Grounded Theory And The Constructivist Theory

In this assignment I intend to define ‘counselling skills and knowledge’ and then show how I actively employ these qualities during my everyday life. These include informal helping interactions with family and friends, in a supervisory capacity at work and during skills practice sessions as part of my counselling course. Finally I’ll analyse the effects that these helping interactions have on me personally and the various ways in which I deal with those effects.

In this reflective essay I will provide an analysis of the counselling session I conducted and recorded. This will include a summary of the session. I will also describe the micro and advanced counselling skills utalised, as well as a critical evaluation of their effectiveness. A discussion of my application of these skills, as well as areas of possible improvement will supported by reference to relevant literature.

‘Employing a qualitative methodology, underpinned by a constructivist world view, has provided the means to generate rich, deep and contextualised understandings of the research issue, and an appreciation of the socially constructed and experienced realities of the participants.’ (Highfield 2012)

My positionality is composed both of cultural aspects and personal lived experiences that engender me towards certain perspectives (Holmes, 2014), thus introducing subjectivity in my research. As such, I must understand where my positionality is derived from to ensure that my research remains as “truthful” as possible (Holmes, 20014). I must remain self-conscious about my own views and positions and how they may influence my design, execution and interpretation of the research data findings (Greenback, 2003). Understanding my own positionality further guides me to remain cognizant of it while practicing and sustaining reflexivity throughout my research. Berger (2013) remarks it as a means of acknowledging my own subjectivity,

It takes very special people to want to make a difference in people’s lives, to want to help them to be better. Some people seek to become counselors after overcoming a most important life challenge. The individuals that seek the profession of marriage and family therapy do not think of this work as a job or career, more typically a constellation of life experiences that demand explanation and a sense that others seek one out for assistance and emotional sustenance become driving forces leading one to counseling profession (An Invitation to Counseling Work).

Counseling is indeed an effective and powerful tool in helping the less fortunate with their problems. However, counseling by itself is cannot be used to advance clients’ wellbeing. There must be an interlocking of counseling, consultation and social advocacy. That is, the oppressed clientele would greatly benefit from outside consultants that have the capability of promoting change within the corrosive environments in which

When comparing and contrasting the differences in the three approaches, I will review the relationship between client and counsellor. I will attempt to discover how the relationship is formed and how it is maintained during the therapeutic process. Once this has been established, I will then look at how the changes occur in the therapeutic relationship and which techniques will be used. I will compare and contrast the approaches of Carl Rogers, Sigmund Freud and Albert Ellis. I will look at how their theories have impacted on the counselling processes in modern times and throughout history.

In counseling there are many factors to consider. The United States is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. The main problem is the distribution of the wealth is not always so equal. This discussion board will look at the distinct counseling challenges uncovered while with dealing with people in to upper, middle, working, and lower socio economic group in the United States.

Counselling is a form of communication whereby one individual, from now on referred to as the listener, forms a helping relationship with one or a group of individuals. (Hough 2010) A counselling type relationship is used in a multitude of everyday home and work settings. These individuals may not call themselves counsellors or indeed have any formal counselling skills training. It is this training that sets apart therapeutic counselling from other forms of helping communication. Sanders, (2007, p15) defines counselling skills as “interpersonal

For this research article the author has chosen to use a grounded theory approach. Grounded theory is a qualitative method of research which allows the researchers to construct meaning of the selected topic via a process of development and reflection of the data collected (Charmaz, 2014). Grounded theory provides a flexible and intuitive process to data collection and analysis allowing the construction of a theory that is truly grounded from the data (Charmaz, 2014).

This article is an excellent example of work that is based on grounded theory and demonstrates the ways in which qualitative research provides the kind of rich data that are often lacking when a quantitative study is used. This is not to say that either qualitative or quantitative studies are better than each other. Rather, these different types of studies provide different types of data, and these different types of data provide answers to different types of questions.

There are a number of historical theories in counseling which have been used to assist clients during the counseling process. This week’s readings provided quite a few concepts from counseling theories which were valuable and interesting to me. Many coincided with my views on the reasons for people’s behavior and human nature. These concepts are also meaningful to me for various reasons. Each of these psychological concepts might be useful when having a counseling relationship with a client in a variety of ways.

Participants were asked the central question of “ Describe your personal counseling experience”, with additional questions and prompts (see Appendix_) used to learn more about the participants personal counseling experience along with the personal and professional life factors that impacted counselor development. All initial interviews were transcribed after the initial interview. The transcripts were checked for accuracy against the original audiotape. Permission was received during the initial interview to provide participants with an emailed copy of the interview transcript for reflection and to review for any changes in preparation for the follow-up telephone interview. Once the initial interview transcript was sent to the participant by email, the follow-up interviews were scheduled for a minimum of 30 minutes. During the follow-up interview, participants were asked the questions (see Appendix _), to ensure accuracy of the initial transcript and to obtain clarity and collect additional information related to their personal counseling experience. All follow-up interviews were transcribed after the follow-up interview by the researcher with data analysis occurring

Social constructivism’s origins are largely attributed to Lev Vygotsky (1978). Vygotsky believed that social constructivism is the idea that learning occurs when people are socially active; in other words, learning is created through our interaction with others. In a constructivist style classroom, the focus shifts from the teacher teaching the students to the students teaching each other and having more control over what they learn by asking questions and coming up with their own conclusion on things (2016). This style of teaching can be very successful when the teacher provides enough scaffolding. In a typical classroom, you have a teacher standing in the front of the room lecturing to students while they sit and take notes on the information being given so they can spit it back up for a test they will have at the end of the unit. In the constructivist style classroom, the students are pushed to be more active and engaged in their learning process (Education Theory). The teacher creates an environment where students are urged to speak up and share what they think and have the class run more on a student run process. The teacher’s role in this style is not to sit and lecture information but rather engage students actively to find this information on their own and discover it so that it creates more meaning and provides a better understanding. The main goal in this type of learning environment is problem solving. This style of teaching promotes self-guidance and can even

This is important in order to gain data that is qualitative, that should give an account of views and emotions. The grounded theory approach also involves theoretical sampling which investigates incidents, and populations, therefore this tells us that the method used was relevant to this study. A theory should then that stem from the data, this concept was correct in this case, as several themes emerged from the results. The data is analysed as it is collected using interviews, or observations (Punch 1998 cited in Bell 2008). The researcher’s methods related to the grounded theory approach, as indicated.