Mental Health Counseling

Posted: September 9th, 2013

Mental Health Counseling

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Course:

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Mental Health Counseling

Discussion Post 1 Response

The writer explores the relevance of theory in therapy meant for treating mentally challenged individuals. Training alone is not enough to make a good counselor and this is true. One has to understand what it means to be a counselor in terms of professional practice and knowledge. This understanding enables one to apply theoretical concepts learned during training in counseling situations. The application of theory should be in the best interest of the patient at all times. While theory is important in therapy, how one applies them determines whether the patient improves or makes no change (Corey, 2012). There has been much psychological advancement with regard to developments of theory. However, the point of concern is that how theory applies to the real world is absent. Therefore, theory must be made to apply to situations in the real world. Theory may predict outcomes of treatment, but the real world does not conform to theoretical hypotheses. Each patient is unique despite the fact that different patients may present similar symptoms. For theory to help the patients with whom they are designed, it has to be developed to guarantee unique applications for different patients.

Discussion Post 2 Response

The writer has rightly identified what counseling and theory can do to help the client. The most important thing is to ensure that choice of theoretical approach applies to the client. In the interactions between the counselor and client, the counselor gains more insight into the problem of a client and reveal other theoretical approaches for treatment. The writer feels they are able to wok better with juveniles. This has led to the choice of behavioral intervention as a theory that would help ground their influence with the juvenile clients. The writer argues that behavioral interventions are geared toward helping clients to cope by developing adaptive behaviour in different social settings. Behavioral intervention in theory guarantees that the ability of clients adopting the desired skills as set out by the counselor. Another significant issue as raised by the writer affective intervention where a counselor helps the client to explore emotional release to relieve stress. Looking at the choices of therapy as proposed by the writer, it is evident that theory alone does little to help a client; the theory has to be adaptive to the clients needs to achieve favorable outcomes (Walsh & Savickas, 2005).

Discussion Post 3 Response

In this post, the writer expresses problems encountered form online learning. The problems emanate form the fact that it was a central belief for the writer that tertiary education has to be attained from a brick and mortar environment. This has impeded the ability to adapt fully to an online environment. If this case were to be presented to counselors, a theoretical approach would be to ensure that the student develops an attitude change to make it easier to cope in the online environment. Attitude change is an aspect of behavior that could be dealt with under behavioral interventions. Behavioral intervention will require a counselor to establish means by which the learner could change attitude to effect a change in behaviour. It has been determined that attitude and behaviour are linked. The poor attitude has led the student to find schoolwork difficult. Therefore, behavioral intervention has to deal with changing the attitude of the individual (Ajzen, 2005). The choice of theoretical approach is for the benefit of the patient. Attitude change is geared toward making the student being content about the circumstances of his learning environment. Content will enable the student to cope better with the environment. Theory is important to counseling, but correct application of theory makes it relevant and effective.

References

Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, personality and behavior. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Corey, G. (2012). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth.

Walsh, W. B., & Savickas, M. (2005). Handbook of vocational psychology: Theory, research, and practice. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.