¶ … counseling degree.
My reasons for seeking a counseling degree are that I grew up with a desire to help others. I have myself been counseled, as a child, by therapists whom, I noted, attempted to streamline me according to particularistic beliefs. Wondering whether it were possible for psychotherapy to be objective, I read a lot on the subject and observed people who were therapists. At the time I naively thought counselors to be wonderful, and considered them almost as though they were God's second-in-command. I was later to read that psychotherapists do project that image, which is partially what renders the profession of psychotherapy to be somewhat controversial (e.g., Dawes,1994).
Gradually it dawned on me that these people were playing with people's lives: That I and presumably many other individuals are either compelled to 'visit' these deities of fate, or they 'visit' them out of their own volition. It was thought that these people -- 'wise in the ways of the world and in mumbo-jumbo' held the key to human's fortune and well-being, but it seemed to me that the advice I was given simply resonated with their personality. I began to wonder how I, for myself, not directed by another could come to my own solutions. I realized that counselors were influencing others to think as they thought. I wondered whether I, trained as counselor, could help others find themselves from within themselves. Many may argue that Roger's non-conditional model does just that. I do not think so.
At the same time, I am also interested in philosophy and logic (a subject which, I hoped, would objectify the human psychological condition) and resolve my philosophical questions of 'normality' and 'abnormality'. It seems to me that these constructs are defined by the social tendency and perspective of the time. This is where counselor's, too, play a large role in disseminating social meaning and narrative.
Most counseling modalities fall somewhere between directive and non-directive extremes. Directive therapy, such as psychoanalysis, guides a client, premising that the client needs help. The therapist can be professionally trained in his modality, empathic, even helpful -- yet disabled from entering the client's reality. 'Our situation is by necessity (and definition) ontological' (Gadamer, 2005).
Indeed, cognitive psychology's discovery that our reasoning skills are intertwined with an emotionally-saturated memory (see for instance, Leighton & Sternberg, 2004), augments my argument, particularly since each of us possess different core structures of conditioning. Hence, 'the knower's own situation is already constitutionally involved in any process of understanding.' (Gadamer, 2005).
On the other hand, non-directive modality such as Rogerian therapy, basing itself on empathy, affirms that none can direct another (Rogers, 1951). Is empathy genuinely possible? Isn't it rather a cognitive reconstruction of the client's situation based on the therapist's own situation? Aren't we as metaphysically isolated as Leibniz's monads, hence disabled from knowing the other as he is. And, if so, shouldn't the client access his own mind for the solution? But how can he if the stressed mind is physiologically delimited from thinking rationally (Masters, 2004)? These were some of the questions that I had.
My coming to counseling, therefore, was more out of an interrogative for research than out of a need to help another individual, per se. Yes, I desired to help others. Yes, I thought -- and do think -- that counseling is a wondrous and wonderful profession, influential, powerful, and magnanimous. One is almost literally - if not literally changing a world through one's practice. But I also wondered: is the counselor helping the individual make more of himself, or is the counselor changing the individual to reflect the counselor's own image. And then the term 'changing" -- why is there something wrong with the client to begin with? Might there not be something 'wrong' with the image that the counselor wishes to modify him into? Might there not be something wrong with the 'normal' world in which the counselor seeks to reconstruct client? In other words, who sets the standards for 'right' and 'wrong' particularly when standards and mores change from country to age so dramatically and rapidly?
I often think that my framework will be a holistic lifework system where I will encourage clients to articulate their goals in each of the spheres of their life. I will stress the communication of thoughts, not knowledge of other people's thoughts, in conjunction with the use of clear, unambiguous language. This has always been my ethical concern: How I can help the other as though I were a part of her; a part of her existence; a part of her life experiences; a part of her socialization -- so that I could address her problems precisely from her own perceptive rather than from mine. My endeavor was and is the...
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