Caption: Employers Worried About Critical-Thinking Skills
URL: http://insights.dice.com/2014/10/24/employers-worried-critical-thinking-skills/
Professional counseling is an art in itself. Multiple techniques are used in order to best assist the client. These techniques are, however, much different than normal day to day conversational techniques. The counselor that is just entering the field can find this new style of communicating a bit awkward and somewhat uncomfortable. The author speaks from personal experience.
Initially, the young counselor puts too much pressure on him or herself in the attempt to fix the client. It is the clinician’s responsibility, right? This is obviously not true and will be learned during the educational process. A mature/well-seasoned therapist has this knowledge and will focus on the area of self-exploration with the client. This technique assists the client with more in-depth self-awareness and results in a better understanding of his or her thoughts and behaviors (Meir & Davis, 2011).
Through the use of self-exploration, the counselor, early on, avoids giving advice and problem solving. This helps create a positive therapeutic relationship. Vehviläinen (2003) shares that rather than giving advice, the counselor should implement techniques such as open-ended questions, allowing for the client to find the answer within him or herself. Avoiding problem solving and advice giving can be troublesome for the newbie because he or she is being broken of everything previously known regarding communication. The counselor must trust that the client is more than likely aware of the issue and solution already, but just lacks self-efficacy (Meir & Davis, 2011). Bandura (1977) describes self-efficacy as an individual believing that he or she can continuously perform the behaviors needed for the desired outcome. Counselors new to the field can find all this information overwhelming, but need to just stick to the course and trust the process.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191.
Meir, S., & Davis, S. (2011). Elements of Counseling. 7th edition. Belmont, CA: Brooks
Cole. Cengage.
Vehviläinen, S. (2003). Avoiding providing solutions: orienting to the ideal of students' self- directedness in counselling interaction. Discourse Studies, 5(3), 389-414.
Understanding oneself is one of the first steps we must take as up and coming counselors. Self-exploration and learning how to gain better self-understanding are necessary in order to help someone else. In order to help affectively, we have to understand where we ourselves stand on various issues, especially our own biases and stereotypes. When we encounter certain characteristics or situations that evoke something in us, we may explore why our response was the one it was so that it may not bleed over into our counseling sessions. If they are not addressed, we have the possibility to cause more harm than good to the client. Once they are, we have the opportunity to set those things aside and focus on the client.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate how you discussed the pressure of wanting to fix clients. This is something that may be a real struggle for me. In my interpersonal relationships, this has often been a struggle for me. I end up empathizing with them, and deeply feeling their pain. Wanting to save people fro their pain is a real challenge, because we cannot forcibly save anyone. It is our job to walk our clients through their own process of healing and to tach them how to cope with their struggles. Great job on this post.
ReplyDeleteTyler, I agree that the pressure or need to fix someone is something we all have to work on so that we don't transfer our beliefs and feelings onto them. I feel that by working to understand ourselves is the first step to working on that need. As counselors we are under a lot of pressure, as new counselors that pressure is even more than after we get experience under our belts. To deal with that pressure we sometimes revert to being angry, or withdraw into ourselves, we will have to be strong in our Faith that God will lead us through whatever we encounter. He will give us the answers in His Time and at a time that will benefit the client as well as ourselves.
ReplyDeleteTyler, I also feel it is uncomfortable when hearing someone talk about problems they have and not being able to directly tell them how I think they should get rid of them. However, I do believe it helps the person learn how to solve problems on their own, which will benefit them when they are no longer receiving counseling. Furthermore, I use to believe people came to counseling to get answers from the "expert." This program has taught me a person can figure out the solutions to their own problems if they can just have an opportunity to discuss them with someone who is nonjudgmental.
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