My Counseling Goals

My commitment to my goal of receiving a Master’s degree in counseling has been demonstrated throughout my studies at Rollins by maintaining a GPA of 4.0, my willingness to support my cohort, and by exhibiting an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Although I had retired on a fixed income from a business career due to a disability, I have confirmed my potential, stamina, and desire to counsel through my volunteer work as a guardian advocate, working with people who suffer from addiction, and by remaining an advocate for the LGBTQ community. I have thrived with my undergraduate internship at the Center for Drug Free Living and with my prepracticum at Centaur.

I plan to continue developing my theoretical orientation for practice with individuals, families and treatment groups by researching about the theory and putting my knowledge into practice. I also plan to attend workshops and watch videos that perform this therapeutic approach, I find that visual learning is best for me. I believe that it will take some trial, error and a lot of sessions to perfect but I am looking forward being competent in this area. My goal

Patience and acceptance is important to my personal philosophy because I believe counseling beings and ends with both. A goal I have is to enter into a client’s experience with them so I can be there with them every step of the way. Going through this journey will help the client explore their own thoughts and feelings. I entered into the field of counseling because I have compassion and a desire to help people reach and understand their full potential. As a counselor in training, I desire to help clients identify their own problems and concerns along with demonstrating a genuine compassion for the endeavors that they may face.

My personal philosophy of life and my philosophy of counseling has been deeply affected by my life experiences as a young child and also as an adult. I am fortunate that my life has been a good life and I consider myself to be fortunate to have to have good parents and many loving family members. I do not recall having any events in my childhood that I would consider to be abusive or neglectful on the part of my family, and for that I consider myself to be lucky. I know several people who were abused as a child and it seems to have impacted them in many aspects of their lives even into adulthood.

1. What were your personal goals for this session? In every session, I’m expected to be an attentive listener and stay within the client story. However; my personal goals as the peer counselor during this session was to go with the flow of the session.

In the beginning of the semester, I thought that I was not going to be able to go through with this program because I felt that I was not prepared to be in the clinic. The thought of being recorded made me feel very uncomfortable and nervous. I cannot believe how fast this semester went and how much information we learned. This semester was one of the most challenging, overwhelming, and nerve wrecking semesters that I have ever experienced. After a couple of practice sessions with my peers, it helped me feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable being recorded. As of right now, I feel very comfortable being in the clinic with my co-therapist and my client.

This text helped me develop a more practical view of Christian counseling. In my current area, there are no licensed Christian counselors. Because of this, I am finding that I am in the minority as I strive to make connections. My goal is to be able to be professional, ethical and effective, and to represent Christ in session and out of session. My first action step would be to commit my own personal life to prayer, studying the scripture, pursuing awareness of my sin, confession and forgiveness (McMinn, 2011). In all these things I want to make sure my goal of growth is focused on pursuing Christ, not winning over the affections or seeking approval from local professionals. This first step does have a multitude of steps within it, however,

My goals for this session was to apply more skills as the peer counselor. I’m always being an attentive listener and remaining in context with the client story. Every session, I’m always trying to prepare myself. Being the peer counselor, I have to follow the client lead without getting lost. During the last few sessions, it has been a challenge in preparing myself. The challenge begins, because I don’t know what issue the client will present. This allows me to think in my head more and get stuck with what questions to ask. Therefore; my goals for this session was to remain opened minded, follow the client story and apply more micro skills.

As the title of the course implies, my most significant learning experience was the building of a solid foundation for my career as a helper in the mental health field. This course has given me the tools to communicate professionally with other colleagues and enhanced my understanding of the support systems in place to help me achieve my goals as a counselor. Organizations such as ACA, NAADAC, SAMHSA, and local mental health associations were introduced to me in this course, where I have found a font of information and outpour of support from the professional community in order to pursue my career in the field of addictions.

I enrolled at Colorado Christian University so that I could pursue my calling to counsel the hurting children of this world. I thought that I would learn the history of the Bible and God’s plan for His people. I believe that the epic journey of the Israeli people is an example of God’s love, patience, and even frustration with His creation. I was excited to learn about scripture, theology, and eventually the counseling techniques that I will need in my vocation. I did not consider how important it would be to learn how to communicate and write – so that I can be an effective witness. The skills that I learned in this course will not only help me to graduate, but also save me time in assignments as I work to perfect my writing skills. Every course that I take prepares me for the journey and work ahead.

We don’t get to choose the families we’re born into. Growing up, I realized there were many fragments of my childhood that I had no control over. Whether it was my brother’s diagnosis of autism when he was three years old. Or my mom’s decision to have my brother and me be raised by my diabetic nana (which meant that instead of being a regular fourth grader, I had to become the caregiver of the family). I couldn’t control the fact that even when my mom did come back into our lives (and not by herself, but with another child) I still was more of the caregiver of the family than she was. And while it might have been easier for most teenagers to just walk away because they knew they deserved better, it was never easy for me. Because walking away meant there would be no one to look after my loved ones. No one make sure my nana has checked her blood

I have learned to communicate better with both my colleagues, patients and their families and how to develop therapeutic relationships. I have also improved in academic writing. I feel I have made positive impact on both patients and their families during module three and four placements. I safely practiced the clinical skills acquired during theory and on placement and have developed more confidence in delivering these skills.

Please read carefully the information provided below and if you have any questions or want further clarification, please let me know and we can discuss it in detail.

There I was at the lowest point in my life, found myself completely bothersome to myself and others around me by just sitting there at every therapy session I went to, which they were so much more unbearable than my anger management counseling, having to do nothing but just sit there waiting for an hour or two till my therapist would either show up and try to see if they could resolve my issues at or at school or would just have wasted much more of our (my) time being there. When you are sitting there in silence, it’s the only time where you just collect your thoughts and start to process things more clearly think what you could do just to make things easier for yourself and others, I only thought about how I was going to get out of these sessions, “Why am I here, ughhh.”

It is going to be hard for me to write about my career because at this moment I am in the middle of switching them. For the past four years I have felt called to be a counselor. I can understand teenagers, which is what I wanted my counseling group to be, more than anyone. I felt called to counseling because I wanted to use my past trials and mistakes to help others. I felt like that was the only way I would be able to serve God. I felt if I did not stay with my career in counseling that I would be betraying God because I was not directly showing His light to others through my career. I did not waiver from that field of study because I was scared. I did not open up myself to every option available. What I did not realize was that there does not have to be a specific way I show exemplify God in my life. It never occurred to me that every calling and vocation exemplified God because He was the one that gave me the ideas! After taking the Strengths Assessment and listening to the lectures on vocation and calling, I better understand how I am supposed to understand my career.