Empathy in counseling and family influences on psychology careers

Psychology

The author of this report has been asked to review a certain portion of the Marlowe text and give some answers to one or two of the questions on page 83 and 84 of the text itself. The questions are indeed thought-provoking and cause the author of this report to ponder them carefully. The first question that will be answered is whether more empathy is triggered or present when there is a lack of information or if there is too much and/or contradictory information. The second question that will be answered will be the implicit family mandate that led to the author of this report being interested in psychology and counseling in the first place. While it can indeed be a negative experience to be subject to and/or be in the presence of mental illness, it can also be instructive in the helping and identification with others who are going through the same or similar problems.

Analysis

When it comes to empathy, a dearth of information is typically a clear indicator that there is something afoot. The question becomes what precisely is going on, whether the problem is an active one or if it's something that was incurred it the past and who is involved. On the other hand, there is the potential issue of having too much information and/or information that is contradictory. The author of this report, from an empathy standpoint as well as others, would prefer to have too much information and/or contradictory information since there is something to go on with such a situation. The author of this report is keenly aware that mental health and other related problems are far from monolithic and there is sometimes a lot of blame to go around. Also, there is variance in how the behavior manifests and to what degree people experience problems. For example, someone struggling with alcohol might have an issue with binging here and there but they may only dabble to a lesser degree in other instances. Similarly, someone who experiences anxiety problems may have full-blown panic attacks in some situations but they might cope quite well in other instances. The author empathizes regardless and wants to get to the root of what causes each situation and what can best be done to cope with or even avoid the situation. For example, avoidance of triggering factors might be the wise course in some situations (e.g. avoiding a drug abuse relapse by avoiding people who use) but there are other situations where attacking the problem is the better course (e.g. fear of social situations).

As for the family mandate for going into the profession, the author of this report has seen plenty of news and information about how mental health is a blight and a curse for a lot of people. However, the author has also seen this first-hand based on the family and other people that the author has been exposed to over the years. While there are many counselors and psychologists that are detached from the problems they fight from a personal perspective, it can be much more informative and personal if someone actually personally witnessed or directly went through the problems that others are going through. Indeed, a generic example would be a former alcoholic perhaps being one of the better people to help those that are current struggling provided that they are no longer addicted and have supplemented that experience with psychological training and education. The author has been a "rock" of sort for friends and family in the past and the author wants to help even more people after the completion of education on the subject.