all you have been with him for such a long time. You can definitely make him see reason.”
Now let us try and see what a counsellor might say. “What makes you feel that he is harassing you?”, “Has he said anything or done anything which makes you feel so?”, “Have you checked whether anything you did might have displeased him?”.
“Have you spoken to him in this matter at any time?”, “Do you think he would be amenable to discussing the issue with you?”, “Do you think he is harassing only you or others also?”
Now, this way of looking at the problem may make that person realise that after all, he has not checked things properly. A heart to heart talk may resolve the whole matter. Of course this need not be the matter.
The opposite may be the matter. That is, our friend’s work or behaviour might have caused annoyance. The other thing also is possible.
That is, Mr Gupta was behaving in a highhanded way. In any case instead of simply dishing out some ready made advice off hand counselling tries to help the man to go to the root of his problem and arrive at a solution.
It may be mentioned that things may not be as simple as the above case in real life. Counsellors do not claim that they can solve all problems in a jiffy. But the whole idea is to try and help people to solve their own problems to the extent possible in this complex world.
What is special about counselling?
In advising the man may not realise he has a problem at all (When advice is given without his asking for it). He may even resent the advice.  
But in counselling the whole effort is to make the person understand and own his problem, look for a solution which he thinks is best for him and try to solve his problem himself with the help of that solution. There is a greater chance of the man committing himself to the solution of the problem.

The writer can be contacted through e-mail: cliffort_m@dataone.in