¶ … psychologist, is to help people with developmental disabilities. Such as sex offenders, drug abuse, bipolar, depression. I feel that I have a compassion and a journey to help this population of people becuse I have been in the health care profession for several years. I have seen the this poulation get pushed through the judicial system and put in jail, because of not proper couseling. Once in jail, they hardly receive proper counseling there too, and it is therefore no wonder that the rate of recidivism in America is increasing with a Bureau of Justice Statistics study, for instance, finding that 67.5% of prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested within 3 years (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm)).
My desire, therefore, is to help the developmentally challenged before they actually become worse in their behavior, drop out, and end off in jail when it may be too late and far more challenging to help them reform.
My professional goals are to have board and care facilities where I can counsel developementally challenged people, aged 18-59, who possess a dual diagnosis..
As another approach to answering this question, I see my professional goals as revolving around the directives of the APA. These include the following key principles:
1. Beneficence and Nonmaleficence: where I make sure that I am as objective and professional a counselor as possible, not being sucked in by personal needs or by doubling of roles
2. Fidelity and Responsibility. Where I seek to maintain professional standards of conduct, and seek to...
Integrity "Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology" (APA, 2010)
4. Justice: by screening out my biases, and,
5. Respect for People's Rights and Dignity via non-judgmentleness, emphatic listening and tolerance as well as pains taken to protect confidentiality.
Naturally, the whole is strengthened by a continuous process of learning and polishing of my skills as well as interaction with colleagues and soliciting feedback from pertinent others.
I prefer to work with people who are skilled, open, honest, ready to provide me with feedback. These -- as colleagues. In a working environment where we all strive towards the same goals, and have similar outlook about the responsibility of our tasks. As per clients, I perfer to work with developmentally challenged people, aged 18-59, who possess a dual diagnosis
I prefer not to work with family members; such too is the code of the APA and of any other etthical codes related to my profession. If it may be the case that I will have to that is an ethical conundrum that will need to be worked out at the appropriate time. I would also prefer to wrok with indivdiuals who speak an English that I can communicate with and who preferably, although not necessarily, come from my culture. The more I have in common with them, the better I can help them. Although this is again not necessarily the case.
Counter-transference…
