Counseling Reflection on Placement - Essay Example

Counseling Reflection on Placement Name: Registration No: Institution: Date of Submission: Learning Goal 1: To Develop and strengthen my active listening reflection and skills by focusing on my ability to reflect feelings and emotions The learning goal was to develop and improve my listening skills by listening to the client to whom I was assigned so that I could reflect on the information she provided regarding her situation and reflect on her emotions about her situation. In order to achieve these learning goals, I was involved in the task of listening to Carolyn so that I could develop a feedback regarding her relationship with her mother and her interests. In order to ensure that I managed to listen effectively to her, I led her to an area of fresh air in a café where I developed a friendly attitude towards her and also ensured the place was quiet so that there would be no interference during the listening process. My focus during this listening process was to understand her interests and how she responded to my questions and her emotions during her response to my questions. This enabled me develop a feedback regarding what she had told me about her hobbies, interests and friendship. There are various experiences that enabled me achieve the learning goals of listening and reflection on the emotions of the client. For instance, I involved her in a discussion in a quiet environment in a café which ensured our discussion was not distracted thus I was able to listen effectively to what she told me about her interest, hobbies and the nature of friendship she desired. The supervision experience that ensured I achieved the goal of improving my listening skills is that I asked her questions which I listened to the responses which I used to create a feedback regarding our discussion with her and reflect on her interest such as the kinds of games she likes to play. In order to make her comfortable in providing the answers to the questions, I developed a friendly attitude towards her. As a result, she provided answers to the questions in the most accurate manner which ensured the learning goal improving my listening skills in this session was achieved. This is the client experience that ensured learning goals were achieved. In addition, the placement experience of visiting the client at her home provided a friendly environment which made Carolyn answer the questions I asked her without fear. As a result, the listening skills were achieved because she was able to speak freely without fear and I was able to know about her interests and her emotions when answering my questions. Learning goal 2: To be more assertive During this contact session, the main goals were to improve my assertiveness by emphasizing my ideas on how the client should perform her actions that could enable her achieve her short-term and long-term goals as well as enabling her cope with regulations that affected her life so that she could live positively. The goal of this session was also to improve my assertiveness in convincing her to comply with the proceedings in court where she had been charged with the use of drugs. There are a number of engagement tasks that I undertook so that I could achieve the goal of improving my assertiveness. For instance, I entered into a conversation with her where I emphasized that she should draft a resume and a cover letter that enabled her get casual jobs. In addition, I received a call from her mother about her being needed in court for drug charge and persuaded her to attend the court session. I also exercised my assertiveness my calling her and informing her about the seriousness of the court matter and how it would have an impact on her. I addition, I was assertive on the need for her to come to a talk session with me where we were supposed o discuss about how she could get comply with the demands of court. When Carolyn showed unwillingness to attend court session in preference to go to the shopping mall, I was assertive that she should attend the court session first. Addition, I engaged her in a talk where I was assertive that she should talk about what she wanted out of the case which involved her. The aspects of placement that influenced the outcomes of the learning goal include the existence of a case where she was charged with the use of drugs. Through this placement, I was able to be assertive that she should attend the court session despite being adamant that she wanted to go for shopping. Another aspect of placement that enabled achievement of the learning goal of assertiveness is that the client was interested in finding a job and I was assertive that she could only find a job by making a resume and c over letter so that she could apply for casual jobs. Client experiences that influenced the outcome of the achievement of learning goal of enhancing my assertiveness is the unwillingness of Carolyn to cooperate with her mother in her demand that she attends the court session. Due to the fact that I and her mother were of the opinion that she should attend the court session first, she disregarded my views and believed that we were of the same ideas regarding the way she should carry herself. As a result, she was unwilling to listen to me and I was unable to convince her to attend the court session first. Supervision experiences that influenced the learning goals of improving my assertiveness are my attempt to establish what she wanted out of the court case. However, she was uncooperative and I was unable to create a rapport with her so that she could come up with a better solution to what she wanted to do in the future in terms of her long-term goals. As a result, I felt that I had not achieved any learning outcomes assertiveness in this session. Learning Goal 3: To be able to develop my boundaries with client and better self-awareness of my feelings The goal of this session was to develop boundaries with the client so that I could determine areas where I could intervene and those that I could not and ensure I controlled my feelings. This goal could be achieved by the manner in which I reacted to the way Carolyn related with her mother. This is because, they were members of the same family and there was the need to ensure I developed a boundary by not interfering with their relationships. I also wanted to create a boundary on her mother’s reaction as a result of Carolyn’s refusal to attend to court order so that could not interfere with their attempt to solve their domestic issues. In addition, I wanted to ensure I control my reactions to the client by not making her emotional as a result of her lack of compliance to my ideas on how she should control herself or her refusal to comply with court orders. The main tasks that I engaged in so that the learning goal could be achieved is finding out about how her mother felt about her refusal to attend the court sessions but avoided being emotional about her lack of compliance. I listened to what she said but did not react to her statements because I wanted to develop boundaries so that I do no create emotion between me and her. I also asked her a number of questions by observing her change of emotions and level of willingness to cooperate so that she could not provide emotional responses. I also inquired whether she would like to have a positive relationship with her mother which she agreed and stated that she would like her mother to remain happy. This ensured the goal of understanding self-awareness of my feelings was achieved. The aspects of placement that influenced the achievement of my goals includes the feeling that I was in a new area and I was unable to draw boundaries with regards to the kinds of questions I should ask the client but I managed to as her questions which did not arouse her emotions. The client experiences that influenced the achievement of my goals include emotional responses about the reactions of her mother which made me try to intervene by being curious about the need to comply with the opinions of her mother. However, I was able to maintain composure to her emotional responses and I was able to achieve the goal of drawing boundaries with her so that I could not interfere in certain situations. The supervision experiences that influenced the achievement of my goals include her gradual agreement to open up so that I could ask her a number of questions which motivated me to develop self-awareness about my ability to provide counseling tasks and manage the reactions of a client. Leaning Goal 4: To help develop and improving stress management The goal of this session was to help in developing and improving stress management by working on self-talk and training that processes that is mindful of the needs of the client. This was achieved through engagement with the client on self-talk. The main tasks that we were involved in so that this goal could be achieved are involvement with Carolyn in a talk about the feelings she would have as a result of being away from home. This was aimed at helping her determine what she would like to change so that she manages stressful situations. This led to her talking about things she used to enjoy doing before she came to Australia. As a result, it was possible to recommend that she participates in these activities so that she could manage stress. We were also involved in discussion about hobbies she could participate in so that she does not become stressed and resort to the use of drugs such as marijuana. The achievement of the goal of assisting the client to manage stress and was affected by the willingness of Carolyn to open up about her interest in hobbies and learning new things. As a result, it was possible to recommend her to participate in these activities so that she could manage stress and avoid the use of drugs. This ensured the goal of helping in stress management was achieved. Another client experience is that her body language changed when she mentioned that she was still using drugs, this affected the attempt to advise her to manage stress by avoiding the use of drugs. Lastly, achievement of the goal of helping in stress management were affected by supervision experiences such as listening to what the client said and also following the direction where she was interested in talking about. This ensured a number of counseling skills were implemented in helping her during stress management thus the learning goals was achieved. Learning goal 5: Learning how to work with resistance from client The main learning goal involved learning how to work with resistance from the client in a counseling session. In order to achieve this learning goal; responses were developed that are helpful to the client despite resistance of the client to cooperate with the counselor. In order to achieve the above goals, we were engaged in a discussion with the client where the main tasks included talking about the client’s current attitude towards smoking marijuana and other drugs, despite the possibility that she could resist being prevented from the use of drugs, I developed an approach of friendliness so that I could convince her to avoid taking the drugs. This led to her explaining the driving factor to her taking of drugs. In addition, I engaged her in a discussion regarding her refusal to cooperate with her mother despite her poor relations with her. This led to her explaining that she always wanted her mother to be happy despite lack of concern from her mother about her well-being. The achievement of the learning goal of how to work with resistance from clients was affected by the willingness of the client to participate in the discussion by explaining her attitude towards the use of drugs. This ensured a strategy could be developed that ensured her drug use could be controlled by controlling the driving factors. For instance, she could be advised to take part in hobbies such as playing netball since she explained that this was her hobby. There are also client experiences that affected the outcome of this learning goal. These include her willingness to open up about her feelings about the need to smoke and where resistance that she never really did much marijuana. As a result, it was possible to understand her emotions so that any resistance could be countered by coming up with the right approach of advising her to stop using the drugs. Finally there are supervision experiences which ensured the goals of this session were met. For instance, the client was observed so that during hours when she was likely to be resistive, she was not disturbed with questions of how she could manage her drug addiction and when she was willing to cooperate with me, I asked her questions about the reasons why she used rugs. This was followed by offering advice on how she needs to carry herself so that she could manage her life effectively. As a result, the goal of learning to work with resistance from a client was achieved. References Belzman, M. (2010). Handbook for Christ-centered substance abuse and addiction counselors. S.l.: Xulon Press. Boyd-Franklin, N. (2003). Black families in therapy: Understanding the African American experience. New York: Guilford Press. Clinebell, H. J., & Clinebell, H. J. (1998). Understanding and counseling persons with alcohol, drug, and behavioral addictions: Counseling for recovery and prevention using psychology and religion. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Levin, J. D., Culkin, J., & Perrotto, R. S. (2001). Introduction to chemical dependency counseling. Northvale, N.J: Jason Aronson. Lewis, J. A., Dana, R. Q., & Blevins, G. A. (2009). Substance abuse counseling. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. McDowell, J., & Hostetler, B. (1996). Josh McDowell's handbook on counseling youth: A comprehensive guide for equipping youth workers, pastors, teachers, and parents. Miller, G. (2010). Learning the Language of Addiction Counseling. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Minuchin, S., Lee, W.-Y., & Simon, G. M. (2006). Mastering family therapy: Journeys of growth and transformation. Hoboken, N.J: J. Wiley. Weiner, I. B., & Craighead, W. E. (2010). The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Read More

The goal of this session was also to improve my assertiveness in convincing her to comply with the proceedings in court where she had been charged with the use of drugs. There are a number of engagement tasks that I undertook so that I could achieve the goal of improving my assertiveness. For instance, I entered into a conversation with her where I emphasized that she should draft a resume and a cover letter that enabled her get casual jobs. In addition, I received a call from her mother about her being needed in court for drug charge and persuaded her to attend the court session.

I also exercised my assertiveness my calling her and informing her about the seriousness of the court matter and how it would have an impact on her. I addition, I was assertive on the need for her to come to a talk session with me where we were supposed o discuss about how she could get comply with the demands of court. When Carolyn showed unwillingness to attend court session in preference to go to the shopping mall, I was assertive that she should attend the court session first. Addition, I engaged her in a talk where I was assertive that she should talk about what she wanted out of the case which involved her.

The aspects of placement that influenced the outcomes of the learning goal include the existence of a case where she was charged with the use of drugs. Through this placement, I was able to be assertive that she should attend the court session despite being adamant that she wanted to go for shopping. Another aspect of placement that enabled achievement of the learning goal of assertiveness is that the client was interested in finding a job and I was assertive that she could only find a job by making a resume and c over letter so that she could apply for casual jobs.

Client experiences that influenced the outcome of the achievement of learning goal of enhancing my assertiveness is the unwillingness of Carolyn to cooperate with her mother in her demand that she attends the court session. Due to the fact that I and her mother were of the opinion that she should attend the court session first, she disregarded my views and believed that we were of the same ideas regarding the way she should carry herself. As a result, she was unwilling to listen to me and I was unable to convince her to attend the court session first.

Supervision experiences that influenced the learning goals of improving my assertiveness are my attempt to establish what she wanted out of the court case. However, she was uncooperative and I was unable to create a rapport with her so that she could come up with a better solution to what she wanted to do in the future in terms of her long-term goals. As a result, I felt that I had not achieved any learning outcomes assertiveness in this session. Learning Goal 3: To be able to develop my boundaries with client and better self-awareness of my feelings The goal of this session was to develop boundaries with the client so that I could determine areas where I could intervene and those that I could not and ensure I controlled my feelings.

This goal could be achieved by the manner in which I reacted to the way Carolyn related with her mother. This is because, they were members of the same family and there was the need to ensure I developed a boundary by not interfering with their relationships. I also wanted to create a boundary on her mother’s reaction as a result of Carolyn’s refusal to attend to court order so that could not interfere with their attempt to solve their domestic issues. In addition, I wanted to ensure I control my reactions to the client by not making her emotional as a result of her lack of compliance to my ideas on how she should control herself or her refusal to comply with court orders.

The main tasks that I engaged in so that the learning goal could be achieved is finding out about how her mother felt about her refusal to attend the court sessions but avoided being emotional about her lack of compliance. I listened to what she said but did not react to her statements because I wanted to develop boundaries so that I do no create emotion between me and her.

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