There are many people that suffer from mental distress or other problems that impact on their psychological well-being. In such condition such people face difficulties in maintaining daily activities, fail to focus on study or work and relationship issue as well. People could not express their feelings to others, hence, they fail to find out any solution to resolve their problems, which in turn may affect their mental health to an extent and could lead to the suffering from mental health issue such as depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and others (Kelleher et al. 2015). Therefore, it is important to communicate with such people and help them to understand their problem and identify effective way to resolve their problem in order to minimize the risk of suffering from mental illness. In this regards, coaching or counselling play a significant role (Dowling and Rickwood 2016). The process of counselling helps a person to explore their problems or difficulties such as stress or emotional feelings. Such explanation helps to understand the reason of emotional distress, hence, it becomes easy to introduce strategies in order to help that person to reduce stress or psychological problems and live a meaningful life while maintaining mental well-being (Rückert 2015). The professional counsellor use counselling skills and different modalities to help their clients and they are highly trained to utilise various counselling approaches according to the personality and problem of their clients (Midgley, Hayes and Cooper 2017.). In order to become a professional counsellor it is important to understand own strength and weakness so that one can improve his/her practice and provide service effectively. Therefore it is important to reflect on own practice experience (Dowling and Rickwood 2016). In this regards, I will reflect on an experience of counselling which I have encountered with my friend. I will use the Gibb’s reflective cycle in order to reflect in a logical manner.
Practical application of knowledge regarding counselling is difficult. It is important to evaluate my own practice and identify mistakes, so that I can modify them and improve my practice as a counsellor. In this regards I have chosen one of my friend to explore my skills and knowledge in counselling and we have decided to conduct 4 session for the purpose of this counselling. During the session my friend has described that he has a problem of interacting with new people and he takes much time to be friendly with a person due to some trust issue. Due to such problem he faces lots of problems while interacting with professors or other peers. Such condition may create various issues in future practice and may affect his profession as well. Hence, focusing on this issue I have started the sessions and till now two sessions have been done with him.
As a student I have learned about different aspects of coaching or counselling during my learning session. There is huge difference in learning or gathering knowledge about counselling and utilise the knowledge in practical field. Hence, I was excited while discussing about this sessions of counselling. It is a great opportunity for me to explore my knowledge and evaluate my practice. I feel that this experience has helped me to identify my weakness and strength and has gave me the opportunity to identify my mistakes and areas of improvement. At first I was nervous during the first session, as I had no idea about starting a session and how to introduce myself to a known person and make him comfortable with the conversation. However, I have the theoretical knowledge, but I was confused about using this theoretical knowledge in practical field. Whereas, during the session I was much confident about the session and approached the client more confidently which has helped to gain the trust of the client. Hence, I have felt that this experience has enhanced my self-confidence in an effective manner. On the other hand I feel happy as I successfully identified some problems of my client and I have encouraged him to express his problems so that I can understand the central issue and help him out to gain confidence while interacting with others. In addition, I am learning about utilising theoretical knowledge in practical field which could help me to improve my practice and establish myself as a successful counsellor in future.
There are various positive things in this session of counselling. For example, as I explained before, this session has gave me the opportunity to explore my knowledge and skills and I have learned about the utilisation of theoretical knowledge in a professional way. Hence, I got the chance to evaluate my practice as a counsellor. On the other hand, I have noticed that, I was confused about introducing myself, the way in which I could start the conversation and whether I could make the client comfortable, however, after starting the session I have communicated with my client in a polite manner and allowed him to express about his concern. I have started the session with some general conversation and gradually entered in the topic of our counselling, through which I have realised that I have good communication skill and I could use it during my practice to make my client comfortable and gain trust, so that they could share their problem without any hesitation. In addition, I have used my knowledge to regarding the counselling modalities. As my client has problem in interacting with others due to trust issue, I have used the humanistic integrative modality of counselling, because, this modality contains the roots of humanistic philosophies and it aims to motivate the clients and facilitate development of individual so that they could interact with others and maintain relationship with others and society as well (Kok 2016). Furthermore, I have introduced a feedback session to understand the perception and view of the client regarding the counselling session. Through the feedback session I have understood that, my client was confused during the first session, however, my way of communicating with him and the professional manner I have used such as complying ethics like maintaining privacy in the session has helped him to trust me and share his concerns without fear. Such comments have influenced me to improve my skills, engage efficiently in counselling and believe that I could help people through counselling and make a bright future in this profession. One of the negative things in this session was my lack of self-confidence during the initial period of the first session, due which I have wasted some time to reduce my nervousness, however, it has been resolved during the second session and I have realized that this experience has increased my self-confidence. Another limitation of this session is the client is known to me, hence I have faced less difficulties, however, I need to perform such counselling with unknown clients to understand my strength and weakness.
There are various counselling modalities, for example, cognitive behaviour therapy, psychodynamics, existential, jungian and humanistic integrative. These modalities are used by the counsellors according to the condition and problems of the clients. Some of them is used in unconscious condition, such as Jungian and psychodynamic modalities, whereas, existential counselling helps the client to improve sense of life. These approaches were not required for my client as he was conscious during the session and he needs help to improve his relation with peers and wider society as he faces problem in interacting with people due to trust issue. On the other hand, cognitive behaviour therapy helps to modify behaviour through cognitive therapy which was not appropriate for my client as well. Hence, I have used humanistic integrative approach which could help him in the best way (Kok 2016). Till now the impact of the counselling is positive as my client has explained his issues freely. In the following sessions I will help him through several recommendations and evaluate the effectiveness of the recommendations. Therefore, the complete session would help me to identify that whether, I am efficient to complete counselling with clients or not.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, it can be said that, it is a great opportunity to explore knowledge in practical field and improve own practice. I am happy to see my progress and improvement as a counsellor. Till now the sessions have impacted positively on the client. In addition I have identified some of my strength such as effective communication and ability to select appropriate approach for a particular client. I would like to continue the following sessions with recommendations and evaluation of the effectiveness of such recommendations. Hence, the complete session would help me to understand my efficiency to establish myself as a successful counsellor in future.
As I explained before, it is important to perform the complete session with the client in order to understand my ability to become an efficient counsellor. I have decided to provide some recommendations, hence I would like to research on the issues of my client and identify the best interventions for him. There is no cultural difference between me and my client, hence did not face any cultural issue, but in future, I have to deal with people from diverse cultural background, hence, I would like to improve my cultural competency. Furthermore, I would focus on my communication for more improvement which could facilitate my practice. If I got the chance to apply my skills in practical field I would like to select an unknown client in order to minimize the limitation of this particular session. I believe that such activities would help me to evaluate and improve my future practice in an effective manner.
References:
Dowling, M. and Rickwood, D., 2016. Exploring hope and expectations in the youth mental health online counselling environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, pp.62-68.
Kelleher, I., Wigman, J.T., Harley, M., O’Hanlon, E., Coughlan, H., Rawdon, C., Murphy, J., Power, E., Higgins, N.M. and Cannon, M., 2015. Psychotic experiences in the population: association with functioning and mental distress. Schizophrenia Research, 165(1), pp.9-14.
Kok, J.K., 2016. E-counselling Modality: Following the Changing Learning Needs of Young People in Higher Education Institutions of Malaysia. In Fast forwarding Higher Education Institutions for Global Challenges (pp. 97-106). Springer, Singapore.
Midgley, N., Hayes, J. and Cooper, M. eds., 2017. Essential Research Findings in Child and Adolescent Counselling and Psychotherapy. Sage.
Rückert, H.W., 2015. Students? mental health and psychological counselling in Europe. Mental Health & Prevention, 3(1-2), pp.34-40.
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