Reflect on your practicum experience this week. What has gone well?
1. Reflect on your practicum experience this week. What has gone well? What areas have been challenging for you and why?
This week, I have learned the best ways to interact of mental health patients. For communication between a counselor and a patient to be effective, the counselor should speak directly, listen to the patient carefully, treat their views and opinions with respect, and avoid stereotyping. With this, a positive rapport between the counselor and the client is formed. In the course of this interaction, there have been both ups and downs. I have acquired good communication skills, embraced the importance of cultural sensitivity, and improved my mental health communication skills. As a result, interacting with the patients has been easily and full of positive impact to my career. On the other hand, there have been challenging experiences this week. These include non-cooperative clients, avoidant clients, aggressive clients, and lack of 100% conversion as anticipated in the learning experience goals. These challenges are common for every person in practicum, given that we interact with diverse clients, hence blending with them is not an easy task.
2. Besides the core conditions, which of the other person-centered techniques are you likely to integrate into your counseling? Provide an example of at least one example of how you plan to do this in your response.
As a counseling theory, person-centered approach is the model in which the patient is placed at the center of the service and treated as a person first. This theory seeks to treat people with respect, dignity, and compassion by offering coordinated support, care, and treatment. There are various techniques that counselors utilize while applying person-centered therapy in counseling. Besides core conditions, there are those techniques that I would prioritize to integrate into my counseling practice. These techniques include being non-directive, showing unconditional positive regard, and congruence. According to (Ackerman, 2021), counselors should show unconditional positive regard for the client. For example, when counseling a mental health patient, I would show unconditional positive regard by refraining from judging the patient’s opinions, perceptions, and beliefs. Other person-centered techniques that I would integrate into my counseling include empathy, active listening, accepting negative emotions, body language, paraphrasing, and reflection. All these are aimed at creating a safe environment for a patient to feel free to express themselves without judgment and negativity.
References
Ackerman, C. E. (2021). 10 Person-Centered Therapy Techniques Inspired by Carl Rogers. Positive Pyschology, 5-17.