Career Barriers

Since making the choice to pursue a career in the field of counseling, I have discovered a few barriers to my own development. Many of these are internal and ones I have not truly looked at before and some are just a factor of my environment. Putting these barriers down on paper is a major step for me in addressing them. I have come to realize that my own self confidence in my ability to do this type of work is my biggest barrier. Beginning a Master’s level program has brought up some hesitations about my potential success as a counselor. I wondered how much I really knew about inspiring change, trust and confidence. I found that the way I have gone about connecting with clients in the past may work with a specific population, but may not necessarily work with others. I have often utilized my personal experiences in order to build rapport, and now question whether I have done so at the risk of over-disclosing. I have utilized self-disclosure with resistant clients, but yet still keeping the clients agenda at the forefront.
During a role-playing (“fishbowl”) exercise in another class, I found myself at a loss quite a few times while playing the role of counselor. It resulted in some frustration because I have worked one on one with clients for over six years. I discussed my feelings with my therapist, where I realized that though I have received positive feedback from clients, I have not necessarily received positive feedback regarding my ability to help people, and that this was the result of the environment and agency that I worked for. The opportunity to receive adequate training and/or oversight for staff that were not already licensed and who were only providing case management was rarely afforded. I found that regardless of my experience, I lacked confidence in my own ability.
My responsibility to my family is another potential barrier. During my undergraduate years, I had to deal with my father’s critical illness and as a result, much of my attention was often somewhere other than my studies. My grades suffered from that inattentiveness. As the eldest child, my siblings look to me as to how to deal with the mortality of our parents and the illness that they both deal with. In the past two months, my mother now has been hospitalized three times. Will I complete this program successfully? If for some reason I do not or can not, what does that mean for my career?
Finally, the current state of the economy provides yet another barrier that I have no control over. Budget cuts are very real and unfortunately substance abuse and mental health treatment are oftentimes victims of those cuts. As substance abuse treatment is my chosen population, will I have to make yet another change? Is private practice my best option over working with an agency or other organization? If so, how do I go about pursuing that? I do not necessarily have a head for business.
As was mentioned before, putting these barriers down on paper is a major step to overcoming these barriers I have listed. I am aware that some of these barriers I may not have control over, such as the economy, but awareness that they exist allows me to look into other options and prepare for pursuing them if necessary.