Personal and professional development in the different practice setting
In counseling, personal and professional development are aligned and crucial to ensuring quality services are provided to the client. A counselor seeks personal and professional development to increase knowledge, abilities, skills, and information in different aspects of the practice, such as consultation, ethical and legal considerations to improve the practice (Lloyd-Hazlett & Foster, 2017). A counselor can plan their career, develop an identity, and adequately fulfill their career requirements.
Counselors provide services based on the client’s psychological assessment despite the diversities, cultures, and backgrounds. The education and experiences enable the counselor to deal with different clients who have different briefs. Personal and professional development boosts counselors’ ability to become better at their work to provide quality services to clients despite their place of practice (Coleman et al., 2016). A counselor can work in different settings and develop their practice, experience, and expertise to provide services to the client.
In this case scenario, a counselor has shifted from a community setting of practice and moved to an urban setting with a client who has different beliefs, interfering with the counselor’s ability to provide quality services to the client. Therefore, personal and professional development will enable the counselor to adapt and boost the practice to fulfill the client’s needs. Personal development in this case scenario involves working on self-reflection dealing with personal problems that arise during counseling. According to Lloyd-Hazlett & Foster (2017), counselors should learn about their own belief s and those of the client to understand and respect the client’s beliefs when providing the services to avoid cultural interference. Good communication with the client about the beliefs creates positive responsiveness from the counselor, and the counselor can understand and adjust to the client’s beliefs during practice.
Through personal reflection and assessment, this case scenario is challenging because the client has different beliefs as the counselor, which may interfere with the quality of services provided. Even though the counselor is trained and educated to provide quality services to clients despite their diversities, culture, and belief, the client may see this as a challenge because the counselor does not understand the client’s beliefs. Therefore, personal and professional development will enable the client to learn, understand, and respect their beliefs and make sure the practice is within these beliefs (Vetere & Stratton, 2016). Increasing professional effectiveness enables counselors to be efficient and gain appropriate strategies to carry out their tasks efficiently. In this case scenario, the approach to incorporate the client’s beliefs in the practice improves the professional area of practice. The counselor can explore the beliefs and make sure the practice is aligned to the beliefs to meet the client’s needs effectively.
The counselor should develop a professional identity to combine personal and professional development in their practices to deal with all clients. The personal development the counselor needs are personally centered psychology and therapy on expanding and growing in different areas such as self-awareness, focus, and self-knowledge (Byrne & Ost, 2016). A counselor should be open to continuous personal growth to understand their values, beliefs, and self while practicing. While the professional development, the counselor needs to learn different strategies to apply in different counseling situations. According to Heled & Davidovich (2019), increasing education, research, knowledge, and experience leads to career growth and commitment, which results in better services to improve the counselor’s lives. In this case, a counselor’s professional developmental cultural and beliefs education and knowledge will make sure the counselor incorporates and respects the client’s beliefs during practice.
References
Byrne, J. S., & Ost, A. R. (2016). Personal counseling factors among counseling trainees: Results from a nationwide survey. Vistas Online.
Coleman, C., Martensen, C., Scott, R., & Indelicato, N. A. (2016). Unpacking self-care: The connection between mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-care for counselors. Counseling & Wellness: A Professional Counseling Journal, 5.
Heled, E., & Davidovich, N. (2019). The Impact of Academic, Personal, and Professional Attributes on School Counselors’ Occupational Identity in Israel. International Journal of Educational Methodology, 5(4), 513-523.
Lloyd-Hazlett, J., & Foster, V. A. (2017). Student counselors’ moral, intellectual, and professional, ethical identity development. Counseling and Values, 62(1), 90–105.
Vetere, A., & Stratton, P. (Eds.). (2016). Interacting selves: Systemic solutions for personal and professional development in counseling and psychotherapy. Routledge.