Personal Development Journey: Practices Learned in Counseling

Introduction

In session 1, the lecture was centred around introducing the module, and its structure. I was given an overview of reflective practice as well as development and helping skills in counselling, and I learnt about some of the conceptual and historical issues that counselling, and psychotherapy comes across. During lecture 1, I was introduced to the concept of the personal development journey (McLeod & McLeod, 2014) which I found to be extremely intriguing. Learning about personal development and how it can lead to new ways of understanding and how it can trigger active experimentation with many new ways of being with others for the sole purpose of being as useful as possible to clients (McLeod & McLeod, 2014) really helped me to realize that its important for therapists or any psychologist in the psychology field to develop within themselves to help others become better. I had the opportunity to reflect on key ideas about personal development (2014) and relate it to my everyday life, and to people around me. I had not known that keeping a diary or even talking about things that trouble us is a part of the personal development journey but through the lecture, I had begun a thought process of the ways I have developed within myself, and how I go through this personal development journey. I enjoyed learning about the personal development process that therapists go through to ensure that they can improve as a person to help their client. It made a lot of sense to me that in order to help others, one must go through a journey of personal development whether it is achieved through writing a diary or reading and watching TV programs about different cultures which can also help to aid personal development.

Exploring Personal Development in Counseling

I enjoyed learning about the historical aspect (1911) of counselling and psychology in the lecture, as it put into motion for me that counselling has existed from many years ago and has developed as the time has passed. I did find it difficult to focus in some parts of the lecture as there were certain topics that did not intrigue me however, I think this was mainly the cause of not sleeping well the night before. Based on the experience I had in today’s session, I made an action plan which consisted of myself going 2 hours earlier to bed and hydrating myself with lots of water so I can have more time to weigh in on my work at university and develop further as a individual. I can identify many qualities in myself which have been mentioned to help to aid in personal development such as watching shows in different cultures such as Korean shows. I believe that through watching and listening to these shows, it has helped me greatly to understand the difficulties and issues different people are going through and has made me develop personally. Another example of going through personal development is when I read the news. I feel as though gaining an insight in the world around us really helps me to develop and become a better individual. This has most definitely impacted my personal development as I can now understand how others go through their own personal development and I can empathize with them.

The next Friday lecture focused on explaining the therapeutic frame, the therapeutic process and the therapeutic alliance. I had never come across the concept of the therapeutic frame until I was informed by the lecture leader about how it works and what it applies to. Although I had heard of Freud many times, I had not known that he was first to introduce ground rules for clinical work which would later lead to Milner (1952) introducing the term of frame in the context of psychoanalytic work. As psychologists, the idea of the ‘frame’ is now applied to many types of therapeutic work such as humanistic, cognitive and existential. I found this to be quite fascinating, not knowing the origin of how therapeutic work came about. The seminar session was also enjoyable, as we were involved as a whole class by the leader and we were engaged in questions and answers about this the therapeutic frame, comparing it to modern examples and completing exercises around boundaries of the therapeutic relationship between a therapist and patient. Through the lecture/seminar, I learnt about further conceptualizations of the frame and how the whole frame of psychotherapy relates to the professional as well as ethical conduct of the psychotherapist, which can also contribute to the safety of the endeavor for both therapist and client (Martin & Hayley, 2010). I also learnt about Gregson & Lane(2000) and what they believe about conceptualizing of the frame, to which they have quoted that ‘a healthy therapist-patient relationship mirrors the early mother-child holding environment and contains the patient while being attuned to the patient’s sensitivities thus allowing growth and maturity’. This led me to understand that a healthy relationship with your patient is similar to that of a mother and child environment because of the sensitive topics that one feels like they can talk with their therapist which is similar to a mother and child where the child feels like they can talk to their mother thus the establishment of a secure frame like this can aid in a healthy holding environment.

Core Conditions and Helping Relationships

I enjoyed learning about the fundamental components of the frame and how it can compromise the boundaries of the relationship between client and therapist as these factors can build a wall between the therapist and patient and could essentially make it harder for the therapist to help the patient. Learning about the relationship between a therapist and patient has made me realize that its important to not underestimate the significance a strong relationship or a weak relationship can have towards the patient. I felt as if I had learnt many new things in session 2 as I had carried out my action plan the week before on this day, and thus I felt like I had concentrated a lot more as well as understood this lecture and seminar more than lecture 1. While I did understand the term of transference, I had difficulty understanding how countertransference affects the relationship between a therapist and a client. I thought about why this might have been the case and realized that I had not taken notes on countertransference. Thus, this led me to research countertransference in my own time to which I concluded that it refers to the way of which a counsellor unconsciously projects their own thoughts, emotions and feelings onto their clients in response to the client’s transference. Based on the difficult experience I had in today’s session, I made an action plan to which I will aim to arrive 30 minutes earlier to the lecture and sit closer to the front of the lecture hall so I can concentrate more. Attending this lecture and learning about the therapeutic frame has impacted me on my own personal development, as I perceive the relationship between a client and a therapist to be more complicated more so then before. After lecture and seminar 2, I have been able to apply this topic to modern examples and I believe that learning about the therapeutic frame can benefit me in my future development when proceeding to become a therapist of my own.

The next session was on Friday the following week. This lecture focused on the key qualities of therapists as well as the stage models in helping a client, to which it also explained core conditions for effective helping relationships. In the seminar session, we carried out an activity where we explored the stages of helping relationships using various case studies and then proceeding to talk about it as a class. Learning about the core conditions of a therapist (Carl Rogers, 1957) was seemingly interesting to me as I had never come across the idea of the therapist’s themselves having to have necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Through the lecture, I learn about what these conditions are and the importance it has on therapists and clients alike. I concluded that these core conditions must be vital in order to keep the relationship between a therapist and a client stable. I could reflect these core conditions to myself, and society in general, as we all use these conditions to console people, whether it is empathising with them or having a mutual understanding that all humans are fallible.

Conclusion

I found the seminar activity to be captivating, as it helped me to process my own thoughts about the core conditions and apply it to real life scenarios. Doing so, this helped me to put these thoughts into context and led me to deeply understand the significance of these core conditions. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the stage models of helping (Hill, 2004) as this was the first time I had been introduced to a concept like this relating to psychology. However, I did face some difficulties in understanding the Relating-understand-changing model (Nelson Jones, 2013). When the lecture had introduced this topic to me for the first time, I had a hard time understanding how this related to the stage models of helping. Thus, I continued to research this model, and I understood clearly that it indicates the main task for the therapist and client shows a step by step of how the client’s issues can be assessed by the therapist. Due to this experience of finding it difficult to understand a model, I made an action plan on reading further about the model and carried it out so that there would be no gaps left in my learning. I feel as though this has impacted me significantly, as I have learnt that the lecture’s information will not be enough for me to understand a topic and further research will need to be done if I need the information to be consolidated. I can also identify many of core conditions in my daily life, and I am able to comprehend why these core conditions are vital in order to maintain a relationship with the client and the therapist. As a result of not being able to understand modules, I plan to carry out further research into my modules in the near future.  

Works Cited

1. McLeod, J., & McLeod, J. (2014). Personal Development and Self-Awareness in Counselling. In 'An Introduction to Counselling' (pp. 49-65). McGraw-Hill Education.

2. Mortlock, M. (1984). Risk: The uninvited partner in adventure education. Adventure Education, 4(2), 25-29.

3. Martin, A. R., & Hayley, J. S. (2010). The therapeutic frame in the treatment of anorexia nervosa. Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 9(3), 143-150.

4. Gregson, M., & Lane, S. (2000). The psychotherapy relationship: A model for theory, practice, and training. Psychodynamic Counselling, 6(1), 53-68.

5. Milner, M. (1952). The work of the psychotherapy frame. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 33(4), 416-425.

6. Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95-103.

7. Hill, C. E. (2004). Helping skills: Facilitating exploration, insight, and action. American Psychological Association.

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8. Nelson-Jones, R. (2013). Relating-understanding-changing: The relationships of counselling. Counseling Skills in Context, 3-27.