Practicing counselors integrate counseling theories in their works while undertaking diagnosis tests to determine challenges, preparing a treatment plan for the identified challenge, and evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment intervention based on the client’s progress. Counselors usually begin their treatment for their clients by assessing and diagnosing them to determine the challenge that needs to be addressed. The assessment and diagnosis process usually involves using various psychological tools and applying the relevant theories to help the counselor determine the underlying challenge. One of the most common theories used in diagnosis processes is the cognitive behavioral theory, which allows the counselor in practice to assess patterns of thinking and behavior of the client, hence being able to explore underlying unconscious conflict (Eskildsen et al., 2020). The cognitive behavior theory holds that there is a relation between thoughts, body sensations, behavior, and emotions; hence, when one is distressed, one can alter one’s patterns of thinking and emotions. Based on the relationship between thoughts and behavior, cognitive behavior theory can be used by counselors for treatment purposes by changing how clients think, hence altering the interpretation of their environment (Beck, 2020). The assessment of the client’s progress based on the intervention applied by the counselor may also depend on various theories to help understand what constitutes progress and how to measure it effectively.
Personal Characteristics
One of the characteristics that I want to improve is my counseling adaptability to diverse clients’ needs. As a practicing counselor, I encounter unique clients’ needs, which makes me take longer to decide the most appropriate approach to discover the situation hence the need to advance my flexibility and adaptability to various counseling theories and techniques (Drosos & Korfiatis, 2023). My plan to ensure growth in this area is to practice generating responses in diverse counseling scenarios, explore counseling alternative approaches, and seek supervision from experienced counselors.
Moreover, I would like to boost my empathy with clients who often require emotional support during counseling sessions. I believe that by increasing my empathy levels, I would be able to meet the requirements of my profession and address clients’ needs for emotional support, hence being a caring counselor (Priya et al., 2023). My plan to ensure growth in empathy and the ability to convey genuine emotional presence is to study literature on empathy communication to refine my understanding of expressing sympathy.
I am also focused on improving my cultural competence in counseling. Counselors are expected to appreciate the diversity of their clients’ backgrounds, identities, and perspectives, hence offering an effective service without discrimination (Redding & Cobb, 2023). My plan to ensure the growth of my cultural competence is to actively seek feedback from clients and colleagues from different cultural backgrounds to deepen my awareness and sensitivity.
Presentation of Issues
The client-presenting issues are essential in counselling because they help the counselor determine the most appropriate treatment approach or technique based on the case presented (Gasparro, 2023). The issue is described as a challenging matter that makes the client seek the support of a counselor; hence, it needs to be addressed with the most applicable approach. The issue presented by clients can at times resemble or be unique on various factors such as symptoms like anxiety, trauma, or depression and also vary in their intensity, hence the need for the counselor to assess the issue before deciding on a treatment approach (Kim et al., 2023). Although other counselors may opt to use a single approach for their clients, the treatment choice relies on the nature and severity of the presenting issue, the counselor’s expertise, and available resources. I believe that applying the same approach to most issues of different clients may not be effective because human issues present in a diverse format, which makes it challenging for a counselor to apply a single approach. Counseling approaches are often designed to be applied to a particular case, such as in the case of the cognitive behavioral approach, to counter symptoms of anxiety or depression (Hoseini et al., 2024). Applying the same cognitive behavioral approach to other issues, such as interpersonal dynamics of the client’s distress, may not be as effective as applied to anxiety or depression issues.
Systematic Treatment Plan
The development process of a treatment plan is an essential practice that needs to be conducted with great care so that it is able to cater to all the needs of the client. The initial step that needs to be undertaken is conducting an assessment of the presented issues by the client to help the counselor identify available resources and possible challenges for the treatment; hence, the information for the assessment may be gathered through various ways, such as interviews or questionnaires (Jongsma et al., 2023). The following step to develop a systematic plan is to use the collected information for the diagnosis of the client’s issues from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (Saengduenchai et al., 2023). Based on the identified issue, the treatment plan requires the counselor to establish treatment goals that are specific and relevant to address the client’s needs. The findings from the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment goals are then used to determine the most appropriate treatment intervention to address the client’s needs (Cohen et al., 2023). The choice of intervention requires knowledge of various theoretical approaches and techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, as guided by previous steps. A realistic action plan for every identified treatment goal is also essential to help break down the procedure to be followed till the desired outcome. A counselor is also required to monitor and access the entire treatment process; hence, there is a need to add a monitoring, measuring, and tracking strategy for various steps of the plan (Fitriyah, 2023).
Person-centered techniques
The other person-centered technique that I would seek to integrate into my counseling is the ability to reflect on the client’s situation. I believe that integrating the reflection trait into my role as a counselor will offer a mutual benefit to the client and me (Wu et al., 2023). The client will feel deeply understood as the counselor expresses the feeling that proves their understanding of the issue. As a counselor, I would be able to determine the most appropriate intervention, for I would greatly understand my client’s needs while reflecting on their issues (Elliott et al., 2023).
For instance, in a case where a client expresses frustration and feelings resulting from a personal relationship argument with the partner. The client is evidently affected by the argument and doubts his ability to effectively communicate and maintain healthy boundaries with his partner. His counselor can ask the client questions that acknowledge the client’s situation, such as the uncertain feeling of navigating the challenges in his relationship as the counselor seeks to find more information from the client. As the counselor reflects on the client’s concerns and feelings, the counselor demonstrates empathy and creates a safe space to delve deeper into their thoughts and emotions (Slattery et al., 2020).
References
Beck, J. S. (2020). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond. Guilford Publications.
Cohen, Z. D., Barnes-Horowitz, N. M., Forbes, C. N., & Craske, M. G. (2023). Measuring the active elements of cognitive-behavioral therapies. Behavior Research and Therapy, 167, 104364.
Drosos, N., & Korfiatis, A. (2023). Career Adaptability and Resilience of Mental Health Service Users: The Role of Career Counseling. Behavioral Sciences, 13(11), 886.
Elliott, R., Bohart, A., Larson, D., Muntigl, P., & Smoliak, O. (2023). Empathic reflection. Psychotherapy skills and methods that work, 99-137.
Eskildsen, A., Reinholt, N., van Bronswijk, S., Brund, R. B., Christensen, A. B., Hvenegaard, M., … & Arnfred, S. (2020). Personalized psychotherapy for outpatients with major depression and anxiety disorders: Transdiagnostic versus diagnosis-specific group cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 44, 988-1001.
Fitriyah, L. (2023). Enhancing Counseling Services in Secondary Schools Through Implementing Training Modules and Counseling Materials for Peer Counselors. Bulletin of Community Engagement, 3(2), 175-192.
Gasparro, S. E. (2023). THE RELATIONSHIP OF DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES IN ADULTS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY TO DIFFERENT TYPES OF MENTAL HEALTH SYMPTOMS.
Hoseini, S. S., Gharayagh Zandi, H., Bagherzadeh, F., & Noferesti, A. (2024). Cognitive group behavioral therapy and its effectiveness on anxiety, depression, and anger caused by trauma in injured athletes. Journal of sports and Motor development and learning.
Jongsma Jr, A. E., Peterson, L. M., McInnis, W. P., & Bruce, T. J. (2023). The adolescent psychotherapy treatment planner. John Wiley & Sons.
Kim, S. Y., Lee, J. S., & Choi, H. (2023, February). The Effects of Art Therapy on Anxiety and Distress for Korean–Ukrainian Refugee: Quasi-Experimental Design Study. In Healthcare (Vol. 11, No. 4, p. 466). MDPI.
Priya, P., Mishra, K., Totala, P., & Ekbal, A. (2023, August). Partner: A persuasive mental health and legal counseling dialogue system for women and children crime victims. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-23 (pp. 6183-6191).
Redding, R. E., & Cobb, C. (2023). Sociopolitical values as the deep culture in culturally-competent psychotherapy. Clinical Psychological Science, 11(4), 666-682.
Saengduenchai, S., Nilaban, S., Singtho, T., Ranuwattananon, A., & Kalayasiri, R. (2023). Development and Validation of a New Substance Use Disorder Screening Test Based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Journal of Health Science and Medical Research, 41(4), 2023932.
Slattery, J. M., & Park, C. L. (2020). Empathic counseling: Building skills to empower change. APA Books. Available from: American Psychological Association. 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002.
Wu, Z., Balloccu, S., Reiter, E., Helaoui, R., Recupero, D. R., & Riboni, D. (2023, July). Are Experts Needed? On Human Evaluation of Counselling Reflection Generation. In Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) (pp. 6906-6930).
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