exam 3

Question 1

Groups

Answer 1

List as many as you can the types of groups we formally or informally engage in.
Some may be permanent; others temporary

Question 2

Group Goals/Approaches

Answer 2

Psychoanalytic Adlerian
Psychodrama Existential
Person-centered
Gestalt
Transactional
Behavioral Cognitive
Reality
What might be the goal of a group for each?

Question 3

Psychoeducation Groups

Answer 3

Growth groups
Offered in schools or other settings, group leaders attempt to provide relevant information on careers, sex, parenting skills, job possibilities, colleges, and other topics that might be of interest.
Focus on preventing problems in the future by encouraging developmental growth, aiding the decision-making process, teaching valuable life skills, and providing useful information.

Question 4

Psychoeducation Groups

Answer 4

Psychoeducational groups are particularly well-suited for many structured interpretations that facilitate self-awareness and values clarification.
School, rehabilitation, and substance abuse specialists, in particular, will be called on to lead these types of groups.
Social issues that may actually help prevent oppression of marginalized individuals within a group, as well as the larger community.

Question 5

Task Groups

Answer 5

The exact same skills that make you well prepared to lead therapeutic groups also equip you with the ability to lead any group more effectively.
Examples: A meeting, town hall discussion, teach in a classroom, consulting or coaching capacity.

Question 6

Group Basics

Answer 6

Group counseling is the modality most similar in its goals to those of individual counseling.
The techniques and strategies are all designed to help resolve interpersonal conflict, promote greater self-awareness and insight, and help individual members work to eliminate their self-defeating behaviors.

Question 7

Group Basics

Answer 7

Most often, the clientele have few manifestations of psychopathology; they simply wish to work on personal concerns in daily living.
Also designed to be rather brief treatments, often focusing on resolving specific problems within a time-limited format.

Question 8

More Basics

Answer 8

Group counseling is usually focused in the present rather than on the past. It is relatively short term, spanning a period of weeks or months, and stresses relationship support factors for resolving stated conflicts.

Question 9

Therapy Groups

Answer 9

Usually long term in duration.
Supportive themes
Identification of behaviors, challenges, struggles
Goal is to minimize symptoms
Understand past actions
Support

Question 10

Self-Help Groups

Answer 10

Self-help groups often do not have a professionally trained leader.
use a more experienced member who has hopefully resolved the issues with which others are struggling.

Question 11

Self-Help Groups

Answer 11

The purpose of self-help groups is to provide emotional and social support, to develop new ideas about coping with a common issue, and to provide constructive direction for members.
The membership of self-help groups is open and fluctuates from meeting to meeting.

Question 12

Self-Help Groups

Answer 12

Examples of self-help groups might include Alcoholics Anonymous, an eating disorders group, a Heart-Smart group for individuals with cardiac problems, a group for people diagnosed with HIV, and many others on almost any conceivable topic or issue.

Question 13

Support Groups

Answer 13

Support groups are closely related to self-help groups; in fact, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Support groups are often developed and sponsored by professional organizations or professional individuals, and they rely on the resources of the sponsoring organization or individual to a greater extent than self-help groups.

Question 14

Support Groups

Answer 14

Examples of support groups might include breast cancer survivors, Parents Anonymous, Parents of Children with Attention Deficit Disorders, and spouse loss/grief groups.

Question 15

Being A Group Leader

Answer 15

It is very difficult to learn to be a group leader without logging considerable experience as a member.
Moreover, it is somewhat hypocritical to expect clients to take risks and share personal concerns when the counselor has been unwilling to do so.
That is one reason that many training programs provide structured experiences for students to experience the power of groups firsthand, as well as to learn appropriate group behavior.

Question 16

Advantages of Using Groups

Answer 16

Cost-Effectiveness
Spectator Effects
Stimulation Value
Opportunity for Feedback
Support
Structured Practice

Question 17

What To Remember About Groups

Answer 17

The group leader must understand dynamics and assumptions as they are applied to group behavior.
Each client comes to the group with different expectations, interests, and goals.

Question 18

What To Remember About Groups

Answer 18

The most basic assumption about groups, therefore, is that there are often discrepancies among the participants’ hopes and expectations and even between those of the leaders and the members.
Coalitions are formed on the basis of these common interests and backgrounds and often on the basis of perceived similarities in attitudes, abilities, or attractiveness.

Question 19

What To Remember About Groups

Answer 19

The leader may be viewed as the “outsider,” as a function of his or her expert role, or possibly as the only “insider,” because the counselor alone really knows what is going on during the beginning sessions.

Question 20

Stages of A Group

Answer 20

Forming Stage
Just thinking about the group before it begins
Expectations of group and leader
Screening process

Question 21

Initial Stage

Answer 21

Introductions
Purpose of group
Ground rules established
Trust is explored
One-three sessions

Question 22

Transition Stage

Answer 22

long silences
demands for leader structure
expressions of discomfort or anxiety
someone acting out as a distraction
prolonged conflict, or even attacks on the leader (Gladding, 2012).

Question 23

Transition Stage

Answer 23

express, and deal with fears
mood of the group changes from one in which people only pat one another on the back to one in which it is safer to disagree respectfully, confront constructively
experiment with more freedom and flexibility—that is, all the behaviors needed for the real work to take place.

Question 24

Working Stage

Answer 24

When there is good movement from one member to another with almost everyone participating
When there is less reliance on the leader(s) to direct and structure things
When individuals are accomplishing their stated goals

Question 25

Working Stage

Answer 25

When cohesion, intimacy, and trust are operating at consistently high levels
When game playing, conflicts, and acting-out behaviors are labeled, confronted, and worked through successfully
When self-disclosure, constructive risk taking, and sharing are high

Question 26

Working Stage

Answer 26

When it appears as if people are making consistent progress in their sensitivity and responsiveness to one another

Question 27

Closing Stage

Answer 27

group members assess what they have learned
discuss plans for change
explore their feelings about the experience
members attempt to resolve unfinished issues within the group
evaluate the performance of the group
say good-bye and deal with ending issues

Question 28

How To Know If A Group Is Functioning

Answer 28

Do members feel safe? Are people supported? Has trust been established to the point where people are willing to take constructive risks?
To what extent are differences respected and honored? Each group will include a great variety of cultural, value, gender, political, and personal beliefs. Yet there is often pressure to conform to the majority. Are people’s different worldviews respected?

Question 29

How To Know If A Group Is Functioning

Answer 29

Have constructive norms been established and clear boundaries enforced? Good groups need rules around appropriate behavior (coming late, missing sessions, interrupting, etc.). People have to know what is expected and they have to count on that the rules will be enforced consistently.

Question 30

How To Know If A Group Is Functioning

Answer 30

How is conflict acknowledged and worked through? High-functioning groups do not avoid conflict but seek to deal with the underlying issues. Such disagreements can be helpful if dealt with in therapeutic ways.

Question 31

More On Functioning Groups

Answer 31

How are resources shared? Is there reasonable distribution of contributions or are sessions dominated by only a few members? The best groups are those in which everyone feels a part of what is going on.
How are distractions, digressions, and acting out handled? It is a certainty that some members will say and do things that may not fit with what is going on.

Question 32

More On Functioning Groups

Answer 32

Chaos will ensue if these behaviors are not redirected. Good leaders know how to redirect the focus in such a way that things remain on task—yet without humiliating the person(s) who need feedback.

Question 33

More On Functioning Groups

Answer 33

Is there follow-up and follow-through? It is not nearly enough to have a high-functioning session unless it results in some sort of action. It is crucial to follow up on every participant to make sure they are doing what they say they will do, and what they need to do.

Question 34

Intervention Cues

Answer 34

Counselor relies heavily on “gut wisdom” but also knows that, when a client becomes self-deprecating or self-deceptive or drifts from reality.
Group situations contain a virtual overload of stimuli to attend to. The most difficult task is to describe not just how and when to intervene but with whom.
A leader’s behavior can be at best distracting or at worst destructive if ill timed or inappropriately directed.

Question 35

Other Issues to Attend To

Answer 35

Abusive behavior/dialogue
Rambling & digressions
Withdrawal and passivity
Lethargy and Boredom
Sensitivity to language used “I” word

Question 36

Leadership Skills

Answer 36

Supporting
Facilitating
Initiating
Setting goals
Giving feedback
Linking
Blocking

Question 37

1970’s Contributions

Answer 37

Concepts like homeostasis emerged— the idea that families experience strong pressures to maintain their typical pattern of functioning, no matter how dysfunctional they are.

Another key term was the identified patient, a client like the girl with the eating disorder who took on the role of expressing psychological symptoms that actually reflected distress of the entire family.

Indeed, the very term dysfunctional family was developed by this new school of family system thinkers; the term has become such a part of our everyday language that we forget that it didn’t exist until the latter years of the 20th century.

Question 38

Individual Verses Family Counseling

Answer 38

Nichols & Schwartz, 2010:
Family practitioners view problems as located not within the individual but within the larger context of interactions between people.
Clinicians must generally be more active, directive, and controlling than they would be in individual sessions.
Rarely can the counselor afford the luxury of operating from one theoretical approach. Family practitioners tend to be very pragmatic and flexible.
Focus is directed toward organizational structures and natural developmental processes that are part of all family systems. This includes attention to family rules, norms, and coalitions.

A model of circular, rather than linear, causality is favored. This means that when determining the causes of events or behaviors, it is important to look at the bigger picture of how each person’s actions become causes and effects of everyone else’s behavior.
Developmental models are employed that describe the family life cycle, includeing predictable and natural transitions, crises, and conflicts.
Rather than a single notion of “family” structure, counselors recognize that multiple versions are common, depending on the dominant culture.

Question 39

Family Counseling Training

Answer 39

family counseling involves additional training and specialization, especially considering that there is a different orientation to look far beyond the symptoms of the identified client who was referred for treatment and explore issues within a larger context that takes into consideration relational patterns.

in order to attain a degree of competence in this type of work you must have specialized training in family systems dynamics, family theories, family interventions, couples counseling, sex counseling, and professional/ethical issues unique to this practice.

family counseling has all the challenges of individual and group counseling—plus the added burden of dealing with the fact that everyone is related to one another;
each case, comes with a history of interactions you have not been privy to.

consider that one or more family members are often working actively to sabotage any of your therapeutic efforts. It is for this reason you need a solid grounding in family theory, research, and practice.

Question 40

Universal Features of Family Counseling

Answer 40

Most family counselors rely on the same set of skills, such as “joining the family” or building rapport, assessing power hierarchies within the family system, restructuring coalitions among family members, reframing problems to make them more solvable, and engaging all members in resolving their difficulties.

Question 41

Structural Family Therapy

Answer 41

Salavdor Minuchin
1960s
A dysfunctional family supports the sysetmatic behavior
Purpose of Counselor: disrupt family dysfunctional patterns

Question 42

Power In Relationships

Answer 42

Minuchin (1974) introduced the notion of boundaries to describe how the various coalitions in family relationships tend to intersect.
Sometimes, for example, the boundaries between parents and children are clearly defined and at other times an alignment may develop between mother and son, with a disengaged boundary between them and the father

Question 43

Triangulation

Answer 43

Is an example of a family triad

Question 44

Power Continued

Answer 44

Power within the family must also be carefully understood and balanced. Each family has a regimented hierarchy, within which each person has a specified amount of control and responsibility.
Counseling often takes the form of reestablishing a single hierarchical organization in which the boundaries are more clearly delineated so that the parents are in charge and the children have less power.

Power within the family must also be carefully understood and balanced. Each family has a regimented hierarchy, within which each person has a specified amount of control and responsibility.
Counseling often takes the form of reestablishing a single hierarchical organization in which the boundaries are more clearly delineated so that the parents are in charge and the children have less power.

Family counselors tend to see psychological symptoms like depression, anxiety, and eating disorders in terms of the roles they play within a family’s power dynamics.
Balance of power between spouses can be viewed as a metaphor for other communications in the marriage.

Question 45

Avoidance In Family Therapy

Answer 45

A child will often develop problems as a way to protect the parents from having to face their own difficulties.
As a counselor, you will often see families who present a “problem” child and view themselves as concerned parents who have no problems of their own.
Counselors in a variety of settings observe this phenomenon, and it accounts for why even school counselors are now attempting more and more family counseling interventions (Davis & Lambie, 2005; Nelson, 2006; Vanderbleek, 2004).

Question 46

Symptoms As Solutions

Answer 46

Family systems analysis provides a larger context within which to view the problems of the identified client.
Rather than approaching treatment with the usual intention of promoting individual insight and then helping the client to make specific changes, the family counselor often looks at the behavior of the disruptive family member as helpful or constructive in some regard.

The disruptive behavior continues because it is unconsciously supported and maintained by others within the family system.

Question 47

Haley’s Contributions

Answer 47

Family systems analysis provides a larger context within which to view the problems of the identified client.
Rather than approaching treatment with the usual intention of promoting individual insight and then helping the client to make specific changes, the family counselor often looks at the behavior of the disruptive family member as helpful or constructive in some regard.
The disruptive behavior continues because it is unconsciously supported and maintained by others within the family system.

Question 48

The Genogram aka “Family Tree”

Answer 48

The genogram is another useful tool for gathering information about family relationships and structures.
It consists of a comprehensive map of all the members of a family over several generations, including their coalitions, conflicts, and connections.

Question 49

Strategic Family Therapy

Answer 49

Wanted to look at long term treatments
And a short goal to want to achieve and strive this for this goal
Goal change to change a more family structural system

It thus provides a blueprint for the counselor in understanding the cross-generational themes that repeat themselves over time, as well as the current interpersonal conflicts that are evident in the structural map

Question 50

Reframing

Answer 50

The counselor’s initial task, therefore, is to define or reframe the present problem to the client or clients in such a way that it may be resolved.
There isn’t much that can be done to help a client who is complaining about another person’s behavior, unless, of course, the other person will come in for counseling and willingly change what the accuser dislikes.

Question 51

Being Direct

Answer 51

family counselors, by the very nature of their work, are more active, structuring, and directive than they would ever consider being when working with individual clients.
Put all members of a family together in a room—particularly those who so are conflicted they had to ask for help—and the situation often turns chaotic.
Unless the counselor is prepared to jump in and take the initiative, the family counseling session could make matters considerably worse.

Question 52

Directive Skills

Answer 52

Redefining the problem in a less threatening form and describing it in a way that allows resolution
Motivating and preparing the client to follow (or not follow) the directive
Presenting the directive clearly, simply, and realistically, ensuring that all participants understand what they are to do or not do.

Question 53

Forcing The Spontaneous

Answer 53

A paradoxical directive of this type allows the counselor to be successful, and the client perceives himself or herself as making progress.
The client who complies with the suggestion is exhibiting control, and the client who doesn’t abide by the directive to fail is then cured of the problem.
This type of directive is safe for both the counselor and the client because it provides ample opportunity for positive outcome.

Question 54

Backing Down Directive

Answer 54

Suggesting to those without power that the only way they will get any control is to back down. By deliberately taking a “weak position” and “giving in,” they finally break the vicious, repetitive cycle.

Question 55

Slowing Down Directive

Answer 55

Whenever anyone tries too hard to do something, the task becomes more difficult. The directive to slow down is often most effective during initial interviews, when clients are apprehensive about being asked to do something they won’t be able to do.

If the presenting problem is resolved too quickly, before the clients have had the opportunity to make new adjustments or discover other ways of relating to one another, it is possible that the family structure will break down.

Question 56

Couples Counseling

Answer 56

The majority of couples come in for counseling when the relationship is on the edge of falling apart, when there is a yearning for regaining the intimacy experienced in the early phase of the relationship, but also because of the fear that the partnership has become unsalvageable.

Despite their best attempts to save the relationship by themselves, it remains filled with fighting, emotional distance, unsatisfying sex, constant tension, and personal anguish.
If there are children involved, the desperation of the couples can be even more intense, as the prospect of separating and its impact on their children looms increasingly as inevitable.

A couples counselor helps partners strengthen the bond between them, enhance the quality of intimacy in their relationship, and regain confidence that the partnership can last.

Question 57

Counselor’s Role In Couples Counseling

Answer 57

It is not your job to help the couple stay together; rather, your role is to help each partner take responsibility for his or her role in the relationship’s difficulties, develop skills in communicating his or her emotional needs with honesty and directness, learn to fight fairly, and allow each person to become emotionally open and vulnerable with his or her partner—perhaps the essential requirement for intimacy.

Question 58

Thoughts and Questions

Answer 58

Is it humanly possible for a couples counselor to help clients without being emotionally invested in the couple staying together?
Our basic impulse, the motivating push that helps us do our best work, comes from our desire to see the relationship succeed.
If we don’t care whether or not the couple stays together, is there not the risk we will somehow project our indifference onto the couple, undermining the couples’ motivation to work on their relationship?
Religious perspective: Couples who were married in a religious ceremony have made a covenant with the God they worship.
Some theorists who believe that all marriages can succeed (assuming there is no domestic violence)—if both partners do the work necessary to repair the relationship.

Question 59

Dealing With Anger

Answer 59

the traditional approach, still held by many counselors, is that anger is inevitably destructive to a relationship, and while angry fights will always occur from time to time, the counselor’s role is to help couples find alternate ways of resolving differences.

Numerous interventions have been developed to reduce the criticism, name-calling, and various other hurtful behaviors couples routinely practice.
These include rules for fair fighting and lessons in reporting anger as an alternative to expressing it.

Question 60

Gottman, On Anger

Answer 60

Anger itself was not a predictor of divorce; in fact, couples who expressed anger showed increases in marital satisfaction over time.

If anger was not necessarily a bad thing for relationships, there were four kinds of negative interactions that were found to be destructive: criticism, stonewalling (when one partner turns away from the other or leaves the room in the middle of a disagreement), defensiveness, and contempt. It was the last two, in particular, that most powerfully predicted an unhappy marriage.

While negative emotions were a normal part of marriage, relationships succeeded when the number of positive emotions expressed in interactions was higher than the number of negative ones. Simply put, anger is fine so long as people are nice to each other more often than they are angry.

Successful couples were good at making up after fights. They had developed means to repair any damage that had been inflicted.

Question 61

Types of Therapy For Couples

Answer 61

Behavioral Couple Therapy (known as BCT)
Teaching couples communcation skills, including the ability to discuss “hot-button” issues in a healthy, productive manner. Indeed, if you utilize This intervention, you would teach couples how to paraphrase, reflect, clarify, and empathize—and most important, listen without interruption or giving advice.

Another strategy used by behavioral couples counselors is to give couples homework assignments designed to increase the number of positive behaviors exchanged.

Question 62

Strategic Couple Therapy

Answer 62

If you are a strategic or systems-oriented counselor in general, your main intervention might be providing feedback and insights as to how each partner helps maintain the problematic behavior;
however, you might also use more dramatic, hands-on strategies, directing the partners to change specific behaviors.

Question 63

Empathy Based Models

Answer 63

Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT); counselors help their clients create a stronger relationship by accepting the personality traits each partner wants to change in the other as just “differences,” rather than as problems.
Treatment is devoted to helping each partner gain a greater empathy for the other’s vulnerable feelings, leading to an increased sense of appreciation for the partner’s all-too-human struggle and increased acceptance.

Question 64

Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

Answer 64

Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) integrates attachment theory, systems theory, and person-centered empathy to help couples express their deepest fears about becoming close to each other (Johnson, 2004, 2008, 2011).
Emotionally focused counselors identify the ways in which couples create negative cycles of interaction and reframe hostile behaviors as a partner’s protest that the relationship isn’t closer.

Question 65

Hendrix’s Contribution

Answer 65

Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) builds on psychoanalytic concepts to explain how we choose mates who resemble our parents—with the unconscious hope that our partner will heal our childhood wounds.
Relationship difficulties are caused, in part, by our disappointment in discovering that our partners cannot make up for old, family-of-origin wounds.

Question 66

Basics

Answer 66

Establish clear goals and focus..
Maintain balance.
Do not allow verbal abuse in a session.
Assess for domestic violence.
Stay calm regardless of the intensity of the couple’s arguing or covert tension.

Assessment of couples should be multidimensional regardless of theoretical orientation
Be assertive when appropriate. Couples counselors are not passive listeners
Examine your own values regarding relationships, your relationship behaviors, and your parents’ relationship to ensure that you see your clients objectively

Assessment of couples should be multidimensional regardless of theoretical orientation
Be assertive when appropriate. Couples counselors are not passive listeners
Examine your own values regarding relationships, your relationship behaviors, and your parents’ relationship to ensure that you see your clients objectively

Question 67

Ethical Concerns

Answer 67

Is it ethical to be deceitful and manipulative (using paradoxical techniques, for example) if it is for the client’s own good?
If your primary function is to treat family problems, what about the individual goals of each member, which may conflict with those of the others?

Because family conflicts frequently involve value issues related to fidelity, sexuality, promiscuity, divorce, child rearing, and life priorities, how can you possibly keep your own values in check regarding how you believe people should behave?
Because family counselors are often highly directive and dramatic in their interventions geared toward breaking up dysfunctional patterns, aren’t there greater risks for doing harm?

Question 68

Sex Counseling

Answer 68

First, determine the nature of the sexual problem. If it is primarily a relational issue, proceed with one of the couples counseling modes, followed by sexually oriented behavioral interventions.
If it appears to be isolated from intimacy issues, proceed right to behavioral interventions combined with sex education.

If the sexual problem appears to be organically caused, refer to a physician, but with the proviso that the couple return to couples counseling if medical treatment does not completely resolve the couple’s distress.

Question 69

Sensate Focus

Answer 69

If there is one behavioral intervention for sexual difficulties that all counselors should be familiar with, it is sensate focus, a sequence of exercises designed to enhance each partner’s awareness of his or her body while eliminating the performance anxiety frequently associated with sexual difficulties.

After the counselor has assessed for and addressed intimacy issues, the counselor will next introduce the sensate focus sequence in the treatment, essentially a prescribed series of progressive exercises that the couple will do at home.
Initially, all pressure is removed by specifically prohibiting the couple from any further attempts at intercourse.
They are absolutely forbidden to try, thereby removing the threat of failure.

Question 70

Career Counseling History

Answer 70

Historically, career development has been the principal domain of counselors.
It is through the process and techniques of vocational guidance that the counseling profession was first introduced and implemented in numerous settings. In recent years, how-ever, there has been a gradual yet perceptible shift in emphasis from vocational issues to more personal and emotional concerns (Andersen & Vandehey, 2012).

Career decisions are also looked at in a much broader developmental, relational context (Phillips, Christopher-Sisk, & Gravino, 2001; Schultheiss, 2003), and with a more culturally responsive focus (Flores & Heppner, 2002; Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2012).

Question 71

Think About Your Own Career Journey

Answer 71

You are studying to be a counselor and, as such, there are many side effects, ripple effects, and consequences as a result of this choice.
Certain financial resources are sacrificed to pursue this dream, monies that could be spent elsewhere. Your family and friends are also included as part of this journey, whether they wish to be or not.

As you learn and grow and make changes in the ways you think and behave, the effects have far-reaching impact on all your other relationships.
It would thus be impossible to talk to you only about your ultimate career aspirations without delving into your relationships, your family, your financial situation, your personal values, and what gives your life meaning.

Question 72

Career Counseling IS Counseling

Answer 72

In spite of the changes taking place in the field, there is still a myth among many counselors that “real” counseling is personal/emotional and that vocational/ career counseling is somehow a second-class cousin that requires fewer skills and is more “routine.”
This attitude is not only false but dangerous.

Question 73

Vocational Chaos

Answer 73

Individuals who experience vocational chaos (such as unemployment, underemployment, and job dissatisfaction) report high stress, relationship difficulties, and low self-esteem.
Feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear often associated with these changes.

Question 74

Everyone Works

Answer 74

Some receive financial remuneration for their efforts—they sell their time and talent.
Others work for internal rewards or receive other forms of compensation by way of a cooperative division of labor.
Even the children are working—mastering new skills, taking in new knowledge. They may sometimes work in places called play-grounds, but we are not for a moment deceived that these little people are not laboring away at their age-related developmental tasks. They are working their bodies, testing their minds, and learning about cooperation, competition, and million other things they will later find useful after they “grow up” and work in a “real” job.

Question 75

Benefits of Vocation

Answer 75

Vocation is very much tied into their sense of identity, self-image, and self-worth.
Jobs are a measure of status, a major object of devotion of one’s time and energy.
They are a testing ground for skills and information that have been accumulated over a lifetime.
They are the source of many friendships.

Question 76

Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction

Answer 76

People who are satisfied in their work are those who are often most content with their lives.
Lonely, depressed, anxious, problem-ridden people—those who seek a counselor’s help—are often those who are not content with their life’s work.
Career frustration, job stress, and discontent with one’s decisions and current vocational development are thus major preoccupations for many people and therefore a significant part of a counselor’s work.

Question 77

Some Objectives For The Counselor

Answer 77

Developmental problems such as career immaturity are resolved by exploring the client’s interests and career alternatives and applying decision-making strategies.
Situational problems such as job stress are worked on within the context of a supportive, problem-solving relationship to develop alternative responses.

Question 78

Some Objectives For The Counselor

Answer 78

Chronic problems such as psychological dysfunctions are resolved in longer-term counseling to initiate more extensive personality changes.

Question 79

Self-Exploration: What Does The Client Want/Wish?

Answer 79

long vacations
opportunities for advancement
big money
security
variety of tasks
friendly coworkers
creative opportunities

physically active
flexible hours
lots of responsibility
status
independence
minimum of pressure
benevolent boss
power
chance to help people

Question 80

The World of Work

Answer 80

The Occupational Information Network or O*Net (www.onetcenter.org), the online service developed for the U.S. Department of Labor, lists 977 job titles.
Occupations can be searched using six different descriptors (worker characteristics, worker requirements, experience requirements, occupation-specific information, workforce characteristics, and occupational requirements).

High-growth professions can be accessed separately, with a full array of data regarding growth projections. Every job in the database can be examined in great detail, helping the searcher eventually narrow down the choices to realistic possibilities.
How many of you have looked up this profession? If so, what did you find out?

Question 81

What To Teach The Client

Answer 81

Decision making skills: People must learn to make quality decisions about when and how they should initiate career changes.
Employable Skills: The goal of all career-counseling efforts ought to be to provide skills for making and implementing decisions throughout the lifetime.

Life-Coaching Expectations: The coach functions less like a therapist and much more like a personal trainer, consultant, and mentor. Very specific goals are identified. Action plans are set in motion. Rather than waiting on the sidelines for the weekly report he coach follows up progress via the telephone, Internet, and personal visits.

Question 82

Approaches to Career Counseling

Answer 82

How do people make career choices?
Which variables are most influential in making career decisions?
What parts do genetics, the environment, and cognitive and emotional responses play in career development?

What makes some people happy and others so miserable in their work?
How does work fit within the larger context of life satisfaction?
What roles ought counseling to play in the shaping of career development?

Question 83

Super’s Contribution

Answer 83

1.People differ in their abilities, interests, and personalities.
2.They are qualified, by virtue of these circumstances, for a number of occupations.
3.Each of these occupations requires a characteristic pattern of abilities, interests, and personality traits, with tolerances wide enough to allow both variety of occupations for each individual and variety of individuals in each occupation.

4.Vocational preferences, competencies, situations, and self-concepts change with time and experience, making choice and adjustment a continuous process.
5.This process may be summed up in a series of life stages, characterized as those of growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline.
6.The nature of the career pattern (i.e., the occupational level attained and the sequence, frequency, and duration of trial and stable jobs) is detected by the individual’s parental socioeconomic level, mental ability, and personality characteristics, as well as by the opportunities to which he or she is exposed.

Question 84

Super’s Stages

Answer 84

The pattern of development begins during adolescence with the exploratory stage, in which a person uses fantasy, play, and role experimentation to help clarify the emerging self-concept and moves tentatively onward in the early 20s to a first job.
The establishment stage, through experimenting and trying out various options, helps the person to discover an occupation well suited to satisfy personal needs.
The self-concept adjusts to fit the stabilized career choice. Stability may or may not last into the maintenance stage.

Question 85

Holland’s Contribution

Answer 85

Individuals can be categorized into six different personality types—realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional—depending on interests, preferences, and skills.
Environment can also be classified into the same six types and tends to be dominated by compatible personalities.
People search for environments in which their personality type can be comfortably expressed; artistic people search for artistic environments, whereas social people look for social environments. The behavior of an individual is determined by the interaction between personality type and environmental characteristics.

Question 86

Holland’s Personality Types

Answer 86

Realistic. This person is logical, objective, and forthright. Preference is given to dimensions such as physical prowess, aggression, and domination.
Investigative. By relying on intelligence and cognitive skills, this personality type is a problem solver.
Artistic. This is a sensitive, impulsive, creative, emotional, independent, and nonconforming individual who values cultural activities and aesthetic qualities.

Question 87

Personality Types Continued

Answer 87

Social. This person is highly skilled at dealing with other people.
Enterprising. This person uses highly refined verbal skills for leadership and sales professions such as marketing, business, and politics.
Conventional. This type of person prefers activities that are routine, structured, and practical.

Question 88

Roe’s Contribution

Answer 88

The family’s interaction:
emotional concentration on the child,
avoidance of the child, or
acceptance of the child.
vocational behavior can be coined as
Loving
neglecting
Rejecting
overprotective
over demanding
casual

Question 89

Mitchell & Krumboltz’s Contributions

Answer 89

Career decisions should be based not only on present interests and abilities but also on others that can be developed.
Structured learning experiences can be customized for clients so that they can expand the range of their choices and opportunities.
Efforts should be undertaken to prepare people for a changing world in which new skills and abilities will need to be developed.
Career counseling should be integrated into all counseling efforts rather than just restricted to occupational choices.
Cognitive restructuring methods should be employed to help people to think differently about their choices and situations.

Question 90

Gottfredson’s Contribution

Answer 90

Stage 1: Orientation to Size and Power (ages 3–5). In the first stage, children are learning through observation about play and adult occupational activities.
Stage 2: Orientation to Sex Roles (ages 6–8) n this stage, children begin the process of sex-role stereotyping and reject career options that appear incompatible with their own gender.
Stage 3: Orientation to Social Valuation (ages 9–13). As children’s cognitive processing becomes increasingly abstract, they are also becoming sensitive to issues of prestige and social class, and which occupations are associated with status among adults.
Stage 4: Orientation to the Internal, Unique Self (age 14 and older). At this stage, the decision-making process shifts from narrowing down choices to reflecting on which occupations match one’s emerging sense of identity, abilities, interests, and values.

Question 91

Client’s Tasks (Campbell & Ungar, 2004)

Answer 91

Explore dominant story lines and preferred futures.
Develop flexible goals that reflect positive uncertainty. There is never one way to achieve a life goal, or, as narrative counselors would put it, write the next chapter in your own story
Explore creative ways of integrating seemingly multiple and conflicting discourses.
Develop a contingency plan of the alternative paths available for reaching their preferred futures. Knowing that clients will most likely need to take a variety.
.

Question 92

Career Education

Answer 92

Every learning experience has career implications.
Skill training is necessary for entry into an occupation.
Cognitive and experiential ways must be provided in order for students to understand work-oriented values.
Opportunities must be provided for observing work environments. Individuals must have the opportunity to develop experiences and knowledge about the world of work..
The interrelationships among home, family, community, and societal values should be identified.

Question 93

Steps

Answer 93

Define the problem.
Finding and using information.
Creating alternatives.
Developing plans.
Implementing plans.
Know the trends
Know the changes in the workplace

Question 94

Counseling The Unemployed

Answer 94

Teach relaxation techniques to reduce the stress of being out of work or looking for jobs in a scarce market.
Explore with clients where their meaning and identity come from, helping them to differentiate the meaning that comes from career versus from family or other important life pursuits.
Attend to their marital/partnership and family relationships, which are frequently stressed during difficult economic periods. If families are unable to provide social support, facilitate their finding other sources of community and connection.
Help them develop effective coping strategies and monitor the potential for self-destructive coping (e.g., substance abuse).

Question 95

Counseling The Unemployed

Answer 95

Facilitate the expression of grief, as they come to terms with the reality of career loss.

Question 96

Vocational Considerations

Answer 96

Development through the life stages can be guided partly by facilitating the process of maturation of abilities and interests and partly by aiding in reality testing and in the development of the self-concept.

The process of vocational development is essentially that of developing and implementing a self-concept; it is a compromise process in which the self-concept is a product of the interaction of inherited aptitudes, neural and endocrine makeup, opportunity to play various roles, and evaluation of the extent to which the results of role-playing meet with approval of superiors and peers.
The process of compromise between individual and social factors, and between self-concept and reality, is one of role-playing, whether the role is played in fantasy, in the counseling interview, or in real-life activities such as school classes, clubs, part-time work, and entry jobs.
Work satisfaction and life satisfaction depend on the extent to which the individual finds adequate outlets for abilities, interests, personality traits, and values; they also depend on establishment in a work situation and a satisfying way of life.

Question 97

Don’t Forget Technology!

Answer 97

Counselors need to have knowledge of the various computer-based guidance and information systems as well as the services available on the Internet.
Counselors need to know the standards by which such systems and services are evaluated (by organizations like the NCDA).
Counselors must be able to ensure that computer-assisted guidance is conducted ethically.
Counselors need to discern which clients are likely to profit from computer-assisted guidance.
Counselors must be able to evaluate and select computer guidance systems that meet local needs (NCDA, 2009).