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Reflection On A Chapter Of A Book Essay

¶ … neurobiological approach and the overview of this text? Intuition is typically not considered within a scientific, let alone a neurobiological, framework. Yet research continues to surface in support of the value of intuition in the counseling environment at the very least. The author points out two separate but related benefits of the intuitive counseling approach: the fact that cultivating intuition cultivates a meaningful emotional connection with the client that may be crucial in some cases to achieve goals and evoke change; and second, that "clinical insight often arises independent of conscious thought." Counselors are not robots and nor are their clients able to detach from emotions rationally, which is precisely why counseling works. Denying the efficacy or relevance of intuition can be dangerous. The neurobiological approach adds a concrete foundation to what counselors already intuited about their own profession.

While the research supporting the author's hypothesis is not yet substantive, it may be in the future. If the neurobiological approach continues to grab the attention of researchers, further inquiry into the structural and neurochemical aspects of intuition can be explored in more depth and thereby yield more clinical data to support claims related to the value of intuition in the counseling environment. It would appear, based on this introductory chapter, that research into the pre-verbal areas of the brain may prove fruitful for better understanding the processes of...

The psychoanalytic approach has in many ways tarnished the practice of counseling by instigating fear of transference, countertransference, and other dysfunctional patterns in the therapist-client relationship. The intuitive counseling approach offers a fresh way of viewing the therapist-client relationship. Removing the fears embedded in the psychoanalytic model, an intuitive approach recognizes that emotional bonding is critical to change. In fact, the intuitive approach is likely to be more culturally appropriate for some clients. Situational variables might determine the extent to which emotional bonding occurs, but in every professional relationship that evolves between counselor and client, some degree of caring, empathy, and emotionality must occur or else the counselor or client may not be human.
Occasionally, the author veers into dangerous pop psychology, new age, or psychobabble territories. Terms like "intersubjective" and "intrapsychic" might be troublesome for some readers, raising red flags about the credibility of the author's work, if not the entire approach of intuitive counseling. I would argue that the pendulum may need to gently flow to a middle ground between modes of counseling that rigorously mistrust and deny the efficacy of intuition or emotionality on the one hand,…

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