The promise of the therapeutic relationship is at the center of client change, but it also provides a North Star to counseling interns and other beginning counselors who are still trying to find their way.
Category: Member Insights
Articles written by members of the American Counseling Association
Counselors must understand that relationship boundaries considered ‘healthy’ by the dominant culture in the U.S. don’t automatically apply to immigrant and bicultural clients.
It is imperative that all counselors, regardless of setting, are able to recognize and respond appropriately to behavioral addictions.
When placed in historical context, it becomes easy to understand why many Black Americans remain skeptical that mental health professionals are truly here to help them.
‘Developing balance therapy’ helps provide clients with the necessary skills to stabilize or self-regulate so that they can proceed on to deeper trauma work.
Clients who have experienced domestic violence need to find safety and validation in the therapeutic relationship, not be pressed to answer questions about why they didn’t leave their abuser.
A counselor turns to Worden’s tasks of mourning as he tries to navigate the nonlinear and sometimes unpredictable course of his own personal grief.
Counselors can encourage clients on a journey to transform their pain and fear into a guiding wisdom that leads them toward self-awareness and emotional growth.
By embracing a holistic, strengths-based and wellness orientation in their work with clients who may be suicidal, counselors can improve on traditional approaches to suicide assessment and treatment.
Through first understanding the narratives and other barriers that discourage survivors from disclosing, counselors can provide a foundation of support and empowerment that leads clients toward healing.