Becoming A Helper

Reflection Paper #1

In this reflection paper I will be addressing the textbooks “Becoming a Helper” by Marianne Schneider Corey and Gerald Corey, “The Elements of Counseling” by Scott T. Meier and Susan R. Davis and, “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling” by Mark McMinn. In “Becoming a Helper”, the authors start off the chapter with a few points on why someone would choose to be in the field of helping people. I have seen myself as someone who would always extend a helping hand to anyone in need, whether they took my help or not. As a teenager, I attended therapy for cutting myself. I don’t really know what I wanted from the counselor besides just someone to vent to about my personal life which actually helped. I

felt like the counselor wouldn’t understand what I was going through anyways so it was just good to have someone to vent to that wasn’t my friends.

It also touches down on the personal gains, and potential risks that are associated with the helping career by explaining methods for controlling those risks by seeking counseling or talking to a supervisor. The explanations of whether or not a person is getting into the helping career for themselves or to help others is put together in a way that the reader can easily understand and reflect on. Personal accounts from Marianne Corey and Jerry Corey were helpful to the reader to be able to see some conflicts that others who were once in their shoes faced and how they persevered. From reading their accounts, I was able to come to the realization that in my future career, I need to explore the options that are available in the different fields of counseling. When I am in classes that I enjoy I need to make notes of what I enjoy about the subject and try to see what that field of work has to offer. The chapter is an excellent reference to what a good helper is, and how they take care of themselves as well as the people they are assisting. Overall, the first chapter was very helpful with the descriptions, examples and also job listings that are available to people pursuing a

career in psychology.
In the second chapter of “Becoming a Helper”, it starts out by explaining the differences between exposing and imposing values. When I think of a counselor imposing their values on to their clients it makes me feel uneasy about what the counselor is trying to actually do. In the first chapter it explained that you are not supposed to tell the client what to do and solve their problems for them so wouldn’t imposing your values on the client be similar to leading them in the direction you wanted them to go? The book goes over how exposing and imposing your values on to your client can be done verbally and also non-verbally through your expressions or body language. The relationship between the counselor and client is very close and the client will most likely will pick up on the signals that the analyst is giving and that could possibly affect the client’s choice. When counselors are confronted with lesbian, gay and bisexual issues a lot of time counselors, especially conservative ones has trouble addressing these issues with their clients because of their morals. Personally I would have no problem in a counseling session with lesbians, gays or bisexuals. I believe it is not a life choice and if that is what makes them happy, then why should it bother me. It would take something crazy big for me to have to refer a client to someone else. If something did get in the way of me counseling someone I would do as the chapter says. Make sure the client knows it is my problem and not theirs. They are doing the right thing by coming to counseling for their problems and if I am unable to help them, I would want to find someone capable to help with whatever they are going through.
The chapter continues by giving examples of many different scenarios that could be brought up in different sessions concerning families, religious values, abortion, sexuality and suicide. The examples ask real questions on how the reader will react to certain situations and how they will handle them. After the question is stated, it helps discuss the choices that are able to be made in the counseling session affecting the clients and how they will react. This chapter gives a lot of practical applications to real world problems that future counselors will encounter.
In “The Elements of Counseling” it goes over a lot of the same topics that “Becoming a Helper” also went over.

But there are a lot more references in the chapter to back up the claims about counseling and examples for readers to see how to handle and not handle certain situations. Supervision is a great way for new members of the field to get feedback on if they are doing things right, and how they should improve on what they are doing. This chapter gives real examples of what a counselor should and should not do. One example is relying on test results to figure out their patients. While testing may be a good way to find out certain things about patents, it is not one hundred percent accurate and does not define the client

indefinitely.
In “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling” McMinn goes over the complexity of Christian counseling and the differences in styles from ordinary counselors. Both counselors’ goals are to have the client understand their problems and assist in getting over them, but what differs in counseling practices is that the Christians want to help their clients in developing spiritual growth as well. The author points out the differences in the counseling types and shows the benefits and flaws that they have. While looking at the problems he has with the “MAP” strategy for counseling, he gives many “what if this happened” examples in the chapter that make you think about what would happen in the situations. The author is able to break down the different points in sections and find the problems. After the examples he goes into details about the scenarios that he was showing. In his explanations he provides scripture from the Bible that addresses the problems. The author is showing how people could use scripture in their counseling to benefit their well being by looking to the Lord for guidance.