Abstrakt

This study examines the formation of the Czechoslovak system of educational and psychological counselling between the 1960s and the 1980s, showing that its emergence was not the result of a single administrative decision but of a gradual negotiation between professional concepts, institutional frameworks, and ideological constraints. It analyses three key dimensions of this development: the thematic definition of counselling activities, the theoretical and methodological foundations, and the institutional consolidation of the system. The study traces how previously separate strands — vocational guidance, educational counselling, and developmental–psychological approaches — gradually merged into an integrated concept of continuous support for the child, enabling the profile of educational-psychological counselling to take shape within the school system. At the same time, it highlights the persistent tension between professional autonomy and system governance, a tension that gained a pronounced ideological character during the period of normalisation. The study concludes that this historical experience remains relevant: counselling services always operate at the intersection of systemic requirements and the individual needs of the child, and every reform inevitably reopens this delicate balance.