Reflective Essay and Summary of Counseling Session

Reflective Essay and Summary of Counseling Session

An effective counseling session is one that helps the client to generate a positive development of self-awareness or well-being. It is essential that Counselors possess multiple skills and vast experience since these will help them in setting up clear short-term and long-term goals and devising ways to achieve them. As a permanent Counselor, a person needs a great sense of self awareness along with the need to develop a healthy and positive relationship with the client. In order to understand the needs of the client, counselors need to be able to use a myriad of counseling skills in verbal as well as and non-verbal ways.

During a counseling session, counselors can be confused very easily and encounter various difficulties to accomplish their goals. There are some common stages that can help a counselor maintain his boundaries and ensure that the counseling session moves towards a direct positive path. What is counseling? Based on the research that I have conducted recently and the experiences of carrying out direct counseling sessions, I have found the following information to be of vital importance in the counseling session.

Counselors need to have a great sense of self awareness in order to help a client develop self awareness. In this regard, Carl Roger proposed that people have the natural ability to find their own solutions to problems, explaining that it is extremely important for a counselor to avoid projecting his feeling and values to the client. He also explains how important it is for a councilor to assume that his client has similar experiences and values. The counselor-client relationship is very different than other personal relationships, particularly because the focus is strictly on the client. Hence, counselors need to avoid giving any opinions based on personal values and experiences. During my first experience of counseling session, the counselor did not give any advice but rather listened carefully to what I had to say. He also asked more questions in order to form an opinion.

Having a sense of cultural awareness is absolutely essential for a counselor. Cultural awareness includes the age, gender, sexual orientation, social and economic status, nationality, ethnicity, religions, and language of the client as well as the counselor. A counselor is more likely to be effective when the views of the client are similar (Dryden & Reeves, 2008). At the same time, personal biases, values, and assumptions can lead to confusions and misunderstandings between the counselor and the client. For example, in some Asian cultures, people find it offensive when someone asks them about their family. In such a situation, the consequences can be dire if the counselor does not have an understanding of cultural differences. Open-minded and counselors reflect on their preconceived ideas about the experiences, emotions, and values of clients. They are also able to accept the fact that the views and opinions of the client are much different than their own (Nugent & Jones, 2005). Unbiased counselors are able to understand ...