Comprehensive Exam: Perceptions on Counseling
Through my experiences this far, I think that people are brought to counseling because they’re stuck. I think that they’ve experienced some sort of traumatic or troublesome event that has caused them to react and adapt to the situation in some sort of unhealthy way. They then are brought to counseling because they’re enduring or have endured some sort of event that conflicts with the unhealthy patterns that they’ve been using for a while. The maladaptive patterns may have worked for a while, but something causes them struggle when they’re faced with a situation that is made worse by their maladaptive patterns.
I also think that a major reason that people are brought to counseling is relationships. Our families, as well as close friends and family friends, are the basis of our relationships, and the way that we interact with them and learn from them is what we use to create our future relationships. If our family relationships are unhealthy and cause us difficulties, sometimes we base our future relationships on the only relationships that we’ve known. They may not be easily recognized, but remnants of our old relationships have a part of our current and future relationships. If we have unhealthy relationships especially when we’re younger, we’re likely to form maladaptive patterns that we use to handle the hardships during our lives. Those maladaptive patterns may work for a while, but most likely they’re going to cause us emotional stress. These things are what bring people to counseling.
The difficult part of these maladaptive patterns is getting out of them. Throughout this past year, I’ve struggled personally and professionally with this question. I know what issues I’m having and the unhealthy tendencies I have. Now what am I supposed to do about it? And after my clients understand their own maladaptive patterns, how am I supposed to help them get unstuck? I think the biggest part of working our way out of maladaptive patterns is simply being aware of them. One of the most important pieces to counseling is knowing ourselves and being able to understand the events that have caused us to develop these maladaptive patterns. In order to be aware of our maladaptive patterns, we have to know the origin of them. We have to know and understand our past relationships and personal history in order to understand why we developed these patterns. Once we’ve recognized the origination of these patterns, we can then recognize the patterns themselves and how they affect our lives and current relationships.
For example with James, the first step with him would be to understand himself and understand the events that have caused him to handle himself and his relationships in the way that he does. Once he’s recognized this, he would need to recognize that he’s had extremely traumatic events in his life that have caused him to react to vulnerability with violence and maintaining his “tough face.” If he were to be able to recognize this tendency, the next process is applying the awareness of his tendency and using that to be able to react in a more healthy way. I think that changing your maladaptive patterns is a hard, slow process. As counselors, it’s not our job to directly hand over our interpretations of our clients and how we think their maladaptive patterns have developed. I think that our role is to be more of a guide to help them come to these conclusions.
The question then is how exactly do people change? Change truly is a hard process because these patterns are what have helped us to “survive” the various events and relationships in our lives. It’s hard to change how we’ve handled ourselves our entire lives. People are understandably resistant to change because it’s uncomfortable and scary to change. It’s hard to leave what is familiar even if you can recognize that these patterns are unhealthy. Change takes place once we’re able to recognize the maladaptive patterns and have the strength that it takes in order to initiate change. I don’t think that this initiative happens overnight. I think it takes time in order to realize that changing our patterns is what is best even if it feels hard to do.
When choosing an intervention, I assess where the client is in regards to the issues that they’re having. They may be fully aware of their issues but hesitant to change, or they may be unaware that they even have maladaptive patterns. As counselors, checking in with our clients is important to assess and understand what our role is as their counselor. If they can’t recognize the theme that they’ve created with their maladaptive patterns, then our role is to first help them better understand themselves. If they’re aware of themselves and are reluctant to change, our goal is to help them to identify and understand their fears and guide them to be able to take the initiative to change. The most important thing to maintain no matter where clients are is the relationship. The relationship is key to helping our clients so that they’re able to accept our help and be able to successfully apply it. In order to recognize when these interventions have been helpful, we must be constantly aware of their progress. If you can see them overall progressing in the stage of change that they’re in, you know that your method is working.
Ending the counseling relationship is a complicated issue. There can be outside factors such as limited sessions because of insurance, and for school counselors, they may not have the access to students because of a heavy workload, the students move, etc. Putting those factors aside, I think that the decision to end the relationship is ultimately the client and counselor’s decision. If the client feels comfortable enough to be able to handle their daily struggles, the end of the relationship is completely understandable. Also, if the counselor feels as though the client is able to handle their daily struggles, I think that a very strategic discussion with the client should be had in order to determine if the client really is ready and able to terminate the relationship.
I also think that a major reason that people are brought to counseling is relationships. Our families, as well as close friends and family friends, are the basis of our relationships, and the way that we interact with them and learn from them is what we use to create our future relationships. If our family relationships are unhealthy and cause us difficulties, sometimes we base our future relationships on the only relationships that we’ve known. They may not be easily recognized, but remnants of our old relationships have a part of our current and future relationships. If we have unhealthy relationships especially when we’re younger, we’re likely to form maladaptive patterns that we use to handle the hardships during our lives. Those maladaptive patterns may work for a while, but most likely they’re going to cause us emotional stress. These things are what bring people to counseling.
The difficult part of these maladaptive patterns is getting out of them. Throughout this past year, I’ve struggled personally and professionally with this question. I know what issues I’m having and the unhealthy tendencies I have. Now what am I supposed to do about it? And after my clients understand their own maladaptive patterns, how am I supposed to help them get unstuck? I think the biggest part of working our way out of maladaptive patterns is simply being aware of them. One of the most important pieces to counseling is knowing ourselves and being able to understand the events that have caused us to develop these maladaptive patterns. In order to be aware of our maladaptive patterns, we have to know the origin of them. We have to know and understand our past relationships and personal history in order to understand why we developed these patterns. Once we’ve recognized the origination of these patterns, we can then recognize the patterns themselves and how they affect our lives and current relationships.
For example with James, the first step with him would be to understand himself and understand the events that have caused him to handle himself and his relationships in the way that he does. Once he’s recognized this, he would need to recognize that he’s had extremely traumatic events in his life that have caused him to react to vulnerability with violence and maintaining his “tough face.” If he were to be able to recognize this tendency, the next process is applying the awareness of his tendency and using that to be able to react in a more healthy way. I think that changing your maladaptive patterns is a hard, slow process. As counselors, it’s not our job to directly hand over our interpretations of our clients and how we think their maladaptive patterns have developed. I think that our role is to be more of a guide to help them come to these conclusions.
The question then is how exactly do people change? Change truly is a hard process because these patterns are what have helped us to “survive” the various events and relationships in our lives. It’s hard to change how we’ve handled ourselves our entire lives. People are understandably resistant to change because it’s uncomfortable and scary to change. It’s hard to leave what is familiar even if you can recognize that these patterns are unhealthy. Change takes place once we’re able to recognize the maladaptive patterns and have the strength that it takes in order to initiate change. I don’t think that this initiative happens overnight. I think it takes time in order to realize that changing our patterns is what is best even if it feels hard to do.
When choosing an intervention, I assess where the client is in regards to the issues that they’re having. They may be fully aware of their issues but hesitant to change, or they may be unaware that they even have maladaptive patterns. As counselors, checking in with our clients is important to assess and understand what our role is as their counselor. If they can’t recognize the theme that they’ve created with their maladaptive patterns, then our role is to first help them better understand themselves. If they’re aware of themselves and are reluctant to change, our goal is to help them to identify and understand their fears and guide them to be able to take the initiative to change. The most important thing to maintain no matter where clients are is the relationship. The relationship is key to helping our clients so that they’re able to accept our help and be able to successfully apply it. In order to recognize when these interventions have been helpful, we must be constantly aware of their progress. If you can see them overall progressing in the stage of change that they’re in, you know that your method is working.
Ending the counseling relationship is a complicated issue. There can be outside factors such as limited sessions because of insurance, and for school counselors, they may not have the access to students because of a heavy workload, the students move, etc. Putting those factors aside, I think that the decision to end the relationship is ultimately the client and counselor’s decision. If the client feels comfortable enough to be able to handle their daily struggles, the end of the relationship is completely understandable. Also, if the counselor feels as though the client is able to handle their daily struggles, I think that a very strategic discussion with the client should be had in order to determine if the client really is ready and able to terminate the relationship.