Chapter 8-Teaching Theories for The Constructivist Counselor Flashcards
What differentiates a counseling technician from a professional?
Technicians:
- will not be likely to make informed choices when faced with clients’unique stories
- will not have the ability to organize new information in ways that will help them respond meaningfully.
What is one difficulty in teaching counseling theories?
Intersection between students’ meaning-making capacities and their abilities to utilize theory.
How do 3rd-Order meaning-makers accept a theory?
Inclined to accept a theory wholly, without reflection or modification
How do 4th Order, or the self-authoring mind, counselors accept a theory?
Theories are reflected upon, evaluated, and adapted into the individual’s own self-authored theory.
What are benefits of 4th-Order meaning-making structure?
- Internalize multiple points of view, reflect on them, and construct one’s own theory
- 4th Order is required for professional decision making
What is the purpose of a counseling theories course?
Introduce counseling theory and its place in the conceptualization of human beings and their problems.
Beyond this basic function, the theories course serves four broad purposes:
- Introduces the purpose of theories in counseling
- Presents a range of possible theories
- Promote students’ meaning-making capacities
- Encourages students to integrate developmental and counseling models
When selecting theories for the counseling theories course, what should instructors be aware of?
- An instructor should not privilege one theory over another
- Theories themselves are constructions
- Pragmatism should guide the instructor’s selection
RE: counseling theories, what is meant by “noise?”
Information that can’t be handled by a person’s current way of knowing.
RE: counseling theories, how should novel information be presented?
- Provide stability (supporting the person’s current frame of reference)
- Provide change (challenging the person’s current frame of reference)
What does the instructor need to do when presenting new counseling theories?
Match the organization of noise to the students’ level of meaning-making
What is the primary goal of the counseling theories course?
Help students develop a flexible, relativistic methodology regarding theory usage.
RE: counseling theories course, describe personal theory.
Humans use the theories that they construct themselves to make meaning out of the world, a theory that didn’t require taking a counseling theories course.
What are 3 phases of the counseling theories course?
- Discovery and ownership of currently preferred personal theory
- Informing personal theory (develop into a personal counseling theory)
- Reconstructing personal theory
What is a central focus of the counseling theories course?
Developmental transformations toward more complex forms of meaning-making while simultaneously introducing student to counseling theories
What are are two hoped-for outcomes of Phase 1: Discovery and Ownership of Personal Theory?
- increase students’ awareness of their own personal theories
- Help students recognize that theories have value
What are chief instructions methods for theories class?
- Focus on self-reflection
- Reflective writing
- Structured discussion
The first several meetings of the theories course focus on:
Aware of and articulating one’s own personal theories as related to human behavior and the counseling process
To promote the reflective process of counseling theories, what is NOT introduced in the first few sessions?
Formal counseling theories