Counselling Reflection

When I hear the term life-span development, particularly when utilized in a psychological context, the first thing that comes to mind is that it has to be the investigation of change that occurs throughout the lifespan. This change that is being observed can be in the form of behavior or personality. This field of study is very interesting as it looks at the ways humans develop over the course of their life-span. The purpose of this paper is to explain why I believe an understanding of life-span development is important and why I believe an understanding of human development will be beneficial in my prospective career path.

I feel that I nodded my head way too much. I think that I should have used other forms of

The goals for this counseling session involve establishing a worker-client relationship and beginning the assessment process. Walborn (1996) reports that a vital early step in the engagement process involves familiarizing the client with what to expect from therapy. Sommers-Flanagan and Sommers-Flanagan (2007) upholds the position that counseling does not work with teenagers, because it is often not offered to them. Counselors often attempt to mold them into miniature adults and implement techniques that work well with adults and not children.

I feel that Piaget’s Theory of child development is a most important idea because it’s still one of the most well-known theories of today. Piaget believed that children contributed to their development through their mental and physical activity. Without his findings, regarding cognitive development, our knowledge of children’s thinking would be very limited. Piaget split cognitive development into four distinct stages; the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage. In each of these stages, children display new abilities that allow them to better understand the world around them.

This week had been full of stress, nervousness, frustration and annoyance. Missing two class nights, and then finding out last minute that they we were getting a new professor for Counseling 208 was frustrating. On top of that, learning that we were meeting clients in two weeks and then finding out that my fellow classmates had not had the same Counseling 200 experiences as me made it even more stressful. After the first class meeting, I felt really unprepared to meet clients, therefore, I went through my Counseling 200 notes to review and strengthen my counseling skills.

The client was a young female who was having difficulty with the fact that she and her cousin were no longer as close as they once were. Her cousin is still caught up in the party scene, whereas Tara has settled down and has a son to take care of. Tara and her cousin used to be very close, and around high school they began to go their own ways. Tara and her cousin used to share everything and split everything. It was like they were sisters because they always had matching clothes. Her present problem is that they are no longer close and she really wants her cousin to be there in her son’s life. She feels left out because her cousin is always partying and she feels rejected that she is not asked to hang out with her cousin even if she days “no”. Some of the possible solutions that I saw were having a meeting with her cousin to discuss how they each feel and hopefully reach an agreement. Another potential solution would be to just cut her cousin out of the picture because she feels like it is not worth the effort anymore to fight this constant battle and she feels like it is not worth the effort.

Piaget was the first to create a systematic study of cognitive development, and although he did not specifically relate his theory to education others have gone on to do so. This has had many implications in

Throughout history, many individuals have made astonishing contributions to psychology, leaving an impact that influenced future individuals. One of these individuals is Jean Piaget. He had a intensive impact on the field of developmental psychology, particularly on children's intellectual growth. He gathered that children take on an active role in thier learning procedure, acting greatly like scientists as they execute experiments, make observations, and ultimately learn about the world. His central insight was that children think in an essentially different way from fully developed individuals. Piaget described this in four stages that children go through as they reach adulthood, and from his observations others in the field were able to expand on his ideas.

Erick Erickson, a German psychoanalyst created a theory called the Stages of Development, which consist of eight phases. As a person passes though each stage they will attempt to resolve crises that are important to the process of life. These eight stages include building a sense of trust in others, discovering a sense of self, as well as preparing the forthcoming generation for the future. Since everyone is unique in their own way, we will all experience Erickson’s 8-Stage Life Span Theory slightly different from each other.

To begin with, there are three basic components to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. The three main components are schemas, adaptation processes, and stages of development (McLeod, 2009, p. 1). Piaget’s theory made an huge impact on the education system. Piaget started studying cognitive development after he became intrigued with the reasons of why children gave wrong answers to questions that required logical thinking (McLeod, 2009, p. 1). Piaget was also the first psychologist to make a planned study of cognitive development (McLeod, 2009, p. 1). Piaget changed the way people thought about children thinkers. This lead to major changes into schools. This also caused teachers to reevaluate the way that they taught. Piaget’s contribution to society should be greatly appreciated by people in the educational system. Without Piaget’s theory, we may not have been able to make greater feats in the education system.

Counselling is an interactive learning activity characterized by a unique relationship between the counsellor and the client that leads to the change in the thinking, feeling and behaviour of the client. However, the term ’counselling’ has many definitions. For example, counselling is also the skilled and principled use of collaboration between the counsellor and the client to facilitate self- knowledge, emotional, acceptance and growth. The ultimate aim is to grant an opportunity to work towards living more satisfyingly and resourcefully. Counselling may include dealing with developmental issues, addressing and resolving problems, making right decisions, coping with crisis, developing personal insights and perspective, working through feelings

Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist who had a heavy emphasis on children for his study. From this, he developed his Cognitive Theory which consists of three elements: schemas (building blocks of knowledge), adaptation (equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation), and the four stages of development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational). Through this, we are able to learn of how children develop from adolescence to adulthood.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development states that many people progress beyond the cognitive advances of middle childhood during adolescence ("Adolescence and Adulthood", n.d.). These individuals have the ability to deal with more abstract

Counsellors are in a profession which assess individuals lives and behavior’s. They are not there to provide quick advice or a quick fix or to solves client’s issues for them, but rather there to facilitate healing by use of a dialogue. Counselors who have practical and theoretical knowledge, but lack human qualities are more like technicians according to Corey (2014). Therefore, it is vital for counsellors to explore their values, beliefs, attitudes to increase their awareness.

Piaget’s theory. Piaget did not believe that intelligence was an unchanging value. He was more focused on understanding how children formed concepts than by the amount of information they could remember or recite. He was the first to study stages of cognitive development. He identified the four stages of cognitive development as sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. (McLeod, 2015) Piaget placed a heavy emphasis on how interactions with the environment influenced cognitive development and that development leads to learning. He believed that children develop understandings of concepts based on their environment and they adjust their understandings as they experience changes. (McLeod, 2015)