Analysis Of Counseling Today: Foundations Of Professional Identity

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Part 1 After reading chapter four of Counseling Today: Foundations of Professional Identity, I could not help but feel slightly overwhelmed by the characteristics list of effective counselors. I used to generally think of counseling as a profession that called for honesty, patience, great listening skills, and the ability to communicate and that it heavily relied on knowledge, theories, and techniques. However, this chapter truly made me reframe my thinking about the importance of character traits in the counseling profession. My first reaction was to feel that my workload has doubled, since I need to work on my personal growth as well as my academic growth. All the characteristics on the list seem reasonable and necessary for counselors. None of the listed traits surprised me, but the trait titled “counselors possess good mental health and have a sense of their own well-being,” did stand out to me due to its implications for self-care (Granello & Young, 2019). …show more content…

Self-care as a teacher is not part of the job description, it’s not a requirement, or even a suggestion given by my administration. Seeing this trait on the list made me feel grateful for this profession, for understanding that we can only do our best job and help a client the best way we can if we are also taking care of ourselves. I don’t think that any of these traits are ever fully learned and perfect, since we are only humans, but I do think that they can be improved with time, effort, self-reflection, and experience. If I was trying to strengthen one of these traits, I would work on flexibility. In chapter four, the author explains that counselors must be able to think on their feet, moving towards a direction that is helpful to the client, which is not often predetermined. Granello & Young,