Counselling Assignment: A Reflective Journal On Personal Experiences
Question
Task:
Write and maintain a reflective journal from week two to week eleven. The journal needs to highlight your interaction with the module materials and highlight the progress made through the module. The journal also needs to cover concerns raised and how you have responded to them, using examples where possible.
Week 2-Attending behaviour: empathy and advanced accurate empathy
Week 3-Reflective listening
Week 4- Reflection of feeling
Week 5-Open and closed questions, reframing and summarising
Week 6-Tracking clients’ concerns
Week 7-Normalising
Week 8-Challenging
Week 9-Congruence and Facilitating options
Week 10-Report writing
Week 11-Integration of skills
The textbook prescribed for the task is: (McLeod, J. and McLeod, J., 2011. Counselling skills. Sydney, Australia: McGraw-Hill Education). IT COVERED ALL WEEKLY TOPIC
Answer
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Introduction
The concept of counselling focused in the present context of counselling assignment comes under the “umbrella” term of “talking therapies”, and can allow individuals to discuss the burdensome feelings and problems they might encounter in a confidential and safe environment. According to Nibmehub.com (2021), individuals seeking to bring some changes in their lives, exploring feelings and thoughts more deeply are more likely to seek the help of a professional counsellor. Counselling done by a trained and learned professional can profoundly impact the lives of communities, families and individuals. It can help people in navigating difficult situations in life like the death of kin, natural disasters, divorce, post-traumatic stress disorder and others (Kaushik and Walsh 2019). However, counselling is most widely used for managing mental “health” issues like depression and anxiety (Graybill et al. 2018). Overall, counselling can help in empowering people in leading fulfilling and healthy lives.
The concept of "counselling" in "education" can be termed as the interactions developing via relationships between individuals and counsellors when the individuals are in a state of mental flux, distress, confusion or indecision (Hammack P.L., 2018). Counselling helps people in coming to terms with their emotions, distress and other conflicting feelings. Becoming a trained counsellor requires more than just an understanding of behavioural theories, elements of psychology and others. It requires emotional intelligence and empathy for being able to understand the level of emotional distress or pain the person might be suffering (Manstead 2018). Moreover, the counsellor also needs to have excellent communication skills to be able to communicate with the client and help in alleviating his or her distress (Clarke and Braun, 2018). The reflective journal is aimed at discussing my experiences and outcomes of my experiences, and an analysis of what happened during the incidents and my feelings regarding them. The reflections will try to cover my experiences from week 2 to week 11 of the learning process.
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Reflection Entries
2.1 Week 2: Attending behaviour: empathy and advanced accurate empathy
Description- The second week of the learning process and course was based on empathy and advanced accurate empathy. I was having a hard time understanding the difference between empathy and advanced accurate empathy. It was through exploring various academic sources that I was able to differentiate between the two.
Analysis- However, it was because of an incident that I truly understood the difference between the two. My roommate was having a hard time at his job and was undergoing some visible stress. I could understand that job pressure was taking a toll on his mental health, therefore I tried to talk to him and encourage him that things will be better soon. However, in his state of mental distress, he became angry with me and reprimanded me for interfering.
Outcome- I was shocked and also a bit angry that I understood what he was going through and that I was empathetic. It was then I understood the difference between the two. Through advanced accurate empathy, I was able to understand that he was angry and ruse only because of his mental stress and difficult emotions, and not deliberately. Because of this incident, I decided to be more cautious and approach such situations by understanding the causation before doing anything.
2.2 Week 3: Reflective listening
Description- The third week of the course module was based on reflective learning. Reflective learning helped me in improving my communication skills and increasing my understanding of ideas, approaches and issues of other people. Reflective learning helped me greatly in avoiding conflicts while working in groups.
Analysis- During a group task, I was supposed to work within a group. Since, there we a total of 4 members in the groups, inadvertently various issues began to arise due to conflicting ideas. It began making things difficult for the group, to perform the tasks together. Even I was on the verge of getting into conflicts with the group member. However, reflective listening helped me in avoiding such conflicts and become more flexible.
Outcome- Instead of becoming hostile towards opposing ideas, I started to listen to them more attentively. It helped in understanding the point of view of my peers better and gave me the necessary insights regarding the pros and cons of the ideas of the group member. this experience made me understand that instead of only focussing on speaking and presenting ideas, I should also become an active listener and try to learn from listening to other people's ideas. I decided to improve my communication skills more by listening to ideas, instead of just speaking.
2.3 Week 4: Reflection of feeling
Description- The fourth week of the course learning was dedicated to understanding reflection of feeling. It was a difficult concept to grasp. The basic understanding that I had of reflection of feeling was that it was a “statement” made by a counsellor aimed at highlighting the attitudes or feeling
Analysis- I understood that reflection of feeling was intended at making the client understand that the counsellor understood the emotional distress or feelings of the client. During the course, I was met with a perplexing situation. A classmate was feeling depressed and down due to his parents getting a divorce. The emotional distress was affecting him deeply and his grades at college started to slip. I tried to talk to him but still, he would not open up.
Outcome- I told him that I understood his "attachment" to both his parents just like me and I understood that he is fearful of life with just one parent. This allowed me to get him to open up in front of me and express himself. The most important lesson that I learnt from this situation was that through reflective listening I should aim to learn about ideas and feelings more and then communicate to the person that I understand the emotions and feelings. I decided to improve my understanding of reflective feeling by exploring the various theories and counselling frameworks.
2.4 Week 5: Open and closed questions, reframing and summarising
Description- The fifth week was based on learning concepts regarding reframing and summarising. The course work helped me in understanding how combining more than one thought or feeling of the client can help in understanding his or her feelings and mental state better. During the interactions with my peers and classmates, I faced various situations where they talked about their emotions and difficult feelings regarding personal life, studies and career. Analysis- Summarising helped me to combine their feelings and talk to them regarding their situation better. For example, I was able to combine the feelings of one of my classmates undergoing some personal issues and helped him to cope with those feelings.
Outcome- I decided that instead of discussing the difficult feelings elaborately in front of clients, I should focus on combining and summarising those feelings. This will help me to communicate more effectively with the clients. I decided to use the method of open and closed questions for summarising the feelings or thoughts of the clients.
2.5 Week 6: Tracking clients’ concerns
Description- The sixth week was dedicated to understanding the method of tracking the concerns of the client and gaining an "understanding" of the "interactive" patterns where the presentation of a situation is "embedded. Understanding the concept of tracking the concerns of the clients was challenging.
Analysis- Through the help of my teachers and experiences, I was able to get a grasp of the concept. For example, while interacting with classmates and friends, on many occasions I was told about their difficulties and issues.
Outcome- Through the process of racking, I was able to help them in understanding how relating to influences can change the development of "solutions" for problems and issues. Using methods like rating, scales, assessments and others, I was able to assess the progress of the concerns of my classmates. I decided to focus on understanding such methods more elaborately for developing the knowledge and skill required for tracking the concerns of clients.
2.6 Week 7- Normalizing:
Description:
The students of the University have been seeking counselling to discuss various concerns regarding their academic achievements and mental well-being (McLeod 2013). I have attended many counselling sessions in College to normalize negative emotions. Therefore, the concept of normalizing can be defined as an activity that takes place by way of conversation by identifying it as “normal” as the interpretation of ideas takes place in an ordinary way (McLeod 2013).
Analysis:
In my opinion, normalizing is a great means of addressing the problematic emotions of the students by providing support and maintaining an orientation towards problem-solving approaches. The normalizing psychological sessions I have attended have helped me in providing both therapy and medical counselling. The psychiatrist has normalized my medical issues by relating to my account for seeking professional help. The process of normalizing has helped me in identifying my issue. The professional psychiatrist has considered my issue to be normal and not in any way unique or special.
Outcome:
The process undertaken by the psychiatrist was nothing special but only a normal interaction. The questions were regarding my experiences in school and my experiences in University. The counsellor also made me feel comfortable during the entire counselling session.
2.7 Week 8: Challenging:
Description:
In week 8, I have dealt with various challenges while taking the counselling therapies. The challenging issue was, however, with the research itself. During my research, I found some research evidence to support the effectiveness of the solution. These solutions were an open dialogue approach and focused therapy. In my opinion, the absence of any evidence should not in any way signify the absence of effectiveness. In my professional environment, there is increased research on evidence-based practices.
Analysis:
I have come to know that the absence of any knowledge regarding supporting evidence may create a barrier to the long-term acceptance of such therapies. I have come through many well-written study materials available in the public domain, including libraries and different bookstalls. This has been a major challenging issue for me while using these kind of study materials.
Outcome:
I would like to emphasize that the utilization of self-help manuals and books has caused several theoretical issues. This is because I realized that the self-manuals, I have utilized helped in the assumption of techniques that will prove to be beneficial for a person experience a particular issue. This will not solve individual problems separately.
2.8 Week 9-Congruence and Facilitating options:
Description:
In my professional practice, I have gained an idea that the most significant individual-centred approach to counselling lies in the purview of congruence. In this regard, I would like to emphasize that such individual-centred visions of empathy, experiences, and therapeutic relationships have entered the vocabularies of other approaches. Therefore, following my point of view, no other approach provides as much significance in maintaining the willingness of the therapist to perform individual-centred and other human-based therapies.
Analysis:
During the early years of my career, I have attended various counselling sessions based on the principles of non-directives by respecting the self-acceptance nature of the client. I have imported various ideas from the resources involved with the emotional stress issues of the client.
Outcome:
In this regard, I have undertaken a further distinctive approach for the purpose of resolving conflicts between the inner self and the social conflicts of life. I have encouraged my clients to participate in the process of self-experiments. This will help the clients in understanding their own issues and emotions by way of a new process of discovery rather than the age-old technique of interpretation.
2.9 Week 10-Report writing:
Description:
As a part of my report writing practice during Week 10, I have been entrusted with the duty of writing report on various issues faced by different patients of psychologists. In this regard, I have emphasized the development of a reflective journal as an effective means of monitoring and developing reflective practices in higher education.
Analysis:
Therefore, to pave the way for the development of metacognitive strategy, I have undertaken traditional learning approaches to emphasize report writing development. In this regard, I have been able to explore the utilization of journal writing and formative feedback to pave the way for developing reflective practices. This helped me with the presentation of a case study by way of reflective practices. In this way, I have been able to develop metacognitive competencies in learning to define a recognizable field for evidence-based learning.
Outcome:
The reflective practice that I have undertaken by way of metacognitive competence has helped me develop a list of questions constructed in my way related to the critical reflection on values, beliefs and assumptions.
2.10 Week 11-Integration of skills:
Discussion:
To pave the way for developing reflective journals on psychology, I have developed an effective means of assessment procedures. The nature of these assessment procedures is such that they helped me enhance my commitment to the process of writing and reflection.
Analysis:
As part of integrating my skills, I have undertaken one-to-one sessions with my clients to develop evidence-based formative feedback to develop quality and reflective practices.
Outcome:
The nature of the study conducted by me has helped in the assessment of feedback to measure the clients' perceptions. The study also helped me in the development of reflective practices.
3.0 Summary:
The nature of the journal is such that it helped me understand the significance of research-based knowledge in counselling and psychotherapy. The scholarly research in the journal has improved my understanding of specific research-based topics I have never encountered before. I have come across the overview of certain methodological issues observed in research studies while conducting counselling sessions. While exploring the journal, I have come across two different aspects of counselling. The first concept is concerned with the development of massive research literature which proved to be beneficial in assisting me while conducting the counselling process. However, the nature of these issues and the identified problems it helps in the process of active counselling. For instance, I have observed that most of the psychiatrists have been addressing the clients' issues as "depression" and has been emphasizing different therapies for depression. I have learnt from the journal that not all mental issues are depression. There are different patterns of depression and each of them are distinct from each other.
The knowledge I gained from the journal can be applied to my present field of study as a counsellor. Therefore, being a practitioner in the field of psychology, I have been able to contribute towards valuable insights by understanding the significance of any background research. This knowledge helped me develop my role as a counsellor to understand the complexity of the factors that are associated with the issues of the clients. I have developed capabilities to identify the issues of the clients and address them accordingly.
References
Clarke, V. and Braun, V., 2018. Using thematic analysis in counselling and psychotherapy research: A critical reflection. Counselling and psychotherapy research, 18(2), pp.107-110.
Graybill, E., Baker, C.N., Cloth, A.H., Fisher, S. and Nastasi, B.K., 2018. An analysis of social justice research in school psychology. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 6(2), pp.77-89.
Hammack, P.L., 2018. Social psychology and social justice: Critical principles and perspectives for the twenty-first century. The Oxford handbook of social psychology and social justice, pp.3-40.
Kaushik, V. and Walsh, C.A., 2019. Pragmatism as a research paradigm and its implications for social work research. Counselling assignment Social Sciences, 8(9), p.255.
Manstead, A.S., 2018. The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57(2), pp.267-291.
McLeod, J., 2013. An introduction to counselling. McGraw-hill education (UK).
Nibmehub.com, 2021. [online] Nibmehub.com. Available at: <https://nibmehub.com/opac-service/pdf/read/An%20Introduction%20to%20Counselling-%20Fifth%20Edition%20by%20John%20Mcleod%20-%205ed.pdf> [Accessed 11 November 2021].
