My Life
In a world where people are murdering, stealing and harming each other, it’s hard to find the good in people now a days. The people who are doing these behaviors need help. That’s where I step in hopefully when I am certified to be a counselor. I think that people are generally created innately good and then go create their own nature. I could prove this by just want I learn about God in all my religion classes. “GOD DOESN’T MAKE GARBAGE”. Now some of us have it better than other, which can really hurt our chances to do well in this world. If you where born a thug, in a bad neighborhood and then hung out all with a bad crowd, chances are you will become a bad person. That why these kids or adults need direction in the right way.
This is an important knowledge to have when you are trying to get in to counseling. If you don’t have hope for these people then I wouldn’t think you would make too much of a change to the world or you clients. I think when you are sitting down looking at your client you need to have in back of your mind; this is a good person, who just made some mistakes. I think it is imperative that you need a view people like when you are helping. No matter how impossible it seems, I think everyone can change his/her own way of thinking, it just takes a lot of time and tears sometimes. God created this human being for good not bad, that what were here to help them find out. Also I know some people don’t like Catholicism with their counseling, but I think you need to have some kind of faith in your background if you are going too help other or at least a good judgment of moral good.
Having a good moral judgment means you have values in your life. Values are beliefs you have in life that are worth a lot to you. For example, I value life more than anything in this world. I think murder and suicide is terrible. We are built on this world for life, when someone takes that a way; I think that is the greatest sin. Also have many other values, such as truth, honor and love.
I think these are all good values to have when you are counseling. Truth is good because you will always be honesty and faithful to your clients. Honor keeps in check that you will honor your code of silence when client tell you their problems. Love is the greatest one, every time a client walks in, you should have a love to help this person and try you’re hardest to make them better. I think a client can see when you are truly listening and I think it can make your session can very well, when the client thinks you really care.
I think by the values we hold, we end up becoming them. I think if we are truthful then we will become truthful. This is very handy when going into counseling a client needs caring. So if you value caring then you will become caring. I think values are very important in our profession. Values seem to be losing a lot in our world today, we don’t look for them, and they are being changed with evil ones. We value money greed, and pleasure, if you value any of these I think counseling would not be for you.
For example the money is not that great to begin with, I think you should look at every client as a human being that needs help, not a like a dollar bill, actually care and listen.
As I said before I think this profession is about is all about helping others so you need have values such as truth and caring. I was raised with these values so I think being in a profession where helping and caring are very important would be mandatory for me.
I love the feeling you get when you know that you made a difference. I want to be able to put my head down on my pillow and say to myself,” I MADE A DIFFERENCE”. I also think that having a profession such as counseling would meet a lot of my needs as well.
I need to be helping people every chance I get. I don’t care if they never have done anything for me. It’s the fact that someone needs help and I did the best I can to help them. It also feels really good to be needed. I like when I can go out some where and some ones hurt or crying they would come to me to ask for advice or just someone to listen to, because they know I am a caring person.
I think these needs are in my personality already so it’s not like it’s something I need to strive for. God gave me good listening skills, commonsense and the ability to feel empathy. I think as a counselor you need a lot of empathy. When you put yourself in someone else’s shoes you can understand were they are coming from and help them better.
I have gotten a lot of these qualities for counselor through my own life experiences. I was always better much a good kid, but for some reason, thank the lord; I have never had any real big problems in my family. It always seems to be my friends having them. So for example when my best friends parents got divorced, I was the one listening and be their. As I look back on it now, I remember doing that a lot of times. I would always be their for them.
I have had given many of my friends help with their problems, a lot have been about the divorce friends. I have 6 close friends 5 of them are split up. I so I was always helping always ready to listen and give some good advice. Another life experience that has helped me to become the caring person would be the town nest to me New Britain.
It is filled with bums, drug addicts and murders. My father works in the center town as a dentist. So I saw all these terrible things going on. I always wanted to help but I didn’t know how. Then I started college and really wanted to help being a counselor. I thought about being a cop, but I wanted to get to the root of the problem. I would love to work with kids with drug problems, stop it before it gets to far in their lives were it is too late.
To have values such as I do you need to have certain traits as I do, you also need
to have good outlets of your own problems. I deal with my problems with usually a very rational way. For every problem there is a solution. Sometimes when we get mad we don’t see this solution or something we see it but it just seems way to hard to solve. We either don’t know where to begin or don’t know where go. So we give up. I never really thought of it like that. If there was a problem I would try to fix it right away. For example, if heard from one of my friends that so and so was talking behind my back. I would go to the source which would be the person talking. Go up to them calmly and ask them what was going on. I always go to the source then to the root. It seems to help my problems go away, the harder you make the problem the harder it is to erase. I am also lucky enough to have a very good father with a very good mind for solving my problems.
I am not sitting though and saying I am issue free, which would be much farther from the truth. I think I would have some limitations as a counselor though. They wouldn’t have to due with prejudice, sexism or anything that I think is offending. I think my biggest problem is trying to cure everyone. I would hate knowing I couldn’t help a person. It would really bother me. When I do something I put a 150% in all the time.
It would really hurt also that I couldn’t change this person or at least help the change.
Also I think would have trouble getting to personal with the client. I know we are supposed to be neutral and don’t get caught in every client to deep, because you will end up going crazy, but I think that would a problem. I care a lot about people, but I do get attached very easily. I think that would be something I would have to work on. I know you can not get to involve or start being friends with your client; it’s a professional job, so you must act like one to.
I think I could overcome his by just changing my way of thinking. Understanding that I here to help this person with their problems and that’s all. I could only help then as far as they want to help themselves. I can’t control them or nor should I want to. If they want to change they need to take the first step and that’s coming to me. I need to point them in the right direction. I need to listen and take care of them to the best of my knowledge. I think if keep up this kind of thinking, I won’t get too attached and I won’t be getting hurt when clients fail.
Counseling is a tricky profession many people believe it to be things its not. So lets clarify it up a little. The definition of counseling is “a process where a person can receive assistance in sorting out issues and reaching decisions appropriate to their life circumstances. “
I like this definition a lot for it, but I think it needs a little more added to it. I think counseling is gift your giving to some person to help them in their lives. I think that it is amazing that you can change people to turn out better people, because they came to you for help. I in my own words I think counseling is giving helping people to become better people, giving a person a second chance on life. It is something so powerful to know that you have the chance to help this person. I also think that when defining counseling you should know that it is something that can also be tough and frustrating. It sounds good at first when you read the definition of counseling a process of helping people. I think to myself wow, helping others, but it could also have its bad side.
You might be getting clients who are doing the same thing over and over and just won’t change. It can be very hard at times, when your client knows the answer but they still maintain there life style you help try to change. Clients have to be ready to change before you can change them.
To assist your client in change there are something you as a therapist must have.
Counselor has important functions they need to follow. First off they should make the client feel safe and comfortable. If the client doesn’t feel comfortable they probably won’t either come back or just not let themselves come out and speak. You want client to know they could say whatever they want with out any problem or judgment. This brings up a second important function of the counselor which is confidentiality. A counselor has to tell their clients no matter what they say it stay in the room. Unless their going to take their life or someone else’s.
Another important thing that a counselor must need to do is good listening. You want to make sure the client feels like you are pay much attention to them. It will make the process go a lot better. That’s what you are their for to listen to them, to make they feel like someone is their that cares about them and wants them to change, it’s a big responsibility. The counselor should repeat some of the things the client said just to let the client now you do listen and care.
Another important function of the counselor is to make sure they take good notes.
With goods notes you could see the patterns a client might have or maybe the change from where they were before to where they are now. Plus you need to be on top of things when your client comes to see you.
Just like important functions for the counselor there are also important needs for
the relationship between you and the client. One of the essential needs is that both need to feel comfortable with the each other. The client might feel safe talking you, so you might have to sign off to someone else, or the counselor has a problem with the client, in which he could tell the client that he can not help him/her at this time. It could be racist issues or different values. Example if I was a catholic counselor and my client didn’t believe. He/she could pick another counselor more to their liking. Another essential is that both are going to be honest with each other. Their needs to be that trust with one another. Trust that the client will come on time to session and during session be completely honest with the counselor and also the counselor being honest with the client about everything.
Tell the client what you think, and tell them what you expect to do, to help them.
Also be sure to make sure the client knows what techniques you might
use, for example if you’re using Freud, you will using psychoanalysis. Each
couslner follows a theory and use it My personal favorite would have to be
Gestalt therapy. “Gestalt therapy is a phenomenological-existential therapy
founded by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s. It teaches therapists
and patients the phenomenological method of awareness, in which perceiving,
feeling, and acting are distinguished from interpreting and reshuffling preexisting
Explanations and interpretations are considered less reliable than what is directly
perceived and felt. Patients and therapists in Gestalt therapy dialogue, that is,
communicate their phenomenological perspectives. Differences in perspectives
become the focus of experimentation and continued dialogue. The goal is for
clients to become aware of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how
they can change themselves, and at the same time, to learn to accept and value
themselves. Gestalt therapy focuses more on process (what is happening) than
content (what is being discussed). The emphasis is on what is being done, thought
and felt at the moment rather than on what was, might be, could be, or should be.“
One of my favorite techniques of this therapy is we look at today, not the past or even the
future. I think people today are to much on the past now a days. For example if I having a bad life it is because my mom hit me. I don’t believe some of those therapies that I read, The counselor needs to find out why we are not finishing things we begin, which ends up bothering us later on. Looking at the small things in our life that makes up the big picture other than just looking at the picture, kind of like tiny building block that make up ourselves. We need look at those building blocks and what we are doing them.
Gestalt therapy worries about here and now, what can I do today to change my life. I think that is the smart way to do it. For example when we want something done it is best to start it right away. If we say we will start it tomorrow or I will do it later, we end up forgetting which ends up not finishing or even starting it. In Gestalt therapy the client needs to begin to become of aware of awareness. The therapist can use awareness and experimentations to help the client find what they are doing in the world as of right now. When this is done it’s called Phenomenological Perspective.
I think if I follow Gestalt therapy more in depth I could really like studying in his field. I still think I have a lot more to learn but I am ready. I know right there is a bunch of good things I can bring to help other people in my profession. I am willing to help anyone from anywhere. I am great listener which you need when you’re a counselor. I would love to sit down and truly hear what they are saying and not saying. To have the
knowledge to cure someone is an awesome gift. Also I don’t get annoyed easy so if my client messed up on their promise or went back to their old ways, I would be like alright lets get back on the horse again. I want to cure everyone, which could also be down fall, because sad but true no everyone could be cure. When it comes down to it I think strengths would be caring, for the client having compassion, also being straight forward not sugarcoating anything. Also honor that I will up hold every time I sit down in my chair to help a client with the best of my ability and to never give up on anyone.
My weaknesses I think would be trying to cure everyone, when I see a challenge I want to go for it and conquer it. That isn’t has feasible in my profession. There are going to people who don’t show up on time and miss weeks. There are going to be clients who go back to their old habits. I need to understand that, so I could be ready to help them again.
Bibliography:
www.google.com/website/defintions
www,gestalttherapy.com/introduction/overview.
