Personal Approach to Counseling
Describe your personal approach to counseling and then apply your approach to a specific case.
Is there a template? In week one you were provided a template to help you organize your writing for the week 1-4 assignments. You may have noticed that in addition to formatting the template in APA, we used the assignment instructions to create heading to organize the paper. Next, we copy and pasted the questions that needed to be addressed under each section with screen clips of the rubric. We also suggested that you use transition sentences to begin each paragraph that included some of the same words used in the question that you were addressing in a paragraph. Last, we suggested that after you complete a section, that you should review your work against the rubric to ensure you addressed all requirements. For the final project, we would like to see you generalize those same strategies to create your own template to organize your writing for the final project. For example, the below prompts are organized into two major sections with 9 subsections, how might you organize your paper using level one and two headings? The above strategy is a sure-fire way to clearly organize your writing and make sure you do not ever forget to address a question or rubric point.
Personal Approach to Counseling
In this section, you will describe your personal approach to counseling. Please address the following:
1. Philosophy of Human Nature: Discuss your personal philosophy of human nature (e.g., are humans innately good or bad, what motivates us, what is the cause of stress and suffering, how does change occur, how do we grow, how does wellness occur, how do we function?). Address at least 5 areas of human nature. -suggested 1-2 page in length.
2. Counselor Role: Discuss what you believe your role to be as a counselor in the following ways:
Discuss the counselor role in terms of qualities important for building a therapeutic relationship (being non-judgmental, demonstrating empathy, unconditional positive regard…etc.). Discuss what role you feel a counselor should play in helping clients/students make changes, work toward goals, and overcoming obstacles. Additionally, address roles that are specific to your preferred future work setting (e.g., clinical counselors and school counselors will certainly share some roles; but, there are other roles unique to each position). -suggested 1-2 page in length.
Personal Approach to Counseling
- Philosophy of Human Nature
- What is your personal definition of human nature?
- What are your beliefs about the following aspects of human nature?
- Motivation
- Stress and suffering
- Change
- Growth
- Wellness
- Functioning
- Counselor Role
- What are the most important qualities for building a therapeutic relationship?
- What role should a counselor play in helping clients make changes, work toward goals, and overcome obstacles?
- Case Description
- Briefly describe the client's presenting issue, history, and goals.
- Counseling Intervention
- Describe the counseling intervention you would use with this client.
- Explain how your personal approach to counseling informs your choice of intervention.
- Provide evidence from research and theory to support your intervention.
- Evaluation
- How would you evaluate the effectiveness of your intervention?
- What specific goals would you hope to achieve with the client?
- How would you measure the client's progress towards those goals?
- I believe that clients are the experts on their own lives. My role as a counselor is to help clients to identify and achieve their own goals.
- I believe that change is possible. People have the capacity to learn and grow, and to overcome challenges.
- I believe that collaboration is essential. I work with clients to develop and implement a treatment plan that is tailored to their individual needs.
- Reduce his symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- Improve his grades.
- Get enough sleep.
- Become more comfortable talking to his parents about his problems.