Various Aspects of Counseling - Essay Example

? Capstone Week 12: End of the Journey Assignment In looking back on my work for this and others I have taken, it seems that there are so many things and ideas that will stick with me. When I came into the program, I was not totally sure that counseling was exactly the fit for me. However, since that first class, I have learned that there are so many aspects of counseling that can be rewarding. As most people know who have been in classes with me throughout this program, I have a desire to work with teenagers. I believe that since they are going to be the future for our country that it is necessary for them to understand the world around them. Many teenagers are troubled and have problems from a very young age, while others are able to pull through these problems and continue on their way. I have always wondered why it is that children can come through the same family, with what looks like the same circumstances and one child will do very well, while the other child gets into trouble. Many researchers have studied this process and found that the way that children are parented may be one of the reasons. Smith (2010) suggests that the mother’s personality may be one reason that children behave in certain ways. Smith suggests that good parenting happens when a mother is high on the extraversion scale and low on the narcissistic one. This may be true for some children and this can be one of the reasons that they act out. Also, in this researcher’s opinion, some parents attach themselves to some children and not others. As an example, I have seen some parents who pay a lot of attention to one of their children and the other one or two seem to be neglected. I am not sure why this happens, but it seems to make the children work hard for their mother’s attention. Before I took this course of study, I do not think that I paid as close attention to people and their habits as I do now. I would say that this course of study makes a person look at everything in a different way. I have grown as an individual and in my church. I have looked at my life through this coursework and decided where I really wanted to be. I have many teenagers in my church that are troubled and I have done my best to reach to them and their families in order to help them flourish in whatever they are attempting to do. My faith has become stronger and I have been able to go out into my community to help others. Sometimes I have worked at shelters to pass out food or to help in just talking with people. My children have learned to help in these ways also. I think it is very important for children to begin doing volunteer work early in their lives so they understand the circumstances that other people go through. I believe this is very healthy for children to understand. I have learned that everyone needs to be heard and to be understood. The vast majority of society seems to move through life without really paying attention to each other. Whether we know someone or not, it is up to us to help all people be heard and understood. One of the reasons this is so important is because we have many people experiencing trauma in our communities. Trauma can come because of terrorist attacks or it can be from losing a home or losing a loved one. In an article by Altmaier (2011) I learned about how counseling has not created a strong definition of grief and what it does to people. Without a good definition, they cannot create grief measures that really work. Altmaier outlines 10 grief domains that she suggests that counselors should be aware of as they work with clients. Some of these domains include: physical symptoms, cognitive problems, uncertainty over the future, injustice at loss and so forth. I believe that as counselors, we really do need to understand that people move through grief differently and we need to be aware of the signs that someone is grieving. In terms of my being a social change agent, I see myself as someone who is going to do my best work in communities where teens are failing. I want to be able to advocate for teens as well as provide a safe space for them to talk about the issues that they have today. I want to be able to help them understand how they can deal with anxiety and stress as well as with their own family life. I myself feel that my Masters degree will provide a better ability to understand people and my surroundings on a larger scale. This will help me become a change agent. Because of the knowledge that I have acquired through this program, I will be able to manage my own career and family and I hope I will be able to live life with less anxiety and stress. I also know that I will be very successful in both my professional and personal life because of what has happened for me in this coursework. I would like to eventually help teens in other countries as well as my own because I think there is a lot of change that every teenager goes through. I believe that being an effective change agent really means that an individual must have experiences with groups of people so they can write about these experiences. I think that part of being a social change agent is to make change not only on a physical level, but also on a scholarly level. I hope to write a variety of articles about my experiences so that other counselors can benefit from my experiences. Marotta and Watts (2007) wrote an article about what they and several other therapists consider to be best practices in working with clients. One of the issues they brought out was the idea that the medical model is not the only model to use when counseling clients. I liked this idea. I thought this would be something that I want to continue to research because I have seen instances since I began this coursework, where the medical model was not the only idea. As an example, I have seen clients who are interested in alternative therapies like acupuncture to relieve stress and gain relaxation. In some practices this would not be allowed because it is not totally a medical model. However, in order to help the client, it was something that needed to at least be discussed for this particular client. I hope that I can stay open minded where clients are concerned and help them develop their best selves in whatever way possible. References Altmaier, E. M. (2011). Best practices in counseling grief and loss: Finding benefit from trauma. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 33(1), 33-45. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Marotta, S. A., & Watts, R. E. (2007). An introduction to the best practices section in the Journal of Counseling & Development. Journal of Counseling & Development, 85(4), 491-503. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Smith, C. L. (2010). Multiple determinants of parenting: Predicting individual differences in maternal parenting behavior with toddlers. Parenting: Science & Practice, 10(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/15295190903014588 Read More