The Counselor as a Person and as a Professional

Prepared by :
Dr. Norzihan A.
Self Awareness
 Counselors must be aware of the influence of their own
personality and needs.
 Without a high level of self-awareness, the counselor will delay
the progress of their clients, as the focus of therapy shifts from
meeting the client’s needs to meeting the needs of the therapist.

 Therefore counselors must be aware of their:

• own needs
• Areas of “unfinished business”
• Personal conflicts
• Defenses
 Ask you self:

1. What are the motivations for becoming a counselor

or what are rewards for counseling other?
Unresolve conflict

 Counselors should be aware of their:

1. Biases
 If client want to explore feeling about her sexual
orientation and you are not comfortable to talk about it.

2. Areas of denial
 counselor will be in a poor position to pay attention to the
concerns of their clients especially if their problem are
similar with counselor. Suppose a client is trying to deal
with feelings of hopelessness and despair. How can you explore
these feelings if in your own life you are denying about them?
3. Unresolved issues
 counselor did not resolved his/her own issues.
 Personal needs of counselors based on unresolved personal
conflicts:
 a need to tell people what to do
 a desire to take away all pain from clients
 a need to have all the answers and to be perfect
 a need to be recognized and appreciated
 a tendency to assume too much responsibility for the
changes of clients
 a fear of doing harm, however unintentionally
Personal Therapy for Counselors
 Beneficial to both trainees and experienced practitioners
 Reasons for participating:
 to explore your motivations for becoming a helper

 It helps to know what the experience of being a client is like.

 To explore how your needs influence your actions, how you use
power in your life, and what your values are

 To identify and explore your blind spots and potential areas of

countertransference

 for remediation purposes and growth

Transference
 The process whereby clients project onto their counselors past feelings or
attitudes they had toward significant people in their lives

 Transference typically has its origin in early childhood and constitutes a

repetition of past material.

 The client’s feelings are rooted in the past relationship but those feelings are
no directed towards the counselor.

 Transference distorts relationships. Counselor should be helping their clients

to understand and resolve the feelings they are bringing onto the present
from their past.
 The “unreal” relationship in therapy
 Counselors need to be aware of their personal reactions to a
client’s transference
 All reactions of clients to a counselor are not to be
considered as transference
 Dealing appropriately with transference is an ethical issue
Countertransference
 Any projections by therapists that distort the way they perceive
and react to a client

 Occurs when therapist:

 demonstrate inappropriate affect
 respond in highly defensive ways
 lose their objectivity because their own conflicts are
triggered.
 counselors are expected to deal with these reactions,
through consultation or personal therapy so that their
clients are not negatively affected by the therapist’s
problem .

 How counselors handle their client’s feelings will have a

direct bearing on therapeutic outcomes.
Examples of Countertransference
 Being overprotective with a client
 Treating clients in kind (compassionate) ways
 Rejecting a client (may be based on the therapist’s
perception of the client as needy & dependent)
 Needing constant reinforcement and approval
 Seeing yourself in your clients
 Developing sexual or romantic feelings for a client
 Giving advice compulsively
 Desiring a social relationship with clients
Client Dependence
 A temporary dependence is not necessarily problematic.

 An ethical issue occurs when counselors encourage and

promote dependence.

 Can manifest in subtle ways

 Counselors tell the clients what to do

 Termination can be delayed even though a client no longer
needs services
 A need to feel important.
 It becomes unethical when a client is not terminated
because of the counselors emotional or financial needs
 The ultimate sign of an effective counselor is the ability to
help clients reach a stage of autonomy, wherein they no
longer need a therapist
Stress in the Counseling Profession
 Helping professionals engage in work that
can be demanding, challenging and
emotionally taxing. Mental health
practitioner are typically not given
sufficient warning about the hazards of
the profession they are about to enter
Stress in the Counseling
Profession
 Counseling can be a hazardous profession and lead to empathy
fatigue. Counselor in work that can be demanding, challenging and
emotionally taxing.

 Some sources of stress for counselors are:

 Feeling they are not helping their clients
 The tendency to accept full responsibility for clients’ progress
 Feeling a pressure to quickly solve the problems of clients
 Having extremely high personal goals and perfectionistic
strivings
 Seeing more than usual number of clients.
Most stressful clients behavior for therapist:

1. Suicidal ideation statement

2. Anger towards the counselor
3. Depressed clients
4. Lack of motivation
5. Client’s premature termination
6. Aggression and hostility
Counselor Burnout and
Impairment
a. Burnout
 a state of physical, emotional, intellectual,
and spiritual depletion characterized by
feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
.
Potential of burnout “ Therapist
Decay”
 Professional conflict
 Time pressures
 Excessive workload
 Caseload uncertainties
 Pressure of assuming the responsibility of solving the
problem that client bring to therapy.
 Poor health habits in the areas of nutrition and exercise
 Resisting personal therapy when experiencing personal
distress
 Poor health habits in the areas of nutrition and exercise
 Accepting client’s beyond one’s level of competence
 Excessive preoccupation with money and being successful
Effect of Burnout:
 The absence of companionship with friends and colleagues

 Living in isolated ways, both personally and professionally

 Failing to recognize the personal impact of clients’ struggles

 Resisting personal therapy when experiencing personal distress

b. Impairment
 the presence of a chronic illness or severe psychological
exhaustion that is likely to prevent a professional from
delivering effective services and results in consistently
functioning below acceptable practice standards

 Impaired counselors are unable to effectively cope with

stressful events and unable to adequately carry out their
professional duties.
Signs of Impairment
Benningfield (1994):

 Lack of empathy
 Loneliness and social isolation
 Poor social skills
 Discounting the possibility of harm to others
 Preoccupation with personal needs
 Denial of professional responsibility to clients
Maintaining Vitality as a
Counselor
 Counselors are often not prepared to maintain their
vitality. (state of being strong and active)

 Sustaining the personal self is an ethical obligation.

 Personal vitality is a prerequisite to functioning in a

professional role.

 Clinicians need to acquire and regularly practice self-care

and wellness strategies.
 Self care involves searching for positive life experiences
that lead to peace, excitement and happiness.
 Canadian Psychological Association (2000)

“Engage in self-care activities that help to avoid

conditions(eg burnout, addictions) that could result in
impaired judgement and interfere with their ability to
benefit and not harm others”.
Bentuk satu kumpulan perbincangan:

1. Apakah kerisauan anda dalam menjadi seorang

kaunselor? Apakah masalah-masalah yang mungkin
anda akan hadapi sebagai seorang kaunselor baru dan
bagaimana anda hendak mengatasi masalah tersebut?

2. Apakah profesional kualiti yang ada pada anda, yang

anda boleh berikan kepada klien. Adakah terdapat
beberapa personaliti yang anda rasa masih ragu-ragu
dalam memberikan kaunseling kepada klien anda?
3. Sebagai seorang kaunselor apakah burnout dan
tekanan yang anda pernah hadapi ? Bincangkan dan
bagaimana anda dapat berdaya tindak dengan burnout
dan tekanan tersebut?
4.
 Ahmad a young counselor encourages his clients to call
him at home when they need to. He expects to be on call at
all the times. He frequently lets session run overtime, lend
money to clients when they are destitute and devotes many
more hours to his job than a required. He says that his lives
for his work and that it gives him a sense of being valuable
person. He feels that “ the more you can do for people, the
better he feels”.

 Do you see any potential ethical issues for this case.

Discuss.
 Do you see yourself as potentially needing your clients
more than they need you?
5. Nabil adalah seorang kaunselor pemulihan di CCRC yang
baru sahaja bertugas selama setahun. Beliau disayangi oleh
ramai penghuni CCRC kerana kebaikkan yang dimilikinya.
Pada satu hari seorang penghuni iaitu Ali telah membuat
kaunseling dengan beliau kerana kerinduan terhadap
keluarga dan masalah rumahtangga yang dihadapinya
disebabkan oleh dirinya sebagai seorang penagih dadah. Ali
teringin untuk berjumpa dengan isterinya kerana isteri sudah
lama tidak datang menjenguknya tetapi beliau masih di
dalam pusat serenti. Oleh itu Ali telah meminta pertolongan
Nabil untuk menghubungi isterinya dan meminta isterinya
melawat Nabil di CCRC. Akhirnya Nabil telah membantu Ali
menghubungi isterinya dan di samping itu juga Nabil telah
membelanja Ali berbentuk makanan dan memberikan duit
kepada Ali. Apakah pandangan anda mengenai kes di atas?
Bincangkan.