When Gerald “Jerry” Corey steps to the podium at the American Counseling Association Conference & Exposition in Pittsburgh this coming March, he’ll have two things on his mind: the counselor as a person and the counselor as a professional. “I want to address the importance of self-care for counselors and emphasize that who we are as a person profoundly impacts our effectiveness as a professional,” says Corey, professor emeritus of human services and counseling at California State University at Fullerton and an ACA fellow.
“As counselors, we ask clients to look honestly at themselves and to choose how they want to change,” he says. “It is essential that we are open to the same kind of reflection on our part.” Who counselors are and how they take care of themselves are paramount, Corey says. He points to research indicating that who the counselor is as a person can be the most important factor in determining therapeutic outcomes. “The human dimension is what most counts when it comes to counseling that produces results,” he asserts.
Despite retiring from the California State University system as a full-time professor in 2000, Corey’s schedule remains packed. In addition to still teaching a few classes each year at CSU-Fullerton, he leads workshops, teaches an intensive weeklong group counseling class at a different university almost every year, speaks at conferences and works on revising many of the 16 books he has written or cowritten. Corey, who earned his doctorate in counseling from the University of Southern California, often presents workshops with his wife, Marianne Schneider Corey. In the past 30 years, they’ve brought their lessons to universities across the United States, as well as to countries including Canada, Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Germany and Ireland.
“I am thrilled that Jerry Corey will be one of our keynote speakers,” says ACA President Lynn Linde. “He is a prolific author and has greatly influenced the training of professional counselors through his textbooks and workshops. In addition, he is an engaging and informative presenter. I learn something new every time I hear him or read his work. I am pleased that we will be honoring one of our illustrious members.”
Corey received the Outstanding Professor of the Year Award from CSU-Fullerton in 1991, but he’s the first to admit that school wasn’t always his favorite place. “My entire elementary school experience was one long, painful road of frustration and rebellion,” Corey recalls. “To be blunt, I hated school.” Despite setbacks and low self-confidence through his adolescent years, Corey persevered all the way to graduate school.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling from Loyola University, Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount University), Corey decided to pursue a doctorate in counseling while he taught at a high school and, later, a community college. The semester that he enrolled in a statistics course proved to be particularly challenging. “Although I enjoyed my counseling courses, I detested statistics and feared that I would not be able to pass,” he says. But Corey ultimately succeeded, thanks in large part to a supportive adviser and help from the high school custodian, who was studying to be a math teacher. “That experience taught me that by challenging my fears, they become manageable and that self-discipline pays off,” he says. “It is easy to feel engulfed by fear and to stop too soon, yet fears can be put into perspective by viewing obstacles as challenges that can be overcome.”
“Having people who believed in me gave me a sense of hope when discouragement set in,” says Corey, who went on to teach at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and then CSU-Fullerton. “An important lesson for me at this time was recognizing the power a mentor can have on inspiring others to strive for their dreams. One of the most professionally meaningful aspects of my 48-year career has been to serve as a mentor for many students and to encourage them to pursue their vision.”
Much of Corey’s keynote address will reflect content from his forthcoming book, Creating Your Professional Path, being published by ACA in March 2010. On his list of talking points for the ACA Conference will be the personal issues that many counselors face, managing personal and professional boundaries, effectively managing stress, the challenge of balancing life roles and the importance of self-care.
Another topic on Corey’s list – a topic he believes is central to effective practice in counseling – is awareness of ethics. “Being an ethical practitioner is not merely a way to avoid a malpractice suit,” he says. “It is a route to counseling that makes a life-changing difference. Ethics is not a matter of simple solutions to the dilemmas we will face, for many of the dilemmas are very complex and could have several ethical solutions. There is no one correct ethical path. This implies that practitioners need to create their own perspective on working ethically.”
Corey will also touch on the topic of values, about which he says counselors are not and cannot be completely neutral. “No approach to therapy is value-free,” he says. “You have an ethical responsibility to be aware of how your beliefs and core values affect your work, and you need to take care to avoid unduly influencing your clients. Clinicians may not agree with the values of their clients, but it is essential that they respect the rights of their clients to hold a different set of values.”
Personal therapy is another important ingredient in a counselor’s personal and professional life, Corey says. “Practitioners must be aware of their own needs, areas of unfinished business, personal conflicts, defenses and vulnerabilities and how these can interfere in their professional work. Personal therapy during training and throughout therapists’ professional careers can enhance counselors’ abilities to focus on the needs and welfare of their clients. Therapists cannot take clients any further than they have taken themselves. Therefore, ongoing self-exploration is important.”
In that spirit of self-exploration, Corey plans to ask conference attendees to think about a strategy for keeping themselves alive personally and professionally. “Imagine you will be here one year from today,” Corey proposes. “What would you most want to say that you have changed in your life?”
In the fall of 2003, Patti Digh’s stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died a short 37 days later. Digh credits that event with waking her up to life. “The time frame of 37 days really hit me,” says Digh, an author, speaker and cofounder of The Circle Project, a consulting firm that designs diversity and leadership training for clients around the world. “By the time he got to those 37 days, it was really too late for him to live the life he’d always wanted – he had to ’make do’ with what he had because he was so sick, so quickly. It scared me. I literally started asking myself this question every morning as I woke up: ’What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?’”
Digh’s answer to that question was to leave behind her life stories to her two daughters. She began detailing those stories in a blog, 37days.com, which gained 15,000 followers in the first six months. “I started writing, framing each story to end with a challenge, to teach them something, to open up a line of questioning for them,” Digh says. “I wanted them to know me as a human being and not just as their mother. I wanted them to know that I had screwed up – and that they would, too. I wanted them to gain insight into the bigger things in life beyond how to cook pasta al dente.” As Digh wrote, she noticed that six themes kept resurfacing – how to say yes, be generous, speak up, love more, trust yourself and slow down. Those themes are threaded throughout the 37 stories Digh shares in her book, Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful and Live Intentionally.
Digh, the former vice president of international and diversity programs for the Society for Human Resource Management and author of two business books on global leadership and diversity, says she hopes to help counselors recognize those six themes – and find a way to imbed them into their own lives and work – during her keynote presentation at the ACA Conference. Digh believes the reason she has such a devoted following is because all of humankind can relate to those life themes and stories. “We all have some internal desire for our lives to have more meaning, to leave something behind,” she says.
Another part of Digh’s message will be dedicated to encouraging counselors to take care of themselves. People who work in helping professions often get trapped spending all their time on others, she says. “It’s OK to turn that kind of attention to your own self,” says Digh, who adds that making sure you’re a healthy and full person enables you to give back to the world at a higher level.
Linde believes that message will resonate with ACA members. “As we try to be all things to all people – our significant others, our families and our clients – we need to stop and reflect,” Linde says. “Patti brings her unique perspective and creativity to help us all remember what’s really important in life.”
Digh plans to remind counselors that incredible things happen all around them every day, but they – like most humans – often fail to slow down enough to recognize them. “I think in order to reclaim awe, we have to give up caring too awfully much about what other people think of us,” she says. “Sometimes, we hide our exuberance because we fear we might look naïve or foolish. I would scream with joy at seeing the ice cream truck, but you’d make a note in my personnel file. I think we can get back to seeing things as a miracle if we give up wondering or caring how others will perceive us.”
If all people, including counselors, were to take her six themes to heart and recognize the stories in their own lives, Digh believes it would make for a more full existence and less regret when our “37 days” are up. “Begin living the life that you want to live so that at day one (of your final 37 days), you don’t want to change dramatically,” she says.
To learn more about the 2010 ACA Conference & Exposition in Pittsburgh (March 18-22), or to register to attend, visit http://www.counseling.org/conference or call 800.347.6647 ext. 222. Register early to ensure the best rates.
Lynne Shallcross is a staff writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at lshallcross@counseling.org. Letters to the editor: ct@counseling.org.