Personal Reflections on Counseling
1st Edition
Published on 26. February 2020
220 pages
978-1-119-68503-6 (ISBN)
Description
"Gerald Corey's Reflections is an absolute delight! Each chapter is packed with nuggets of wisdom he has gained over the decades. What makes the book particularly engaging is that it invites us into Corey's inner world and we feel as though we are reading a series of letters from a friend. This book could serve as an excellent supplemental reading in an introductory course or as a useful resource for advanced students as they navigate the complexities of graduate school and look ahead to their careers." -Barbara Herlihy, PhD, University of Texas at San Antonio
"In this inspirational book, Gerald Corey shares his most heartfelt personal reflections and lessons learned as he describes his journey over a 60-year counseling career. He is honest, self-disclosing, humble, and insightful in this compendium that encourages readers to embrace their vision and entertain their dreams. This is a must-read gem that provides an opportunity for counseling students and young professionals to learn from the master." -Robert Haynes, PhD, Psychologist and author, Borderline Productions
In an easy-to-read, question-and-answer format, Dr. Corey provides sage insight on a broad range of topics concerning professional issues, career development, the counseling process, and work-life balance. Responding to an array of questions often asked by students over the years, he uses candid personal examples to highlight key lessons and engage readers in an active process of personal and professional self-reflection on their own journeys.
Topical question themes include creating your professional path, mentoring and being a mentee, surviving graduate school, benefiting from personal therapy, focusing on self-care and wellness, becoming an ethical counselor, managing value conflicts in counseling, using self-disclosure therapeutically, dealing with difficult clients, getting the most out of supervision, and becoming a writer. In each chapter, reflection questions encourage readers to consider their own views and experiences related to the questions raised, and recommended readings provide suggestions for further information.
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More details
Person
Gerald Corey, EdD, ABPP, is professor emeritus of human services and counseling at California State University, Fullerton.
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Chapter 1 Creating Your Professional Path
- Introduction
- What suggestions do you have for students who are selecting a counseling career?
- What ideas can you offer students who are beginning their professional journey?
- How can providing service and giving back to others be a crucial part of my career?
- What blocks the effectiveness of new clinicians most at the beginning of their career?
- What advice do you have for those of us who want to make a career in the area of counselor education and supervision?
- What advice do you have for new counselor educators about successfully navigating the tenure and promotion process?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 2 Glimpses From My Career
- Introduction
- What was the most significant advice you received early in your career?
- What can you say about the influence of your family of origin that prompted you to choose a career in counseling?
- How did you balance your time between work and family throughout your busy career?
- What have been some significant turning points for you in your career?
- You've done a good deal of research and writing during your career. What gaps in research would you explore and what data would you collect if you could go back in time?
- What has it been like for you and your wife, Marianne, to work as a professional team? Are your personal and professional lives complementary?
- To Marianne Schneider Corey
- What has it been like for you and your husband, Jerry, to work as a professional team? Are your personal and professional lives complementary?
- Looking back over your career, Jerry, do you wish you had done some things differently?
- At any point in your career, did you feel pressure that you could not meet what was expected of you as you became more successful?
- How does fame affect your relationship with colleagues and peers in the counseling field?
- Do you have any plans for retirement? What holds your interest in the counseling profession today?
- What would you want your legacy to be?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 3 Mentoring Students
- Introduction
- What are some suggestions for making mentoring a meaningful experience?
- What teachers and mentors influenced you most? What are some lessons you learned from your mentors?
- How have your experiences with mentors influenced your way of mentoring students?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 4 Graduate School and Beyond
- Introduction
- I am an undergraduate human services student. I want to go to graduate school but am uncertain whether to pursue a master's degree ...
- What should a student who is interested in the counseling profession know before beginning a graduate program?
- How can students get the most from graduate school, for both personal and professional development?
- Once I obtain a master's degree, I wonder about the advantages of pursuing a doctoral degree. Will having a doctorate offset the ...
- How did you calm your anxiety before your first session as a counselor?
- As a new counselor, how can I take good notes while still being fully present with a client?
- What is your advice to new counselors who experience the imposter syndrome?
- What advice do you have for graduate students and those early in their careers who are trying to balance beginning a family and ...
- How can I find balance in my personal and professional life?
- What advice about retirement do you have for those of us still in graduate school or just beginning our counseling careers?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 5 The Counseling Profession
- Introduction
- What changes have you seen in the profession from the time you started until now?
- What are some of the biggest challenges facing the counseling profession today?
- What predictions do you have for the future of the counseling profession?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 6 The Counselor as a Person
- Introduction
- What personal characteristics are needed to become an effective counselor?
- In what ways are the counselor as a person and as a professional related, and how do they influence one another?
- How can I recognize and best manage my client's transference to me and my countertransference reactions to clients?
- When is crying in a session appropriate?
- How do you learn to control your emotions when you are with a client who activates your personal issues?
- When you have had intense emotional experiences with clients all day, how do you unwind and not carry your work home?
- Are there risks of becoming too invested in your concern for your clients? Is there such a thing as caring too much?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 7 Personal Therapy
- Introduction
- Is it important to participate in my own therapy in addition to receiving support from family and friends? What are the benefits ...
- Should counseling programs require trainees to participate in their own counseling?
- When do you think someone's work in therapy is finished?
- To what extent do you see yourself as experiencing your own therapy when you are being a therapist to another?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 8 Self-Care and Wellness
- Introduction
- Why is self-care an ethical mandate for graduate students and counseling professionals?
- How can I manage self-care when I don't have the time?
- How can we recognize when we are on a path toward burnout?
- How do you continue to do what you do and avoid burnout?
- What are the best ways to prevent burnout? What should you do if you experience symptoms of burnout?
- Why is it important to create a self-care action plan?
- What tips do you have about managing time?
- What is resilience, and how can I become more resilient?
- How is self-compassion a route to caring for others?
- How can spending time in nature enhance my physical and mental health?
- How can I re-create myself through recreation?
- In what ways is developing a mindfulness approach to daily life fundamental in our personal life and in the practice of counseling?
- How does the way we think affect our ability to manage stress?
- If you don't take care of your body, where will you live?
- How do diet and nutrition play a key role in physical and mental health?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 9 Theorizing About Theories
- Introduction
- How did you choose a theory as your foundation for counseling?
- How did your quest to define your personal theoretical orientation to counseling develop?
- How has your theoretical orientation evolved over the course of your career?
- If you had to pick three theorists that have significantly influenced your thinking about counseling theories, who would they be? ...
- How can I figure out which theoretical approach best suits me?
- What are some ways I can develop an integrative approach to counseling?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 10 The Practice of Group Counseling
- Introduction
- How can I best screen and select members for a group?
- How is informed consent handled in group work?
- What drew you to group work? Why have you specialized in the field of group counseling?
- Do you have any suggestions for how to work best with a coleader in a group?
- If a conflict occurs between coleaders, how can this best be managed?
- As a group facilitator, how can I create trust within a group at an early stage?
- How can cultural factors contribute to reluctance on the part of group members?
- Do you ever see it as your role to help educate group members about multicultural issues? If so, how do you approach this?
- When leading court-ordered and mandated involuntary groups, how can we increase the chances that members will have a positive experience?
- How do you handle conflict that emerges in a group?
- What is the value of members experiencing a catharsis in a group?
- Should members have the freedom to leave a group at any time they choose?
- How can the techniques used intensify work within a group?
- What is the value of emphasizing a here-and-now focus in group counseling?
- What were some of the difficulties you experienced when you began doing group work?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 11 Becoming an Ethical Counselor
- Introduction
- What is involved in becoming an ethical counseling practitioner?
- How did you get interested in teaching ethics, and how do students approach taking your ethics in counseling course?
- Pro bono work is recommended in the ethics codes of many professional organizations. Is it unethical if I do not intend to engage ..
- When faced with an ethical dilemma, is there a decision-making model I can use to help me resolve the dilemma?
- Refection Questions
- Chapter 12 Boundary Issues in Counseling
- Introduction
- What is the difference between boundary crossings and boundary violations? How can we prevent boundary crossings from resulting?
- What are some challenges in managing boundaries in our personal and professional lives?
- Are dual and multiple relationships generally unethical, and should they be avoided?
- Privacy is a primary concern regarding social media. What are some boundary considerations that apply to social media?
- What do you do when a client touches you?
- What is the therapeutic value of nonerotic touching in counseling?
- What do you do if you see your client outside of the office?
- Is it appropriate to accept gifts from clients? If so, when and under what circumstances? When might it be problematic?
- What do you recommend when a client frequently tries to give a gift? I am a new counselor, and I feel uneasy about this.
- If I find myself emotionally or sexually attracted to a client, does this mean I am unprofessional?
- How do I most effectively work with clients who express attraction to me?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 13 Values in Counseling
- Introduction
- How can we best work with clients whose values are very different from our own?
- When is it appropriate to refer a client?
- What is the role of religious and spiritual values in counseling?
- As a group counselor, how do my values influence my interventions?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 14 Multicultural Issues in Counseling
- Introduction
- Why is recognizing cultural tunnel vision essential?
- How did you move toward appreciating differences among groups?
- What suggestions do you have for counselors who want to improve their cultural competency?
- How do group counselors adapt group techniques to the cultural context of members?
- Have you ever witnessed members committing or receiving microaggressions in your group work? If so, how did you handle it?
- Are cultural differences a barrier or a bridge to building good relationships?
- What are key advocacy responsibilities and roles for counselors?
- What are some "aha" moments you have experienced when working in a foreign country?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 15 Self-Doubt and Learning From Mistakes
- Introduction
- How can a new intern or professional deal with self-doubt when it feels like we have no idea what we're doing?
- How can I correct my mistakes and maintain self-love in the process?
- How do I best deal with my desire to try to fix my client?
- What do I do if my mind goes blank in an individual session with a client?
- What do you do if you temporarily zone out and miss something important and the client knows it?
- How can striving for perfectionism get in the way of success?
- How can I deal with my insecurities about being competent?
- At what point in your counseling career did you finally feel confident and capable?
- Are all failures fatal? How can we best respond to experiencing failure?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 16 Self-Disclosure
- Introduction
- What are some good reasons, and not so good reasons, for being self-disclosing?
- What are some guidelines I can use to determine the appropriateness of self-disclosure?
- How can I become part of the group and at the same time stay in the leader role?
- As a group counselor, how do I determine the right balance of self-disclosure?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 17 Dealing With Difficult Clients
- Introduction
- What are some ways to effectively deal with the resistance we may encounter with clients?
- How can we most effectively deal with difficult clients?
- How can I respond to a client who becomes too dependent on me?
- How can counselors best react when a client offends them?
- What do you do if a client won't talk at all? How do you reach out to court mandated clients who are belligerent and refuse to ...
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 18 Supervision and Internships
- Introduction
- Can you provide graduate students in counseling with any words of wisdom or advice as we begin our internships?
- How do I select the right supervisor for me and also find a good placement?
- How can I best deal with supervision that is less than ideal?
- As a graduate student, how can I maximize my supervision experience?
- How can supervision be a therapeutic experience for supervisees without evolving into personal therapy?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 19 Writing and Becoming a Writer
- Introduction
- What inspired you to begin writing textbooks?
- What suggestions do you have for those of us who have yet to write a book but are interested in doing so?
- What factors contribute to writing a successful book?
- How has the process of writing textbooks changed since you wrote your first book?
- Do you have suggestions about writing a proposal for a presentation at a professional conference?
- Some of us are expected to write scholarly peer-reviewed articles for a professional journal. What suggestions do you have for ...
- How can keeping a personal journal be therapeutically beneficial?
- Reflection Questions
- Chapter 20 Special Topics in Counseling
- Introduction
- What suggestions do you have for getting clients to carry out homework assignments?
- What is the therapeutic value of working with dreams in counseling?
- How can metaphors be of use in counseling?
- What is the place of humor in counseling?
- How can I help myself stand out in the crowded field of therapists as I try to build my practice?
- Is it best to work independently as a private practitioner or work for an agency where all the business part of the work is ...
- What has been most helpful to you in terms of continuing your education and keeping current with the times throughout the decades?
- Do certifications and licenses help therapists in their profession, and are they an indication of competence?
- How do you best assess clients who may have suicidal intentions?
- What are some ideas for working with people who are experiencing a crisis?
- Reflection Questions
- Epilogue
- References and Recommended Readings
- Technical Support
- EULA
