In response to your peers, identify self-care strategies to address negative impacts.
1. Working within the counseling profession, you must possess many different skills that help you to communicate better and have better relationships throughout your professional and personal lives. Working as a professional in the helping others industry, you need to be an excellent problem solver who is open-minded and well-educated. You must hbe ableto fit in wherever you need to and belate with others. You must have a heightened awareness and be able to observe a situation or meet someone and guide them to help them become more independent. Learning all the necessary skills that a counselor needs to be successful would, in turn, give me those skills to use throughout my life, whether it would be to strengthen relationships, mend broken relationships, or help create new ones. The skills and abilities I have and will acquire in the counseling profession will benefit me in all areas of my life, and I believe the more you practice and learn something, the better and more confident you can become. Working in counseling will impact my life because I will be working toward my full potential, potential communication skills, and improving interpersonal communication skills to benefit all the relationships in my life. Becoming a counselor will help me grow and become a better person. So, it will have a significant impact on my personal life.
The positives about working in the counseling industry are being a good role model and a productive member of society. I will be improving myself and setting my goals with my clients. I will do my best to learn something from every situation to increase my knowledge or skills. I am giving back to my community by helping others, which I am best at. It will help me gain knowledge and learn about other diverse cultures to best relate with clients. It is a profession in which each situation and client is different, which will help every day to be different because I like variety.
A few negatives come to mind regarding working in the counseling industry. After reading this unit information and learning about countertransference, it has become something I will need to learn more about and be very vigilant regarding because, being a person who is an empath, I tend to feel other people’s emotions. At times, it can be extremely overwhelming. Having the ability to feel what others are or have gone through is a blessing but also a curse because there are times when I have encountered someone who has been through a traumatic experience, and as they are talking about it, I will get a knot in my stomach, and my chest will get heavy. It is, at times, carry carry at a time, exciting and fun. However, I would say it is my biggest worry and something OI will always need to make a conscious effort to be aware of and keep under control.
Things I can do to help my experiences be more positive than negative are self-care is a mandatory weekly thing, and I have started doing a mindfulness activity before I do specific tasks. Such as my homework I will do a mindfulness meditation before starting or completing my homework. That way, I can take in all the information and work at home while using the skills one thing at the moment. I use these skills throughout my work days as well. It helps me be more productive, and I seem to get more done efficiently and correctly. I will also take my inventory each week to help ensure my head is where it needs to be and that I am living and practicing within my ethics and morals, along with practicing and being mindful of the professional code of ethics and doing what I can to incorporate them all into my daily life.
2) I think my work as a counselor might impact my social life by helping me to be even more empathetic to people in my life. It will help me to see that even though people can seem fine on the surface they may actually have things going on that I am not aware of. I think that it will help me to manage my time better because I will know that each client gets a certain amount of time and I have to be able to be aware of that time constraint without looking at the clock. I also see it as being benificial as it will help me enjoy the time that I have with my family and friends. I will feel like I am helping others and making a difference and that will help me feel good about myself as a person, like I am doing something with a purpose. I can be proud in my career that I worked hard at by learning about different cultures, religions, disibilities, and mental illness.
I know that it could negatively effect my personal life if I work with clients who have significant trauma. Especially, if they are similair to things that I have experience as well, it could bring up old feelings and some anxiety and depression could surface. “Anxiety refers to feelings of nervousness, fear, or worry.” (Jaimie Smith) I feel like it could negatively effect my personal life if I have a client who isn’t making progress or struggling with suicidal ideation, it could leave me worrying about their safety. I do know there are steps that I can take for their safety, but there is only so much a counselor can do and we have to let it go.
In order to keep from burning out or having a negative impact on my effectiveness I know that I will need to be in therapy myself. This will allow me to process my feelings and let go of any pent up emotions. It also allows for openess to another provider on how I can be more effective. I also think for me connecting with nature and spending time with and riding my horse is self care for me. It allows me to feel free and untouchable as well as powerful on his back out in the woods. There is something about a horse that is so calming just brushing and petting him makes me instantly feel better no matter how bad my day has been.