Qualitative Research: Inclusionary Criteria And Screening Process

A doctoral degree combining both supervisory professional mental health counseling skills and counselor education has always been at the forefront of both my personal and professional goals. Being afforded the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree in Counselor Education and Supervision will allow me the ability to enhance my professional competencies and achieve my set goals. My primary desire is to obtain a position as a college professor that will allow me to nurture the professional growth and maturity of future mental health professionals. Pursuing the doctoral degree will simultaneously assist in developing skillsets that will further prepare me for advanced opportunities in not only teaching but supervision and research. Additionally, I desire to devote time and research to small rural communities to establish prevention based programs that will bridge communities as it relates to mental health challenges. A PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Capella University will afford me the opportunities to positively impact change in future professionals and the communities for which I serve.

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.

I believe counseling is a collaborative partnership between client and counselor. Furthermore, this collaborative partnership is built from trust and acceptance of both client and counselor. I hope in conjunction with clients to understand the issues and concerns so to help them tap into their wisdom, creativity, and strengths to meet their current challenges. I believe in a comprehensive perspective through which clients can better comprehend themselves in the framework that our thinking about events can lead to emotional and behavioral upset. Moreover, counselors are to provide a safe environment for clients to explore their challenges and identify ways to move differently in overcoming these challenges.

This paper will provide the reader with a reflection of my professional identity. This will focus on the role of a professional counselor and the differences between a professional counselor and other related professionals. It will also integrate how religious and spiritual beliefs can impact professional counseling. It will summarize my beliefs and values and what I plan to do so that I will not impose my beliefs on clients. Also, I will reflect on what I have learned during this course and how it will impact my future as a counselor.

The purpose of this memo is to provide a professional biography of the person I interviewed for the expert interview portion of this project. Dr. William Harrar is the person I chose to interview, Dr. Harrar is the Director of Bloomsburg University’s Center for Counseling and Human Development. It will be a concise report, consisting of Dr. Harrar’s education, field experience, and publications. I will highlight items in the aforementioned areas that best reflect Dr. Harrar’s expertise.

On a bright and crisp morning of March 25, 2015, I interviewed Joni Roche and learned what a typical day was like for this Professional Counselor. Mrs. Roche has owned her own practice for nearly eighteen years and has truly loved every single part of it. Mrs. Roche has received a Master of the Arts degree and is a Licensed Profession Counselor and a Nationally Credited Counselor. During my interview with Mrs. Roche, I truly learned so many things from different counseling techniques, what it is like to have a private practice and the good and bad things counseling comes with that people do not necessarily speak about.

According to author Kendra Cherry, “professional counseling is an application of mental health, psychological or development principles, through cognitive, affective, behavioral or systemic intervention strategies, that address wellness, personal growth, or career development” (Cherry - Paraphrase). Many counselors specialize in specific forms of therapy. Generally, counselors who focus on specific types of counseling methods usually require advanced knowledge in the specific field. Counseling can be described as guidance of an individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history information, using various techniques of the personal interview and testing interests as well as aptitudes. Cognitive behavioral

When attempting to identify as a professional counselor, it is important to understand the basic elements of counseling as it pertains to individual specializations. The wellness model and the key philosophies of the counseling profession: wellness, resilience and prevention are examined. The ability to articulate the roles and characteristics to understand how they relate to the different professional roles is

The Self-Inventory test for chapter one is a series of questions that ask about how one views Counselors as a person and a professional. Some of these questions were simple to answer because there is already a strong opinion towards the context. Others, however, were much trickier to answer. Mainly because I have not thought about the certain circumstance that was presented before.

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 a relatively young profession when compared to other mental health professions. In my brief personal and professional experience with the field, I have come to define counseling as a process of engagement between two people, both of whom are bound to change through a collaborative process that involves both the therapist and the client in co-constructing solutions to concerns.

Although professional standards were promoted throughout the 20th century in a wide range of settings (Centore & Milacci, 2008), it has only within the last quarter century or so that the counseling profession established a formal entity called the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) in 1981 for this purpose (Adams, 2006). A year later, the National Board for Certified Counselors, Inc. and Affiliates (NBCC) was established in 1982 to provide accreditation standards for counselor education as well as a method of assessing educational knowledge (Adams, 2006). In this regard, Juhnke (2009) reports that, "The NBCC was established through the American Counseling Association (ACA) in 1982. The reason for NBCC's original existence

Holly Forester-Miller, Ph.D. Thomas Davis, Ph.D. Copyright © 1996, American Counseling Association. A free publication of the American Counseling Association promoting ethical counseling practice in service to the public. -- Printed and bound copies may be purchased in quantity for a nominal fee from the Online Resource Catalog or by calling the ACA Distribution Center at 800.422.2648. ACA grants reproduction rights to libraries, researchers and teachers who wish to copy all or part of the contents of this document for scholarly purposes provided that no fee for the use or possession of such copies is charged to the ultimate consumer of the copies. Proper citation to ACA must be given.

All research is meant to fulfill specific purposes, research a problem, or expand the knowledge of those interested. Qualitative research is no different in the same aspect, but goes about the processes in a different way of the quantitative quality. As presented by Plano Clark and Creswell (2010) qualitative data is much broader and focuses on the view of contributors in a greater widesweeping generalization. Applying such to the research article of Mutale, et al. (2013) where the overall research was to understand the link between WHO building blocks within the healthcare system of Zambia, there was a connection between the research processes and the overall presentation of the article. Presented is an overall analysis of the article written by Mutale et al. (2013) as it relates to strong data anlysis and overall reporting. Moreover, the following is a systematically presention of the general concepts of the presentation as it relates to qualitative research evaluations.

Research is the process of collecting, studying and analyzing data to answer questions. Researchers use the following methodologies to assist in obtaining conclusive results; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. In research, specifics are used to create knowledge. Each method in research has advantages and disadvantages, however, for conclusive representation of data, each method should be considered. The dissemination of a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method study has more to do with cultural competence. It formulates the focus of the research, gather data and analysis the reporting. Researchers in the field of psychology and counseling should be able to empower research practice. (Fassinger & Marrow, 2013). Each