Personal Approach to Counseling (Final Project)
The assignment is designed to help you integrate the theories
of counseling you have learned to develop a personal approach to
counseling. This paper must be written in APA format, typewritten, proofread, and is expected to show evidence of clear thought and application of theory. This paper will be a minimum of 15-pages in length (not including the
references page/s or cover page).
Suggested page ranges to help guide you are listed for each section of the
paper.
In this paper, you will describe your
personal approach to counseling and then apply your approach to a specific case.
Is there a template? In week one you
were provided a template to help you organize your writing for the week 1-4
assignments. You may have noticed that in addition to formatting the template
in APA, we used the assignment instructions to create heading to organize the
paper. Next, we copy and pasted the questions that needed to be addressed under
each section with screen clips of the rubric. We also suggested that you use
transition sentences to begin each paragraph that included some of the same
words used in the question that you were addressing in a paragraph. Last, we
suggested that after you complete a section, that you should review your work
against the rubric to ensure you addressed all requirements. For the final
project, we would like to see you generalize those same strategies to create
your own template to organize your writing for the final project. For example,
the below prompts are organized into two major sections with 9 subsections, how
might you organize your paper using level one and two headings? The above
strategy is a sure-fire way to clearly organize your writing and make sure you
do not ever forget to address a question or rubric point.
Personal Approach to Counseling
In this section, you will describe your personal approach to counseling. Please address the following:
1.
Philosophy of Human
Nature:
Discuss your personal philosophy of human nature (e.g., are humans innately
good or bad, what motivates us, what is the cause of stress and suffering, how
does change occur, how do we grow, how does wellness occur, how do we function?).
Address at least 5 areas of human nature. -suggested
1-2 page in length.
2.
Counselor Role:
Discuss
what you believe your role to be as a counselor in the following ways:
Discuss the
counselor role in terms of qualities important for building a therapeutic
relationship (being non-judgmental, demonstrating empathy, unconditional
positive regard…etc.). Discuss what role you feel a counselor should play in
helping clients/students make changes, work toward goals, and overcoming
obstacles. Additionally, address roles that are specific to your preferred
future work setting (e.g., clinical counselors and school counselors will
certainly share some roles; but, there are other roles unique to each
position). -suggested 1-2 page in length.
3.
Theoretical Approach: Select at least three theories of
counseling (that you learned in weeks 1-4) that you could see yourself drawing
from in your preferred, future, counseling setting. Remember to identify your
preferred setting (in-home, outpatient, population, elementary/middle
school/high school, etc.). Discuss at least three central concepts of each
approach and explain how they fit with your philosophy of human nature and role
as a counselor. -suggested 4-5 pages in length.
4.
Critical
Evaluation of Approach: Describe the strengths and limitations of your personal
approach to counseling. Also address strengths and limitations for working with
a culturally diverse population. -suggested 1-3 pages in length.
Case
Scenario
After reviewing the below case,
use your personal approach to counseling to address the prompts listed below.
Background:
Jasmine is an 18-year-old high school senior that comes from a very close
family, and in general, she feels that she can typically go to her parents for
help when she has a problem. However, this time is different and she feel that
she cannot turn to them for help with her with her current problem. Jasmine and
her boyfriend have been sexually active for the past year without using
birth-control. She was sure that she would not get pregnant. However, she
recently learned that she was pregnant. Jasmine informed her 15-year-old
boyfriend (high school sophomore), and expected him to make the commitment to
marry her. He did not agree, in fact, he even doubted whether he was the
father. Jasmine felt deeply hurt and angry over her boyfriend’s reaction and
sought out some friends for advice. On the advice of a girlfriend, she
considered an abortion for a time. But she decided against it because she felt
she could not deal with the guilt of terminating a life. Adoption was brought
up as another option by a friend, but she was certain she could not live
knowing that she had created a life and then “abandoned” the child. Last,
Jasmine considered becoming a single parent. However, doing so would certainly
prevent her from traveling out-of-state to attend college. Her pregnancy is
moving into the end of her first trimester, and her panic is mounting.
For school counseling
students, image that this student came to your
office one day with the above concerns.
For clinical mental health counseling students image you are working at a non-profit
community clinic and this high school student set up an appointment.
Questions:
1) Values: What are your values as they pertain to Jasmine’s case, and how do you
think they will affect the way in which you counsel her, if at all? Explain. -suggested
1-2 pages in length.
2)
Presenting Concern/s: What do you see as Jasmine’s
presenting concerns/basic conflicts (identify and discuss at least two)? How
would you summarize the nature of her struggle through the lens of your
personal approach to counseling? Based upon the concerns you identified,
discuss which you would address first and why based upon your personal approach
to counseling. -suggested 1-2 pages in
length.
3)
Strategies and/or Techniques: Drawing upon your personal approach to counseling, what strategies and/or techniques might you utilize when working with
Jasmine and why (i.e., connect the strategy/techniques to theory)? Provide
three examples. -suggested 1-2 pages in length.
4)
Critical
Evaluation of Approach: What
limitations did you notice when applying your personal approach to counseling
to Jasmine’s case. What where some of the strengths you noticed when applying
your personal approach to counseling to Jasmine’s case. -suggested 1 pages in length.
5) Professional Compliance:
With consideration of your work setting (school vs. clinical), discuss
any legal, ethical, or professional responsibilities you might have as a
counselor.-suggested 1-2 pages in length.
TIP: Review the
rubric while writing each section of your paper. The rubric contains specific
information regarding how your responses to the above prompts will be evaluated
and scored.
Citation to text book:
Neukrug, Ed, & Hays, D. G. (2018). Counseling theory and practice. Cognella Academic Publishing.
