Coun 500 Personal Identity Paper

The counseling profession is a complex and constantly changing field. This field contains several unique subcategories that can be intriguing and difficult to understand. However, I believe that if an individual has a strong professional identity, they can achieve a lot in their chosen field.

The purpose of this paper is to review my professional identity as a Marriage and Family Therapist and to reflect on my developing beliefs within my selection of the counseling profession. My professional identity is beginning to be developed throughout my education with Liberty University. I will address the Marriage and Family Therapist professional counselor role and how this position differs from social workers, clinical psychologists, and professional counselors. By reviewing the differences in counseling positions, I will be able to express the differences from my previous experiences with pastoral counseling, and outline what my

McMinn (2011) believed that the integration of psychology, theology and spirituality is tricky, for Christian counselors, because other therapists are focused on a change in mental health (symptom reduction, ego strength, etc.), whereas, the Christian counselor is concerned with spiritual growth and transformation (p. 39). This is the view that sets the tone for the rest of the book. In order to make the book easy to follow, McMinn (2011) began with a discussion about Religion in the Counseling Office where he clarifies the need for training, the importance of the spiritual life of the counselor, the role of spiritual disciplines, and God’s role in the counseling process (Chapter 1).

This is an overview of personal thoughts regarding the views of human nature and goals made therapeutically as a professional counselor. The paper will include a description of my therapeutic process and evaluations of other theories which I believe to share common ground with and other theories I do not agree with. The roles and duties of a counselor will be clarified. The relationship between the counselor and client will be illuminated, regarding what the relationship should consist of. There will be shared insight on what is believed to bring about changes in behavior.

I first knew that I wanted to be a counselor as a child. No one in particular inspired me to want to be a counselor, but I do feel that I chose marriage and family therapy due to the issues that my family has or had and never thought to seek counsel. There are many families out there that have issues but do not believe in therapy. My own parents do not see the usefulness of as they say, going to sit on someone’s couch and pay them to listen to your problems. As a child I can recall sometimes thinking if I just had someone to talk to that would understand. That is why I chose to become a marriage and family therapist, to help all the people that want help.

The role of a counselor takes on many different forms, and it is a very important career, because it helps people make better life choices. The personal values we have, and also how we view the world, can help shape the type of counselor we will be. I will take a self-reflective view of what I hold dear, and also explain how my personal experiences have led me to chose a career in this particular helping profession. I will also describe the differences between the professional counseling, and other helping professions, such as social work for an example. I also will look at how accreditation, licensure, and certification, are important in defining what a counselor is, and does.

Counseling is defined as ”the use of therapeutic strategies to help clients address personal concerns and mental health issues” (Nystul, 2016). Pursuing counseling as a career involves many years of formal study and certification or licensure. After receiving licensure to practice as a professional counselors it is a requirement to maintain involvement and certification in certain associations in order to hold your license. These association often require further education and/or professional practice in order to maintain membership in these associations. It is quite obvious that counseling requires a large amount of commitment and passion in order to pursue it as a career and maintain a title as a counselor. I have conducted an interview with a professional counselor in order to further understand the experience of being a counselor. The interview that I conducted explores the requirements of maintaining and receiving a counselling career, the experience of being a counselor, and what characteristics or skills a professional may have. The Individual who agreed to the interview was a counselor by the name of Susie Facio. Susie Facio, through this interview, will be giving us a look at what influenced her to become a counselor, what her work entails on a day to day basis, and what qualities and skills she has acquired in order to become a successful counselor.

On a bright and crisp morning of March 25, 2015, I interviewed Joni Roche and learned what a typical day was like for this Professional Counselor. Mrs. Roche has owned her own practice for nearly eighteen years and has truly loved every single part of it. Mrs. Roche has received a Master of the Arts degree and is a Licensed Profession Counselor and a Nationally Credited Counselor. During my interview with Mrs. Roche, I truly learned so many things from different counseling techniques, what it is like to have a private practice and the good and bad things counseling comes with that people do not necessarily speak about.

How does one develop a professional identity? What characteristics are need to be considered to professional? The world is full of individual who aspire to reach a certain level of professional identity and counselors are no different. As a professional counselor, we are called to help clients to deal with various issues that include stress management, addictions, marital problems, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, self-esteem problems, etc. The insights and information that we provide to our clients during their sessions will have enabled them to make positive choices and bring about changes that are crucial in assisting them to realize their future goals. At the end of the counseling sessions, we anticipate that the client would have been helped to rectify or prevent conflicts. In an environment where an infinite number of problems are presented and solutions developed, counselors face countless ethical dilemmas. This paper briefly describes how I plan to create my professional identity as a professional counselor.

The overarching goal as an effective and competent counselor is the ability and knowledge to integrate ethical codes into ones professional practice (Kocet, 2006). Therefore, this ethics paper will explore the topics of ethics as it is within groups as compared to ethics regarding individual counseling. Ethical decisions are those pertaining to the overarching moral principles, such as doing good for others which is termed beneficence and to do no harm which is no maleficence in ethical terms (Rapin, 2004). Furthermore, it is imperative to know the two central components of ethics for counselors, which is first to outline the prescribed or mandatory professional behaviors by which counselors are expected to govern their conduct and secondly to know that a code contains aspirational components, which encourages active ethical beliefs of the profession (Kocet, 2006). However, no code of ethics can encompass every potential ethical dilemma faced by a professional but a code of ethics does serve as a blueprint for laying down the foundation that is necessary to promote the competency and efficacy of counselors (Kocet, 2006).

Throughout my life I have always enjoyed helping others in whatever way I could have whether through offering social support, academic tutoring, or just a word of encouragement. I was also very curious in understanding the actions and thoughts with being human and decided to pursue psychology as such. I would envision myself as a doctor daily and promised my deceased mom that I would

The authors in this research address the importance competency in preparing counselors-in-training. Young, Cashwell, Wiggins-Frame, and Belaire (2002) suggest that counselor’s educators are much unprepared to incorporate spirituality competencies to counselors-in-training. The article also supports counselor educators are unprepared in applying spirituality in their curriculum. They lack the requirement set by CACREP standards, as well as their colleagues are even less prepared (Young et al.,

My entire life I have always been on the search of a career that would fit my persona, fit who I truly am, and to become someone who will constantly have the ability to help people through their difficult problems that they face. Throughout my life I have been deemed the type of person that people felt comfortable coming to with their problems. Maybe people feel this way because they sense that I have a sympathetic ear? Well, all I can say is that human behavior has always seemed interesting to me and that is probably why I made the decision to go down the psychology career pathway.

Counseling is the occupation that I would love to have by the time I graduate college. Growing up, my mom was a guidance counselor so that is really what started my interest. In high school, I was very close with my counselor and that made me even more interested in counseling. I shadowed my high school counselor a few times to see what it was like. After shadowing him I decided I really did not like or want to work in a school setting. Getting to college, I still liked counseling, but I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go and who I wanted to work with. After taking a few different types of counseling and therapy classes I took a introduction of couple and family counseling class here at the University of Iowa I found my passion.

The two psychologist’s careers that interest me were developmental and counseling. Developmental psychologists look at how and why humans change over a lifetime. They break development into three parts: cognitive, psychological, and social. Cognitive involves your perception, reasoning, and language skills. Psychological sees the psychical operation of the brain with what we really say and do. Social finds out how do you mature and do your surroundings have an effect on your socialization. I always wanted to know why certain situations in your childhood effects your adulthood in a negative or positive way.