My experience in Foundations of Mental Health redefined and broadened my view on what a Licensed Mental Health Counselor was. The excitement and anticipation of beginning my lifelong journey towards helping others with their problems in a more structured and legal sense was finally reaching its climax. I would later learn, though, that my motivation and drive to help others as I have in the past with no formal educational background nor theory was just part of the counselor phase. I, as well as most everyone in the cohort, was in the lay helper phase (McAuliffe, 2011). During class, we were told it would be okay and expected of us to be confused going forward and not to panic if things just didn’t add up. We would soon be venturing through the counselor phases and starting the beginning student phase. The beginning student phase is definitely true to its name. Though I am only a month in my world is slowly being twisted and turned upside down, flooded with new information, and yet, still having the grasp on reality to know my motivation and drive will push me forward (McAuliffe, 2011). Adding to this phase was the overwhelming question that I thought I understood early on: What is counseling? According to the American Counseling Association and the 20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling conference, counseling is “a …show more content…
When I entered the program my goal was to earn my master’s degree in counseling and then work on my doctorate in clinical psychology. As of right now I still have that as an option but researching more into the field, I would be okay staying at a masters level and obtaining my credentials to work with children and adolescents. The only issue I see with that plan is how difficult it is right now to transfer from state to state without proper credentials approved in the transfer
Over the next two years, I will work towards completing 3,000 hours of post licensure internship while continuing my education in a doctoral program. After completing the doctoral program, I would like to hold dual licensure as a professional counselor and psychologist. In the next 10 years, I would like to work at the collegiate level as an educator in psychology and/or counseling. My ultimate career goal is to operate a program for at risk men and women ages 18 to 25. The program I hope to create will focus on the transition to independence process (TIP) model. My focus will be to provide psychological services for young people who are aging out of foster care, have a juvenile record, or are teen parents. The process of entering adulthood is often difficult, especially for those who struggled through their adolescent years like my
I have wanted to be a counselor since my freshmen year of high school and in the counseling field there are many specialties that I can focus on. I am fairly certain that I want to specialize in helping people with substance abuse and their families. I have always focused my studies, interests, and work on things that will help me in this field and I have a lot of qualities that help to enhance me in my eventual career. There are difficulties when I get to practice also like what people perceive as correct counseling style, challenges with my gender and race, and finally creating my own counseling style and plans.
Since 1976, The American Mental Health Counselors Association has been committed to establishing and promoting vigorous standards for education and training, professional practice, and professional ethics for Clinical Mental Health Counselors. So far, this association have 7,000 clinical mental health counselors but its organization is continuously growing (AMHCA).” “The American Mental Health Counselors Association have licensures laws in all 50 states, and the association seeks to enhance the practice of clinical mental health counseling and to promote standards for clinical education and clinical practice that anticipate the future roles of Clinical Mental Health Counselors within the broader health care system. This association was ultimately put together to define and promote professional identity of mental health counselors (AMHCA).”
Individuals’ perceptions of their life/worth have the power to control the goals that they can carry out and meet. Every day we are learning new things and everyone has his/her own unique ways of learning. My strong desire to help students with their academic, personal, and social needs make me a strong candidate as a school counselor. While completing my undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Program Administration I learned a great deal about myself. I have a passion for learning and want to share and express that love for learning with students. I feel that the Master of School Counseling program provides a direct path to my career goals of helping students to comprehend subject matter while learning to love learning as I do. Not only will
Angela was open and responsive throughout the counseling session. Individual answered questions asked by the clinician. Ind stated she was feeling really fine and the reason is that "wedding bells are ringing" for her. Ind. disclosed that last week, Lee and her had a conversation with her mom to this end. Angela explained that as soon they verify this step is not going to interfere with her disability approval, they are going to set a date for their weeding. Ind shared that Lee already has an annuitant and the SS benefit too. Ind stated that Lee asked her not to say to anyone that she will have the disability benefit, specially to her sisters because they will ask her for money. Ind was worried because she disclosed Lee's thinking to the Clinician.
Therapy Analysis The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficacy of my work as a co-therapist during the fifth session with the simulated couple Katy and Michelle. I will discuss our therapy agenda and the goals we hope to attain during the session. It is prudent to begin by giving a brief outline of the couple’s present problem and the patterns of dysfunction that I have identified within their relationship. In my opinion, it is the therapist’s job to recognize patterns and behaviors that disrupt the intimate bond between the partners.
I cannot recall a more rewarding experience than helping facilitate a child’s education while enabling parent participation alike. These experiences have drawn me to my current position as an Educational Assistant where I am constantly interacting and establishing relationships with students, learning about their goals and aspirations. It is that same desire to empower our future students that has steered me towards a career as a school counselor. By enrolling in the Masters in counseling program, I aspire to develop methods and experience to become an effective, experienced, and adaptable school counselor that promotes self-awareness, allowing students to realize their full potential and impetus them towards a promising future. I want to learn skills that facilitate personal and career development, ensuring that our students grow accomplishing their goals and ambitions.
Values, Morals, and Beliefs are components that play a role in an individual’s self-identity. The establishment of these components shape human nature, behavior, and the development of an individual’s purpose. The basis of these fundamentals has contributed to my desire to become a counselor. This paper will discuss my views of human nature, factors of behavior changes, goals of therapy, the roles of a therapist, and the counseling approaches that I chose to incorporate in a practice.
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.
My first week in New Directions Counseling Center had me feeling many different emotions. I was nervous at first, not only because of those first day jitters, but I have social anxiety. I go to individual and group therapy for my anxiety. I have made a lot of progress in my journey, however I am not in place where I am comfortable with myself yet. I walked into the agency not knowing what to expect and that feeling alone makes me want to run.
A mental health counselor develops a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families and groups to accomplish mental health and career goals. Helping others to accomplish their goals and listening to various stories of hardship have always played a part in my life. Stories of others have helped me get through rough times, and so did my own personal stories do the same for others. My story may help save a life tomorrow. It is a rewarding career path that one may enjoy which requires excellent communication skills and a commit between each other.
Chapters two, five and six focused mainly on the helping relationship and the core values, empathy, and probing and summarizing as helpful skills. These three chapters seemed to flow into each other nicely.
Throughout this course I have learned a lot about psychology. I will talk about how it affected me personally, socially, organizationally/societal, and the lasting impact it had in my life.
One aspect I found striking was the role of advice giving in counseling. Prior to this class, I knew that counselors did not typically give opinions or advice to lead a client in a certain direction. What I did not know was the entire reasoning behind this. A counselor might avoid giving advice so that a client learns to make his/her own decisions, does not become dependent on the counselor, and to ensure that a client will not later blame the counselor if the counselor’s advice did not turn out well. In this context, I have a better appreciation and understanding of why therapists refrain from telling the client what to do.