Therapeutic Relationship Analysis

I believe the therapeutic relationship is the most important component to the process of counseling. My definition of the therapeutic relationship is “the building of trust between client and counselor that allows for growth and change to take place”. The relationship between counselor and client allows for true change and growth to happen in therapy. Knowing that each theory has a different model of therapeutic relationship I think the most important quality is trust and understanding. Building trust can be a hard task for a therapist but only after trust has been gained can the healing process begin. Irvin Yalom stated, “Therapy should not be theory driven, but relationship driven” (Yalom, 2009). The theory that you choose to use is important …show more content…
Growing in a household that didn’t look highly of counseling and mental health workers. My family has always turned to religion as a form of healing. A common theme that I have heard is that you keep all family problems inside the house or with God. I remember the first time I went to counseling in middle school and I was terrified to tell my counselor anything about myself in fear that it would upset my family. I don’t think that my cultural experience has influenced my decision to do a particular orientation however it has taught me patience in understanding why students may not be open or trustful of the counselor. I do however strongly relate with Cognitive behavior therapy. The concept of beliefs determines actions and understanding how each action has direct consequences. Children often don’t understand why they act they way that they do and sometimes need help with changing their beliefs to get better outcomes in life. As a male I feel that I am often seen to be a role model or a positive male figures to young African American males. Majority of my life I have had a hard time connecting with men of my own race and men of other ethnicities. I often worry that I wont be effective counselor in a urban setting because I am suppose to know how to connect with African American males but I often don’t. I worry about working in non-diverse setting and how being African American could …show more content…
The student wouldn’t talk to me. Sometimes I don’t know how to handle the silence, when the student just sat and looked at me and after I tried several different attempts to start a conversation with the student I gave up and just left the child alone. I was in the room with the student for about 30-45 minutes after trying for about 10 minutes to reach the student I gave up and completely ignored the student. I don’t think that I should of gave up on the student so quickly or maybe should of tried different ways to find the way to spark a conversation with the student. Working on blind spots and triggers are going to be something that I also have to work on. Having dealt with being bullied from 1st grade to 12th grade, I have very strong opinions about how school system handle bullies and victims. My first day of practicum I had a student come into counselor office, she was scared that a girl told her that she wanted to fight her. The student wanted to transfer because she was scared that the student was going want to fight her and pick with her for the rest of the school year. The student stated that she wanted to be home schooled because she believes that everywhere she goes she will experience being bullied. I suggested to the student to talk to her teachers whenever the student started to make her uncomfortable, the student