Unit 2: Personal And Professional Aspects Of Counselling

Question 1

Explain how areas of competency are developed for counsellors

Answer 1

Students are supervised and often rely on their supervisors for guidance and insight when struggling with specific skills and situations. The supervisors role is to mentor their students and guide them through challenges with the intent of shaping them into capable, independent professionals

Counsellors may be considered competent and prepared to be independent practitioners when they feel empowered in their new professional role, willingly invite collegiality, and continue to push themselves to improve their counselling skills and knowledge

Counsellor development is a cyclical, open ended, spiralling experience involving dissonance and empowerment

Question 2

Describe the process of becoming a counsellor in Canada

Answer 2

It is an intense process that requires significant self development and reflection, usually in addition to years of theoretical and practical learning and training

Question 3

A three-dimensional syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that occurs among individuals who work with people in some capacity. These people may experience feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and a sense of entrapment

Answer 3

Burnout

A risk when engaging in high stress, emotionally involved situations

Question 4

What are some of the factors that influence burnout?

Answer 4

Time limitations that prevent people from completing quality work, lack of client cooperation, work overload, personal conflict with colleagues, minimal autonomy, and the inability to participate in administrative decision making

Question 5

What interventions might be suggested to a counsellor experiencing burnout?

Answer 5

Place new demands on counsellors that will provide them with the opportunity to be successful, and to regain a sense of personal accomplishment

Improved social support systems provide counsellors with the opportunity to consult with other colleagues, and to discuss their experiences with peers

The most effective way to prevent burnout is to change human resource policies to ensure that counsellors will not be working in strained environments, and that they have sufficient input into the organization

Question 6

Describe some of the settings counsellors work in

Answer 6

Most often work in: Schools, community agencies, and private practice

May also work: colleges, universities, industry, medical, rehabilitation, and civil service settings

Question 7

What kind of activities do counsellors engage in?

Answer 7

Personal counseling, career counseling, intake and assessment, academic advising, group counseling, crisis intervention, and staff training and development

Question 8

In Canada, professions are regulated and licensed by provincial regulatory bodies known as

Answer 8

Colleges

Each provincial college establishes it’s own code of ethics and standards of practice and deals with disciplinary matters and formal complaints.

In Alberta, the counselling profession would have to comply with the health professions act

Question 9

What settings are regulated, and which settings are not regulated?

Answer 9

Counselling is neither regulated nor subject to licensing in many provinces. Therefore, the title counsellor in the other provinces and territories does not exclusively belong to a specific group of professionals, and can be used by anyone who desires to call themselves a counselor. There are no regulated educational requirements to use the title counselor, and there are no standards of practice or ethical codes of conduct and by which people using this title are required to abide.

Quebec is fully regulated

Question 10

Compare regulation and certification

Answer 10

Regulation means the counsellor must follow the code of ethics and standards of practice set out by the provincial college. The regulation of a profession must comply with the mandate set out by a provinces legislative acts

The Canadian counselling and psychotherapy association or CCPA developed a set of national standards to guide the certification of Canadian counsellors and the accreditation of Canadian counselling education programs. Established the Canadian certified counsellor or CCC program to provide counsellors with a means to nationally certified themselves should they so desire. The minimum education requirement to become certified is a masters degree in a counselling program with a practicum component

Question 11

The promotion of social change, problem-solving in human relationships, and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Includes the assessment, remediation and prevention of social problems and the enhancement of social functioning of individuals, families, and communities. These individuals also spend their time in the development, promotion, and delivery of human service programs with the intention of improving social conditions and increasing equality

Answer 11

Social work

Social workers may operate on a more global scale then counselors, and may be more aware of the implications of social policy and social systems on a person’s well-being. Counsellors tend to focus on the individual, and generally do not seek to make changes in society to improve social conditions

Social workers, clinical and counselling psychologists must be licensed through provincial colleges

Question 12

Includes a number of subgroups of professionals that provide counselling or therapeutic services to clients

Answer 12

Psychologist

Question 13

Mental health professionals that are able to prescribe psychoactive drugs, because they have graduated with medical degrees

Answer 13

Psychiatrist

Generally take a biopsychosocial approach when providing treatment to their patients, or in other words, they try to balance the biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to mental disorders to arrive at a treatment solution
Although, few psychiatrists in Canada emphasize the social factors that contribute and tend to stress biological factors

Approximately one third of psychiatrists spend most of their time practising in a hospital setting, while another third practice out of a private office. 30% divide their time equally between a hospital setting and private practice while a small minority work in community agencies

Question 14

These psychologists often treat clients with psychopathological disorders that severely impact their ability to function in the environment

Answer 14

Clinical psychologists

Primary activities: assessment, diagnosis, consultation, treatment, program development, administration, and research

Often employed by General Hospital’s, medical clinics, mental health clinics, psychiatric hospitals, And rehabilitation hospitals and some common employment settings of counselling psychologists such as community service organizations, private practice, universities, colleges, industry, and civil service

Question 15

These psychologists usually treat people who are quite healthy, but are experiencing psychological problems that cannot be classified as serious mental illnesses

Answer 15

Counselling psychologists and counsellors

Engage in similar activities to clinical psychologists such as assessment and diagnosis, but these activities are typically secondary to their professional role

Usually employed in community service organizations, private practice, universities, colleges, industry, and civil-service

Question 16

Explain why a clients needs might sometimes be better served through a referral from one discipline to the other then by treatment from the first professional consulted and provide examples for referrals to each of the different professionals

Answer 16

After initial consultation, the professional should take into account whether or not they would be the best person to help, and if not, they should refer when necessary

Social worker refers to psychologist when the individual is experiencing a disorder that is impacting their ability to function or has a mental illness.
Should refer to psychiatrist when person has a diagnosable mental illness such as schizophrenia that may benefit from the use of drugs

Psychologist should refer to social worker when individual has more global problems, such as a mother who is putting her kids in danger because of her and her husband’s drinking problem.
Should refer her to a psychiatrist when the disorder would benefit from the use of psychoactive drugs and should be monitored

Question 17

How does the Canadian counselling and psychotherapy association differentiate a counsellor from a psychotherapist

Answer 17

It is not possible to make a generally excepted stinks in between counselling and psychotherapy. If there are differences, then they relate more to the individual psychotherapists or counsellors training and interests and to the setting in which they work, rather than to any intrinsic difference in the two activities. A psychotherapist working in a hospital is likely to be more concerned with severe psychological disorders then with the wider range of problems about which is appropriate to consult a counsellor. In private practice, however, a psychotherapist is more likely to except clients whose need is less severe. Similarly, in private practice a counsellors work will overlap with that of a psychotherapist. Those counselors, however, who work for voluntary agencies or in educational settings such as schools and colleges usually concentrate more on the every day problems and difficulties of life than on the more severe psychological disorders

Question 18

Why do you think anxiety is identified as a component of counsellors development?

Answer 18

When individuals first enter counselling training programs, they often have left an environment where they felt secure for a new learning environment that requires them to acknowledge and define their strengths and weaknesses. Anxiety is common as counselling students engage in new activities and reflect upon past experiences. Anxiety appears to be a crucial component of counsellors development because it pushes them to become more adept, and allows them to gauge how comfortable they feel about delivering various counselling services