What I Learned As A Counselor

Throughout this class I learned not only a great deal about the counseling setting but, also learned more about myself as I strive to become a counselor. Reflecting back to my first interview I felt extremely uncomfortable. However, this was not due to my partner. I felt out place because I really did not know what to expect and how to ask the questions that I was wanting to ask. Then going back to the day we had done our second interview I was way more relaxed. Even though I knew that I was going to be getting graded on this interview it did not bother me. I felt as if knowing that I was getting graded gave me that push to strive for greater achievement.

Walking out of the second interview I felt great. The feeling that I had was, “Wow!

However, I know that we should try and drift away towards them. The closed questions worked well for me. My partner could have given me just a simple yes or no. But the questions I was asking her led her into talking more. One closed question I had asked was, “Do you talk to your family?” that could have been a simple yes or no, however it got her talking about how she actually talks to them. Also, the fact that she is always waiting to talk to them weather it’s via skype or phone. Another great strength I had was paraphrasing, summarization, and clarification all at once. After watching the video I realized that I just did not do one. I did all three at once most of the time. I tried my hardest not to only understand her situation, but how she felt at the same time. Even though I had great strengths during this interview I had weaknesses as

I had asked my partner, “What do you do to focus?” I believe that my partner might have said something along the lines of, “I either play tennis, or try to hang out with my friends and go to parties sometimes.” Then she went on saying, “Even though I do those things it’s still hard for me to focus on what I have now.” I asked her then, “Well, what do you do for yourself?” I was trying to get more out of her without trying to dig deep too fast. The client said, “I watch Netflix if I’m not doing my homework and if I’m not doing either of those I’m waiting by the phone just in case that one call was to come in from my family.” I felt those two questions were successful due to making her open up. This made her talk to me more about her rather than about her