What is Counseling Psychology?
Learn about the field of counseling psychology ...
Life is moving too fast for most of us. Balancing the responsibilities of work and home is stressful. The demands on our time, the emotional investment of a house and family, the anxiety of debt, and the lack of direction or achievement in our lives contribute to stress (see Stress) and depression (see Depression).
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These stresses cause us sleepless, fear-filled nights, leaving us physically and mentally depleted, emotionally isolated, and unavailable to those we love. Nonetheless, most of us get up everyday and take care of as many of our responsibilities as we can - all the while wishing that we had a little help.
Counseling psychology provides that help. It focuses on prevention, treating a broad range of human problems, and guides patients to solutions that maintain normal everyday functioning. Its purpose is to support mental health in areas such as parenting and marital concerns, constructive interactions in the workplace, satisfying emotional relationships, and the ability to make decisions that affect one's personal happiness and fulfillment.
A visit to a counseling psychologist immediately starts to relieve pressure. Patients are often surprised at the supportive attention they receive as they talk about themselves because in the past they have felt voiceless and invisible. The fact that they are able to express their thoughts and fears, and discover that they are not alone in these feelings – that everyone struggles with many of the same concerns -- is reassuring. Learning that overwhelming problems can be resolved is empowering for patients and gives them hope.
Counseling psychologist's therapeutic approach
The underlying purpose of the counseling psychologist's therapeutic approach is to address common developmental issues as well as to observe and diagnose problems related to a wide range of emotional, mental, and behavioral disorders, such as stress, anxiety, depression, grief, anger, and addiction. By helping a patient recognize his own issues and by guiding him to find his own solutions, the counseling psychologist enables the patient to overcome childhood-based problems as well as the effects of burdens he may have picked up over the course of his life.
Parenting
Few parents would disagree that parenting is one of the most difficult of all jobs. Guiding a child through the stages of life requires patience, love and maturity - three elements that are sometimes difficult to assemble all at one time, especially when emotions are running high.
Learning Styles & Life
Ask any counseling psychologist - humans are remarkable. Scientists once thought we were all alike, but now we know that there is a mind-boggling array of physiological and psychological variations that combine to create our distinct, individual personalities.
Psychologists understand that each of us perceives the world differently – that is, we see and interpret everything in our own, personal way. Additionally, we each have specific, unconscious preferences about how we receive and integrate that information – a process that causes ripple effects in the way we interact with people, learn, form relationships, work, and plan our lives...
Read more about Learning Styles here...
Counseling psychologists understand these challenges, helping their patients identify and more successfully manage emotional confrontations with their children. As parents examine and perhaps adjust their perspectives, they are able to feel more calm and regain confidence.
Because of the complex relationship between a child and a parent, therapy can be tricky. A parent who is insecure about his or her parenting skills may view the child's acting out as proof of his or her own failure and inadequacy. A child's agitation may be exacerbated by the parent's suppressive attitude and continual anger. A counseling psychologist must untangle the two sets of behaviors by helping the parent understand his or her own feelings and offering techniques for neutralizing their affect on the child. The child also needs to be gently guided to understand his or her own feelings and learn new ways of communicating and solving problems.
The counselor needs to win the child's trust, a step which can take several meetings. Often children won't talk because they're afraid of punishment or because they fear that the parent or parents won't love them anymore. They need to be reassured by both the counselor and their parents that they are safe, secure and loved.
Depending on the severity of dysfunction, the therapeutic process may take many sessions. It must include the concentrated effort of the parent or parents in the home, and, ideally the efforts of teachers and other care-givers. Children can't change in isolation. Altering their behavior primarily (and depending upon their ages) is a result of their perceptions of the parents' new behaviors.
Once this cascade of change begins, other underlying issues may surface that also need to be addressed. Parents often find their own behavior is a result of the parenting they received, or it may be a result of family, community, or religious expectations. In this therapeutic process, the parents are assumed to be acting in the best interest of their child and much of the burden of change is the parents' responsibility. This may require challenging adaptations in the parents' own perspectives and modifications in their response to their child's developing personality.
Typically, this kind of therapy is successful not only in altering the parent/child dynamics, but also in viewing the counseling psychologist as an ongoing, trusted resource. Once the parents understand the change-the-behavior/change-the-response process, they find they will become more confident in their own parenting abilities. And, most importantly, the parents and the child will have forged new levels of love and trust.
Marital conflict
Maintaining a healthy marriage often gets lost in the stress and anxiety of kids, jobs and the complexity of other life issues. Counseling psychology helps couples refocus on what first attracted them to each other.
A marriage where both partners work to support a home and children is a typical recipe for stress and anxiety. The wife may feel trapped by the expectations inherent in working, cooking, taking care of the kids, and keeping the house. The husband also feels trapped by financial limitations, a job that isn't challenging and the emotions exhibited by a harried, exhausted wife and unresponsive kids.
This is a scenario where the available energy of the husband and wife is outpaced by the demands of their lives. Counselors help troubled couples understand the pressures and concerns placed on each partner. The process empowers partners to feel more comfortable addressing their problems, and provides step-by-step solutions to help reduce stress, and move toward a healthier, more communicative relationship.
Counseling psychologists are skilled at helping sort out the issues and resentments that have built up over the years of marriage, but progress can only be made if both participants are committed to making the changes necessary to resolve the problems.
The significant investment of time and money should not be used as an excuse to discontinue counseling, but should be viewed as an investment in the long-term happiness of the whole family. Staying on track and following through with the changes enables the couple to come out a stronger, happier pair.
Marriage rarely lives up to the fantasies we have when we first start out, but a healthy, functioning marriage gives birth to new goals, and a fulfilling life together.
Getting along in the workplace
Job satisfaction is at its lowest rate in 22 years -fewer than half of all Americans like their jobs – according to The Conference Board Survey reported by CNN. In fact, nearly 19% of those polled weren't even interested in their work anymore, a clear indicator of a drop in attitudes, and the source of much job-based anxiety and depression.
For most people, the office is a place where they have little or no power or control. They frequently spend their days performing repetitive tasks, doing what is asked of them - and nothing more. Often people feel like they're not valued.
Occasionally, employees are bullied by supervisors or work in a toxic atmosphere where the morale is poor and everyone complains. Personality conflicts often turn workers into pawns, or office rules make employees feel like children. These are all situations that often cause reactive depression in people who are just trying to earn a reasonable living.
In helping a patient learn to cope with circumstances over which he or she has no outward control, counseling psychologists often guide patients through a series of cognitive steps that teach them how to recognize stressors, feel their own discomfort, examine their reactive thoughts, and choose alternative ways of responding. Counseling psychologists may also ask patients to keep a work-related journal for the purpose of examining their own thoughts.
A patient's inner dialogue is crucial. If meetings invoke fear in a patient and internally they are saying to themselves, “ Please don't ask me a question, I can't speak in front of everyone – I don't have anything of value to say,” the counselor gives the patient calming techniques. This involves giving the patient a list of comments they can make to appear supportive.
Instead of being afraid to contribute, patients learn methods of preparation and presentation, and with practice, overcome their fears and to learn to speak with confidence. These practical business tools not only help relieve patients' stress, they help them to become better business people, and better employees.
The quality of our relational skills hurts us or helps us in situations where there are personality conflicts. Counseling psychologists teach patients to recognize different kinds of personalities, such as the aggressive bully, the passive aggressive guilt-tripper, the dishonest back-stabber, or the political predator. Patients are coached in how to defuse, deflect or avoid these kinds of behaviors with the goals of preserving the professional relationship, avoiding being a victim, and securing a respected position.
If, on the other hand, patients are not well-suited for their jobs, their counseling psychologist will help them identify alternative careers or jobs. Examining past successes, thinking about interests and dreams, and analyzing failures give patients a better perspective of their skills and talents. Counseling psychologists also are trained at giving and interpreting various career and personality tests.
Decision making - removing the pressure
Decision-making is a paralyzing process for many people. A typical decision should solve a problem and be the result of the assessment of facts and priorities. But even this simple formula represents a complexity of variables.
What will I be when I grow up.... a midlife career change
Changing career direction is scary at any age, but when half of your career is behind you, and you find yourself suddenly in the job market, it can be downright terrifying.
Whether you're a victim of a bad economy or feeling discouraged, bored, underappreciated, or just plain unfulfilled by your current job, facing the process of finding a new, satisfying place for yourself is best undertaken with the help of a counseling psychologist who can provide guidance along the way.
Read the rest of midlife career change...
Decision-making takes place within specific contexts, such as business decisions, child-rearing situations, careers, and marriages. Each context has a factual, an emotional, and a perceptual element. To make it even more difficult, there is always an irrational element to be considered, such as fear, pressure, and insecurity.
An article in The Journal of Counseling Psychology by HB Gelatt, PhD, tells us that neuroscientists once thought that decision-making was based solely on a left-brained, logical frame of reference, gathering information from a known past, examining the ideas of the present and, with an understanding of a predictable future, making an appropriate decision.
Now, with a greater understanding of the workings of the brain, and how our brains perceive information, psychologists know that the right brain is also an integral contributor in the decision making process.
According to Gelatt, counseling psychologists must help patients not only use their left brain to delineate factual material, but also guide them in acknowledging the more intuitive, right-brained components.
As patients learn to identify the different kinds of information from the different sides of the brain, they are able to more consciously weigh facts against feelings and come to more comfortable decisions.
Because decisions concerning one's life are never completely objective, counseling psychologists find that helping patients set goals – or even acknowledge hidden agendas provides a personal foundation and indicator of personal direction. With the clarity that changing the mind is no more than a simple course correction, one that may shift a goal or two, patients find decision-making to be less stressful.
Working with students
College students struggle with indecision about majors, or finding their correct path in life. After testing and assessing the student's interests, a counseling psychologist helps students sort through the variables: obvious interests, parental pressures to be a 'whatever' laden with the guilt of disappointing them, or the feeling that wanting to be a dancer or an artist isn't a viable choice.
Counselors help students consider other goals such as wanting to live near family or work with children or selecting a career that they are passionate about - also directing students down a more goal-directed path. Sometimes, the counselor only has to help the student realize that a decision today doesn't mean a life sentence – that shifting directions is normal, even a required survival skill in a world and job market that changes constantly.
The therapeutic approaches of counseling psychologists discussed here are the result of treatment plans based solidly in psychological theory and research, as well as experience gained from years of practice. Treatments are either problem-specific solutions, or they are resolutions that are more focused on goals. In either case, the treatment is developed for the individual patient and includes a sensitivity to values, ethnicity and cross-cultural concerns, age and experience, and any other criteria that reflects the patient's individuality.
If you desire to help individuals and families with many of life’s challenges, including workplace stressors, family life, career decisions, personal growth, and relationship issues, consider a career as counseling psychologist.
Counseling psychologists must have a PhD in most states to practice, and certain licensing requirements also apply. Contact schools offering psychology degree programs and entering the field of Counseling Psychology.