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Counseling In Isolation Summary

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The article Counseling in Isolation by Bethany Bray interviewed counselors who worked and lived in a rural area. Tara Wilson was one of the counselors interviewed who lives in a small town in Nebraska. Wilson had a graduating class of ten people in her small rural town. I found this article interesting because it discussed dual relationships among counselors and clients from small rural towns. Bray explained, in a small town “the setting can afford counselor the chance to see young clients grow up, succeed, and start a family” (Bary, 2016). While reading this article, I learned that there are potential obstacles in rural area as opposed to urban areas. Some obstacles include professional isolation, a “culture where everybody knows everybody,” and long hours travelling. Another small town counselor interviewed for the article was Stacey Meehl from North Dakota (Bary, 2016). Meehl stated that, “I learned early on in my career not to specialize because you never know what you’re going to get walking through the door” (Bary, 2016). Meehl further stated that she “put 15,000 miles on her car driving to meet clients at satellite offices, school, homes, medical facilities, …show more content…

Tara Wilson in her interview with Bary explained, “It’s not a question of whether you’ll see a client at Wal-Mart today, it’s how many clients you’ll see at Wal-Mart today” (Bary, 2016). Counselor need to prepare and talk ahead of time with clients about such scenarios. I also learned that some clients might feel uncomfortable sitting next to their counselor in the community church or in a school meeting when living in such a small town. Moreover, some clients become offended if you tell them you will not acknowledge them in public unless they initiate a conversation first. Instead, it is important to ask the client what they would like to happen when seeing each other in a public

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