My Interest in Marriage and Family Psychology Counseling
I plan to pursue the field of marriage and family counseling to help couples enjoy an excellent relationship and settle conflicts without resulting in war. Families are made of parents and children, who may have different perspectives about life. The wife and the husband are also likely to have grown in different environments, influencing their diversified behavior. Inadequate understanding of such differences mostly results in conflicts in families, separations, divorce, or assaults. Learning psychology has equipped me with the necessary skills, such as listening, which is critical in ensuring that conflicting couples get my attention when visiting my offices. Psychology teaches that a successful counselor attends and listens to the concerns of his or her clients. In the scenario, this will make it easy to orient me to the problem facing the couples and offer my undivided attention. During such sessions, I will also ensure that my verbal and nonverbal cues align to show further attentiveness to the details of issues under discussion with couples.
Psychology has further equipped me with the capacity to show empathy to my clients during my career. I have learned how to perceive other persons’ experiences and perceptions and amplify them to show my concern and understanding of such situations. Constant assurance of the clients that I understand how they feel will make them feel loved and identify that I care about their problems. Some of the ways learned about enhancing empathy towards clients includes paraphrasing their communications. Psychology teaches that paraphrasing should follow four primary steps starting with listening and recalling, followed by identifying the content in the message. The last two steps include rephrasing and perception check through words, making the client agree or disagree. It helps ensure that the couples will provide necessary details about the problems they are facing to give an in-depth outlook on possible suggestions to their problems. When empathizing, I will also uphold higher levels of genuineness. According to psychology, a successful counselor is the one that achieves congruence between his spoken word and the nonverbal cues such as gestures. Congruence helps the establishment of trust between the counselor and the client.
Other lessons from psychology that will support my career in family and marriage counseling embrace unconditional regard. Clients require dealing with a person that is not judgmental about their feelings or experiences. As a counselor, the learning will make it possible to avoid nonverbal or noncritical reactions to the couples’ information. I will show respect through the engagement with couples and offer positive assurance that they have the inherent capacity and strength to make the best out of life. Such assurances make the clients feel that they can have a new start and overcome such difficulties in the future despite the challenges they have experienced in their marriage. Besides, psychology supports me in developing the capacity to offer concrete suggestions to the clients. I will ensure that I keep the discussion with my clients focused and specific and avoid generalizations that may alter my clients’ expected outcomes. The lessons will make it easy to focus on particular problems and offer alternative solutions to enhance such couples’ bond. When engaging the clients, I will further rely on open questions instead of closed questions that may limit the available information from the clients. Open questions help clients explore their thoughts and feelings when expressing the issues that negatively affect their relationships. Psychology lessons prove to be a significant supporter of my success in my chosen future career.