Growth

                                           Pic taken by James Vaccaro (2012) Lynchburg, VA.



Any gardener will tell you that plants communicate what they need in order to be healthy and producing.  Disease, weeds, and evidence of insects are clear when a gardener examines their crops.  The counselee/counselor, helping relationship is no different.  The counselor must observe, listen, and know how much, or how little feedback to give the client.  This week's reading has helped put these tools into practice.  In chapter seven, there are two bible verses that are relevant to counseling (Prov. 12:18; 18:13) which are great foundations.  Listen and do not give answer to someone (client) if you have not first listened; if one does not practice this is counseling they are foolish and full of shame (Prov. 12:18).  The counselor must also remember that life and death are in the power of words and what they communicate to the client (18:13).  Another item, or items that stood out in the reading in chapter seven is the definitions of feedback and the two types of feedback.  Reassuring feedback means the counselor is reinforcing characteristics, or qualities in order to validate, or solidify the client.  Reformative feedback consists of the counselor directing, or redirecting the client back to health ( Thomas, Sosin, 2011).  The great thing about discovering these items in the text is I have been practicing them and did not know there was a formal name for these tools.  In chapter eight, I agreed that there should ideally be at least one more session when cancelling counseling (p.238).  I believe it is important for the counselor and counselee to have a full understanding of termination, referrals, and a post counseling plan for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, after counseling is discontinued.  One more counseling session can accomplish all these tasks and should be noted in the intake session
(Thomas, Sosin, 2011).  Finally, in chapter nine, I liked how the authors defined process as moving forward
(p. 266).  Moving forward implies leaving the past where it belongs, the past.  Much of counseling deals with helping the client manage, overcome, and move forward from problems, or challenges.  The five phases of the counseling process helped me to organize the tools and affirm my philosophy that helping tools are intertwined with other tools.  The text shows a picture of the counseling process overlapping one another on page 268.  The last item in chapter nine, that stood out to me, was the conversation between the counselor and the client. This helped me to see and read how an intake session should look and sound like.  Though the conversation is just an example, I feel more confident to slide into my professional role as a counselor!  Like crops in a garden and their condition, shouting what they need or do not need (water, sun, fertilizer, weeding), so is the client and what the counselor should do in order to promote growth.

 The King James Study Bible (1988).  Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishing.
Thomas, John & Sosin, Lisa. (2011).  Therapeutic Expedition. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group.