For this assignment, take the perspective of a therapist working with clients. T

Question

For this assignment, take the perspective of a therapist working with clients. This will help you honestly assess your own development and more objectively evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using an integrative approach to counseling. Answer each of the following questions thoroughly and provide examples where requested to substantiate your points.

Do you think therapists should focus on becoming an expert in one particular counseling approach or should they try to become proficient in more than one approach? Provide an explanation for your answer and Identify what the three most important characteristics of a successful counselor you consider to be. Describe how these characteristics can be developed or strengthened then, identify and describe some of the characteristics best developed in the counseling process with client while supporting points with examples, as well as, touching on areas of personal and professional development that would potentially unethical for the counselor to develop in the counseling process with clients and explain in detail with examples.

Explanation / Answer

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Psychology is a field that is traversed by different disorders with a few major causes at the apex of each junction. For instance, DID, trauma, schizophrenia etc are generally from childhood or past traumas. ADD, ADHD etc are generally in children. PTSD, stress, anxiety etc can stem from depression about a particular issue that the patient might face. Therefore, a therapist should neither focus on a single disorder nor should they handle every disorder. A good therapist should bundle their work in order to form a special skill set. For instance, child psychologists today, might deal with ADD, ADHD and other problems that a child might face today.

A successful counsellor should have begun their work as an apprentice to an experienced doctor. In this way, they are moulded in the field at the beginning of their career. Secondly, the more experience the therapist might have, the better their work is likely to be. Thirdly, a good therapist should overlook each case in detail. For instance, the therapist should follow the patient’s case from the first session until the disorder is actually cured or curbed.

In order to develop these characterises, a therapist should have enough work experience within the first few years at the beginning of their career. This work experience should be at hospitals, clinic duty, apprenticeship etc. This would help them encounter as many cases as possible and collect experience. A psychologist that has begun work as an apprentice will have the opportunity to get as much advice and learn about as many old cases from their job as possible. This will enable them to fit the knowledge of several years of work in simply a few months of diligent service. Also, a therapist should be able to file each patient’s case comprehensively and offer the best care by sticking with the case until the end.

For instance, a therapist might have a patient with a rare psychological disorder. The therapist diligently prepares a case file and notes down the behaviour, the symptoms, the medication, the test results etc. Eventually, the therapist might figure out the problem the patient is having through their understanding of the theoretical or textbook definition of the disorder. The patient is now recovering well after the proper therapy has been administered. After a few years, the therapist notices that another patient has the same and familiar symptoms. In such a case, the therapist refers to her old case files, uses the knowledge gained from the old case and uses it to help out with the new case. This is where experience, preparation of comprehensive files and sticking with a patient from the beginning to the end will have helped tremendously.

Conversely, a therapist should not develop unethical attachments or develop extremely personal relationships with a patient that they are currently curing. For instance, even if a current patient might invite them to a meal it might be unethical to go. This is because developing a friendship outside of work might change the way the patient opens up to the therapist about imperative details. If a friendship might develop, the patient could also be too conscious to speak to their new friend as opposed to a professional therapist.

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