Professional Counseling

5 Pages 1270 Words

Professional Orientation to Counseling

According to Vacc and Loesch there is no quick and easy way to define or explain the term ‘counseling’, rather they consider the activity of mental health counseling complex, consisting of a number of assumptions.
Counselors require a myriad of ‘helping skills’ from what are referred to as intentional and unintentional helping skills. Counselors can use and draw upon helping skills and therapeutic constructs to strengthen and refine their counseling skills. In chapter 4, Helping Skills are elaborated on and described to assist the new counselor. Skills of this nature are useful in all forms of counseling; I found chapter seven, Working with Groups to be interesting and could easily understand how a counselor using ‘helping skills’ could quite effectively facilitate group sessions.
Chapter 9, focused on Assessment and Appraisal – again another very interesting topic. Understanding the need for assessments is critical for the new counselor. Assessments are not meant to be used alone, but in conjunction with other counseling methods, which can assist the counselor to understand the needs of the client while being able to choose appropriate counseling techniques.
Research in professional counseling was not something I expected to come across at great length, but according to Vacc and Loesch, it is extremely important for counselors. Heppner, Kivlighan, and Wampold (1998) stated that as professionals we have a responsibility to not only promote wellness with our clients, but to stay abreast of human nature and the field of counseling. Traditional research methodology is not necessarily the preferred method of research for professional counselors. It seems that the ‘single-subject’ design is more beneficial in measuring and demonstrating the effectiveness of counseling. The elements of single-subject research are based on measuring change, connecting the change to a charac...