REFLECTION PAPER I WEEK ONE Our classes started on the 10th January 2017. We started with an introduction, after which we were taken through the course outline. We discussed course requirements and the purpose of counseling practicum. Our lecturer Dr. Christine M. Wasaga encouraged the students who had not started their practicum to do so as soon as possible. During the week I reported to practicum site The National Spinal Injury Hospital Kilimani Location in Dagoretti North Constituency, Nairobi County. We reported six students, three from USIU, one from Kenyatta University and one from University of Nairobi. While we were waiting for further instructions from the people concerned, we had opportunity to know each other. I noted that the team consisted of people who were open and ready to form relationships. This was indicated by our ease of communication among ourselves. We were joined by Eunice (The Medical Nurse, Counseling Psychologist), who took us through orientation. During our orientation she touched on key services provided by the National Spinal Injury Referral Hospital. The key issues discussed were: the causes of spinal injury, structure of the spine, injury level and their effects on patients, challenges faced by these clients and their effects on families. Further, she …show more content…
Later the client gave me a verbal consent. After signing of the contract, we moved to the next step of history taking. The collection of client history took two sessions. However, while I gathered information from the client a number of issues came up, which we could not explore immediately. Through experiential learning I realized that history taking not a one day job, but a continue process throughout the planed
Establishing a theoretical counseling orientation is an important step in developing professional identity. Theories provide counselors with explanations of human nature, help with conceptualizing clients’ problems and deliver procedural guidance in predicting clients’ change. Contemporary counselor is expected to be integrative and eclectic, drawing inspiration from many approaches. It is also my hope to synthesize a variety of concepts and a diversity of strategies from different theories and integrate them into a coherent, comprehensive perspective.
This assignment was conducted with myself as the counsellor and Olivia, a fellow classmate, as the client. A fifteen minute counselling session occurred and was recorded, in order for students to be able to critically analyze their counselling skills. Olivia felt the need to talk with a counsellor due to the pressure she is experiencing trying to fit all of her commitments into her weekly schedule. Olivia is currently struggling with splitting her time between her family, friends, school, and new fitness goals. Throughout this counselling session various techniques were used in the beginning stage, action stage and ending stage of the counselling session. These techniques were used throughout these stages of counselling to gain information
I was really nervous about doing this first practice recording. While I knew how I wanted to start the conversation, I was stressed out about the unknown that comes along with these sessions. I am constantly listening to my friends talk, but how I had to respond for the counseling session was very different than what I am typically used to. I usually give my friends my opinions and advice on how I would handle the situation. It was hard for me to just sit back and let my classmate talk. I wanted to respond to many of her statements, but I had to take a step back and really just listen. In these types of counseling sessions my thoughts and opinions are not important. Rather, the focus should only be on the person you are counseling.
This essay evaluates the counselling skills used during a 30 minute integrative counselling session with a male client aiming to combine strengths of person-centred theory, attachment theory and cognitive-behavioural therapy. It starts by offering a case formulation based on Padesky and Greenberger (1995), as well as Lazarus’ (1973) multimodal assessment template the BASIC ID (cited in Prochaska and Norcross, 2003, p.496), of a married young male client called Eric, who is suffering from anxiety and marital relationship problems triggered by unemployment and influenced by existing difficulties within the client's relationship to his mother.
Theoretical Perspective: This semester in procedures of counseling class we discussed a lot of different types of counseling theories. We also did a lot of practicing with each theory with our partners. I found that person-centered therapy best fits my personal attitudes and style of counseling. I think this would be a good style of counseling for me because I can see myself better helping people as a whole than trying to fix an actual problem.
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.
broad range of clients. Awareness and respect for diversity and multicultural values facilitates good communication and therapeutic relationship.
There is this saying, “Everything happens for a reason” and I believe certain things do. I believe that everything I have gone through my life has been preparing me for the beginning of a great career. This world can be a scary place, but there is also beauty in this world with lots of opportunities, and people who want to help make a difference. I want to be one of those people who inspire others to do better, to guide them and to teach them to not give up. If it was not for my counselors and mentors I would not be where I am at today. I was able to accomplish one of my goals of being the first in my family to graduate with my Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from CSULA. I want to further my education to better myself, and help others along the way.
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.
Taking the techniques of counseling class was a great course that contributed to my evolution as a perspective therapist. Certain skills I already possess such as, great communication, being empathetic, and open to learning. However, throughout the class I learned different therapy policies such as confidentiality, attending skills, and self-awareness. Having knowledge of these basic practices and skills has contributed to me becoming well rounded, self- aware, and a competent perspective counselor. I have made moderate progress towards the learning goals I established for myself in the beginning of the semester. During the beginning of the semester I anticipated learning different counseling approaches, becoming culturally competent, and learning how to be more confident. Throughout the course not much was mentioned about theoretical approaches and how to incorporate the framework into therapy. Nonetheless, the content that I learned allowed me to be more culturally competent, self-aware, and confident. To be culturally competent, it is essential to know basic background information about a client before assisting them. It is imperative to know basic information about a client such as age, sex, and nationality to determine how to assist the individual. Not knowing certain information may contribute to unethical work and a disservice to the
A counselor is defined as a person trained to give guidance on personal, social, or psychological problems. Professional counselors help to identify goals and potential solutions to problems which cause emotional or social interruptions. Counseling also improves communication, strengthens self-esteem, and promotes behavior change in relations to mental health. Counseling enables us to appreciate how we are in healthy relationships and safe environments due to some of the bad things others experience. Counseling helps clients understand and clarify their views on life and learn to reach their goals through making wise choices. In most counseling situations, the client is experiencing personal issues such as low self-esteem,
In this part of the assignment, I will be reviewing the strengths and weaknesses that were shown when I was using counselling skills on my client. I believe that there were more strengths when I was showing counselling skills compared to the weaknesses that there were.
In order to be an effective counselor, one must remember to keep the client(s) in mind. The goal is to assist the client(s) in living the best life possible for that particular person or persons. With that being said, one cannot forget that they have their own set of morals, values, ideas, and the like. Social workers have to keep in mind that there will be cases that are complex and a favorable outcome may not be possible. In the instance that I am confronted with an issue that conflicts with my religious beliefs, I plan on assisting the client as much as possible by adhering the National Association of Social Work Code of Ethics, NASW standards for the Practice of Clinical Social Work, and discussing my concerns with my supervisor while
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.
families, and communities to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social workers are change agents and because of that, they aim to help people develop their skills and abilities to use resources provided to them to strengthen and improve their lives and communities to resolve problems. One of the main goal of social workers is to improve the well-being and lives of the most vulnerable populations, fight against poverty, unemployment, domestic violence and the underserviced population by emphasizing on the person-in-environment and social justice model. The social work profession, considerers the individuals’ internal and external struggles, while working with the individuals to examine their relationships, family, work environment, community, and other things that might impact them and identify ways to help address problems and challenges.