Feminist Approach In Counseling Essay

1. Why did Cato object to repealing the Oppian law? What was the basis of his objections?

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.

There are many theoretical models of counseling. Often, a diverse approach or the use of several approaches is best for the resolution of problems. I utilize several different theories and strategies in my role as a counselor. However, it is the Individual personal theory and the Family theory model that anchors my orientation to counseling as a Christian counselor.

Values, Morals, and Beliefs are components that play a role in an individual’s self-identity. The establishment of these components shape human nature, behavior, and the development of an individual’s purpose. The basis of these fundamentals has contributed to my desire to become a counselor. This paper will discuss my views of human nature, factors of behavior changes, goals of therapy, the roles of a therapist, and the counseling approaches that I chose to incorporate in a practice.

As a counseling student, it is very important to formulate a counseling theory tailored to ones’ own personality and beliefs. A counselor may choose a single theory to model when practicing therapy or pick and choose components and techniques from various theories, otherwise known as eclecticism. No theory is considered right or wrong. Understanding the different therapeutic approaches are important to effective counseling, however, counselors must also understand their own personal value, view of human nature, human behavior, counseling techniques and the purpose and goals of counseling. Understanding these components along with the different theoretical approaches will provide the counselor with a 9 knowledge of their own counseling, orientation and is essential to not only the productivity of counseling but the growth of the counselor as well.

Men are treated vastly differently than women. For example, men are expected to not show their emotions. In “why men don’t last” by Natalie Angier, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, she described how even when men are young boys they have their emotions shamed out of them by their parents and their peers (Angier 1011). In “The War Against Boys” Christina Hoff Sommers, a writer of several books, wrote how men have it imprinted on them at a young age that showing your emotions is a sign of weakness. Men are also taught to be self-sufficient and not ask for help (Sommers 1061). For example, there were many times when I was in school but needed help. I never asked because I always wanted to think of myself as self-sufficient, that I did not need the help from my teacher and I could figure it out myself. Now, of course, I realize how dumb that was that there is no shame in asking for help,

The professional counselor’s job title I interviewed is a Program Counselor for the Women’s Mental Health Unit at Riverside General Hospital. The types of services and programs she offers as a counselor for the women’s mental health unit are: substance abuse counseling with in-house residents, detoxification, transitional living for the women’s unit, outpatient program, and mental health counseling. She also aids in helping her clients in gaining custody of their children.

Armed with this new awareness, the therapeutic process from a feminist perspective was reconceptualized to include an emphasis on social and political forces and an acknowledgement of their role in disempowerment for women (Brown, 2010). Additionally, the seed of creating a more respectful and humanistic approach to the counselling relationship was planted. Raising the consciousness of clients around power and focusing on societal transformation rather than individual adjustment became the identify of feminist therapy and to what Lerner (1993) referred to as the ‘feminist consciousness’. This perspective afforded practitioners a new way to view “problems” presented in therapy.

For thousands of years, established gender roles have been a part of our society. Women are commonly known as sensitive, emotional, or passive. On the contrary, men are described as rational, competitive, independent, or aggressive. Believing women are more emotional than men is stereotyping. However, the stereotype is not entirely untrue. Development of gender roles is often conditioned more by environmental or cultural factors than by hereditary or biological factors. The development of gender roles between men and women involves the inference of peer community of each gender, the communication style of male and female and the intimacy or connection level of men and women.

A lot of males’ violent behavior and females’ complaisance can be accredited to family and institutional socialization. Parents usually raise boys on aggressive sports, such as hockey and football, which encourage violence. Girls, however, are generally brought up on "feminine" activities, dance and figure skating to name a few, which promote a gentle, polite nature. It is the rare parent that heeds their four-year-old son’s aspiration to be a ballet dancer by purchasing the child a pair of tights and a leotard. When a boy shows more interest in dolls than in trucks, his family may be distressed, and provoke him to reveal his "masculine" side. After striving for egalitarianism between the sexes for so many years, families still deter young girls from pursuits of hockey stardom, hoping to interest them in Pointe shoes. Displays of emotion by boys are often criticized for being "unmasculine", whereas emotional behavior in girls tends to be expected and accepted. As a result, boys tend to not only hide their feelings, but criticize friends for showing their emotions. Girls, on the other hand, encourage one another to express feelings and console one another naturally.

A counselor should be very observant and able to interpret non-verbal communication for example if the patient looks angry, and then find out the cause of his/her anger first. An effective counselor should provide non-possessive warmth in a counseling environment. Smile and show concern and acceptance by showing comfort, empathy, and understanding to the patient.

ALTER THIS PAPER....IT HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO TURN IT IN....USING IT VERBATIN WILL RESULT IN A 100 MARK AND IDENTIFICATION WITH ANOTHER STUDENT PAPER...IN OTHER WORDS, YOU WILL BE FOUND TO BE COMPLETELY CHEATING AND MAY BE EXPELLED FROM YOUR UNIVERSITY...I WOULD USE IT AS A GUIDE, A LAUNCHING POINT....SOMETHING YOU COULD PARAPHRASE OR BORROW SOME IDEAS...

Annette Bair and Marilyn Friedman have opposing views on whether women have distinct moral perspectives. Like Friedman, I believe that women have no different moral perspectives than men. Some people, like Bair, think that women base their moral perspectives on merely trust and love and men base theirs on justice. Friedman points out that care and justice coincide . People use justice to decide what is appropriate in caring relationships and care is brought into account when determining what is just. Since these two moral perspectives correspond, gender does not distinguish different moral perspectives.

This may be because of the socialisation men receive when growing up. It is argued that men and women are socialised differently as children. Women are essentially expected to conform to norms and values that society impose on them: they are generally considered by society as the weaker and passive sex, labelled as a mother, a carer and are expected to be a conformist, deferential and diligent. Girls may be brought up to fear violence inflicted upon them whereas men are often socialised differently in that they are brought up to oppose it if threatened. Men are encouraged at a young age to be competitive, aggressive and sexually

There are a few problems identified with the women's center. In listing these problems, the focus will be on addressing one or two of the identified problems. The first issue is the name of the center, while the center has open up its doors to all populations, men, women, and children. The name of the agency remains the same. This may be causing problem in the attracting the right clients and also leaving out other groups like the LGBT and transgender population. Another issues faced by this agency is the lack of necessary resources, tools and technologies to run an counseling facility in a diverse and growing community. The center lacks the most basic tool to run a counseling center, and upgraded computer systems is needed to properly track