I'm studying adddiction counseling at a local technical college. I would say that the best thing you can do is find a way to work with a large variety of people. Learn good listening and communications skills. The first step to being a good counselor is listening to the client. What is he/she telling you? You also need to find a way to relate to the client. Can you imagine what the client is going through? How would you feel in a similar situation? You need to be able to accept the client whereever he/she may be in their journey. This can be hard. I am not in the field and so I don't know if I can do this. I think I can though because I have done it some for my friends. In other words, my best advice would be to find a way to talk to many people. I have learned a lot on people skills from cashiering. A good counselor also needs patience--especially if you get a client like me. My counselor probably didn't entirely see the root of my problem because she didn't know what it was that I wasn't dealing with. I suspect that a lot of the time, a counselor must allow the client to lead the way. So, you don't have to worry as much about being able to "dissect" the person's problem. I wouldn't want my counselor to "dissect" my problem. I want her to listen to me, try to understand where I am coming from, care about me and try to help as much as possible. My counselor sometimes doesn't have a clue as to what to do. I came in once and was so crappy that she kept trying to complement me and get a positive thought out of me. But, I didn't want to discuss the thing that was bothering me. I felt sorry for her that day. There will be sessions where the only thing that you can do is to try to let the client know that you care and want to understand. Sometimes that is enough.