Compare and Contrast of Being a Counselor
CNSL/205
09/13/2011
Dr. Katherine Van Hull
University of Phoenix

This paper was written to inform the reader of the compiled information that is a compare and contrast between myself and what has been predetermined as traits of being a good counselor. This paper is going to include information that was compiled from two different sources of information regarding this topic, and once this information has been compiled I, compared it to myself to see if the information gathered and my personality have some similarities.

In order to be a good counselor it was determined that the counselor must first establish a two way street when it comes to talking about the things that are bothering the client. I will take both the counselor and the client to first agree that there will be changes no matter how hard they seem to be and that these changes to help better the relationship and the client. There also must be some sort of understanding between the counselor and his/her clients regarding what is expected by both the counselor and the client; both the clients and counselor also must establish a good chemistry in order for them to make any type of progress.
If the patient is unable to establish any type of chemistry then the client has the opportunity to look for someone who he/she will feel comfortable with in order to be able to start their journey to healing. Even though the client is responsible for making the changes in his/her life a good counselor can help determine what brought the client in the to see the counselor and at the same time overcome many obstacles. A good counselor can help indentify negative thinking patterns that possibly could be adding to the patients feeling of sadness, depression, or anxiety. The counselor can encourage the client to build on his/her strengths and suggesting skills that can help overcome self inflicted feelings of hopelessness, a counselor can also help develop a more positive attitude.

The counselor can help the client make positive changes in the relationship with Others, helping to determine behaviors that are negative factors in the relationships. The

Counselor can also help the client lean effective ways communicating, clearing the way for

The honest exchange with other people in his/her life that may be causing emotional pain.

The client can determine if the recommendations that the counselor is making is working

effectively by getting insight about his thought and behavior that may have eluded him

before. There are other types of counselors and even though they are in different fields all counselor pretty much work under the same guidelines except for certain things. All counselors have the same end result and understand their clients and helping them determine what is a good route to take in order to help the client better him/herself. Some of the things that are looked when the counselor is a rehabilitation counselor, the least concerns of being a rehabilitation counselor are their disability experience, education, and maturity, these traits were not too much of concern. The most important categories to a lot of clients were dealing with the counselors categories to a lot of clients were dealing with the counselor’s credentials and education, the subcategories deal with such things as their work ethics and approach, commitment to the clients, professional behavior, and competence. In order to determine what the best qualities that helps determine what a good traits to being a great counselor. There was an extensive study regarding counselors was done in order to validate the roles and functions of a rehabilitation counselor (RCs) from the view point of rehabilitation practitioners, educators, and supervisors, (see Roessler & Rubin, 1998, for a summary and Thomas, 1990, for a critique of this body of research.) This research study was based on either a criteria believed by some academic researchers to be significant or the expert counselors who had been selected by their colleague or supervisors (Cook, Bolton, Bellini, and Neath, 1997, Janikowski and Linkowski, 1993). The perspective of the client on the counseling process, however, has been neglected a great deal by the rehabilitation counseling researcher. The neglect is very evident when compared with other publications regarding family therapy. The way that the information was gathered for these studies varied from such things as mail questionnaires. This gathered information was just the first start and this step consisted individuals answering in their own words describing in their own words what their ideal RC is and what qualities they would be looking for in their counselors. The participants were given a sheet with 10 numbered lines under each of the two questions. This type of formatting encouraged the participants to express multifaceted schema. This puts the respondents in charge of delineating each RC prototype into its specific component. This part of the information gathering is designed to maximize the respondent’s freedom of expression regarding relevant concepts and criteria. The next part of this questionnaire collecting (1) minimal demographic data to enable a description of the respondent sample, (2) four evaluations for the personal impact of the rehabilitation counseling services respondents had received, and (3) there will be four specific category ratings for specific counselor factors. The recruitment of the Louisiana Charter of a national organization for spinal cord injured individuals (SCI), an approved list of both current and previous members. Questionnaires were mailed to all 216 members, however only 40 envelopes were returned due to the addressees moving and there were no current forwarding address. Ten questionnaires were return in completed due to the participants indicating that they felt that they did not believe they met the criteria for participating; seven responded that they were not disabled (supporters of the chapter) and three others did not recall going to a RC. Participant Characteristics and Experiences, all 40 individuals had neurological disabilities that limit their physical abilities but not their intellectual functions; a majority of the individuals (80%) had adult- onset, traumatic SCI; 6 (15%) indicated a second disability, such as amputation. The main number of years since their injury was 18.93 (SD =13.38). The ages of the participants varied from 24 to 65 years (M= 43.64, SD = 9.27). The gender distribution consisted of 23 (57.5%) men and 17 (42.5%) women. Some participants indicated that they have had as many as 0 to 8 different rehabilitation counselors (M= 2.60, SD= 9.27). The reallocating of the participants amount of contact with their RC(s) showed a large variation, accordingly the medians of these distribution were a better measure of the average. The number of sessions their RC(s) varied from 0 to 117 (Mdn = 13.5 months, M = 45.54 months, SD = 58.38). The positive aspect of this survey gives a great deal of information regarding who had no RC interaction and who actually had above average interaction with their RC(s), even though a lot of participants indicated that even though they did not receive any services from a RC they did receive professional services from other counselors in such fields as: a case manager or vocational specialist and they may have helped the clients either way. Given the self- selected nature of the samples created from the mail surveys, the main purpose of collecting the data was to capture a sense of the respondents regarding their own rehabilitation experience, feelings that may give a better understanding of the patients cognitive schema of RC’s in general. Therefore, there were a few quantitative items in the questionnaire. This questionnaire used a five point scale like so: 1= strongly agreed, 2= agree, 3= neutral, 4= disagree, 5= strongly agree. At the of the survey the rests indicated that majority of the votes went to the clients being satisfied with the counselors and the services on employment was not as good. All the averages clustered around the midpoint of the scale, the collected information determined that respondents felt neutral regarding their rehabilitation services that they received. According to the gathered results of this questionnaire, thirty-six respondents wrote a total of 208 different descriptions of what they determined what is considered to be an ideal counselor. The statements determined that the responses varied from a single word response to at times a run-on sentence of more than 20 words, with a vast majority of the information being short phrased. The respondent’s information ranged from 2 to 9, with a median of 6 statements.
This approach was chosen in order to classify the respondents’ ideas and experiences regarding the way they feel about counselors was mostly for discovery purposes and also to be able to collaborate, iterative, and grounded in the specific words of expressed by the respondents. The information that was gathered was typed, proofread, and separated into small cards. Each card contained one item, the information that was gathered was separated by topic and a number and then the information was separated to determine how many respondents liked one topic more than the other. The respondents were encouraged to take their time and read the questions and also to respond to each to ensure that their opinions were expressed completely. The importance rating of specified factors for an ideal counselor was created to help the clients to express their opinions to what they believe are good characteristics to being a good counselor and all the gathered data will put their information into a more understandable format so that you as the reader can see how they determine a counselor is good. With all of the information gathered pertaining to what traits are needed to become a great counselor. The traits that are needed to be a great counselor for the most part are within me. I believe that I am a very good listener, leader, friend, motivator, and an encourager. This is some of the traits the makes someone a great counselor. The reason that I chose to step into this field of work is because I am a veteran and I feel that majority of my fellow vets need some kind of help for one reason or another, I really want to do my part to helping my fellow veterans with some of their personal and mental problems. I am a very productive person when it comes to helping others, I am also pretty assertive so with these types of traits I believe that I can become a great counselor and I can help my clients to do whatever is needed to work through whatever is bothering them.

References
Ponton, L. (2006) Characteristics of Effective Counseling.
McCarthy, H., & Leierer, S.J. (2001) Consumer concepts of ideal characteristics and minimum qualifications for rehabilitation counselors.