Self-Awareness Self-Analysis Know That I

Self-Awareness

Self-Analysis know that I have many strengths and weaknesses. Some I have discovered myself, friends and family have identified some for me. I find this assignment very helpful. I believe that a self inventory of the areas in which I do well, and those for which I still need work will help me as a counselor as well as reducing the risk I face of burnout in the face of the highly stressful work I will be doing. In this portion of the paper I plan to focus on my skills and weaknesses in identified areas, and in the second portion I hope to identify techniques and a professional development plan that I will follow to prevent burnout.

A place my listening and empathy skills into the same category, since I believe being an active listener requires some degree of commitment to the person and that requires a degree of empathy. I believe that my background gives me some skill and contributes to weaknesses as well. Raised in a family with an alcoholic father, we kept our secrets well. I channeled this into rebellion, and got into a lot of trouble in my childhood. I was able to make some inroad into my relationship with my father through my participation in sports, and I feel fortunate that I was able to discern any inroad to make contact with him at all. These elements of my youth most likely drove me into the counseling profession, making me tenacious in my desire to find some kind of connection to the client. I think I find this connection by careful empathetic listening. I understand that being a counselor is outside of the work environment my father envisioned for me. In some way, his disappointment becomes my weakness and makes me even more determined to take on clients and try to help them. It also makes me feel capable of taking on even those individuals who seem to be "difficult." My weakness is perhaps I may be too tenacious, and try to bring to the counseling relationship a connection that cannot exist, due to elements outside my control. As a result, I sometimes do not stay as focused on the client as I should, since I tend to begin searching for answers and plans to the clients problems before they are finished telling me their stories. My experiences with my father have made me a "fixer." I know that many of the weakness I carry with me into my profession stem directly from the unfinished business I have with my father. I plan to use the conflict from this to my advantage. I shall have to be careful that the roles I play in my counseling does not in some way usurp the role I have "failed" in my relationship with my father.

Regarding my work values, I also learned in my childhood that the values espoused are not always the values people live. Again, my family hid the secret of my father's alcoholism for many years. No one outside of our family would have known there was a problem, and his drinking never affected his work. He is still considered to be a prominent attorney, and good at his work. I have his same work ethic, but luckily I love what I do and find my field to be very interesting. I could fall into a trap in which my father's goals somehow supplant my own. This would feed into my need for approval as well as fulfilling the role my father has set for me.

Should I achieve my Ph. D., I know that I will meet my father's standards, but in my heart I know I am doing this mostly for myself. The dynamics within my family have provided me with both strength and weaknesses, but have not forced my decision-making. I think this is perhaps one of my greatest strengths, being able to overcome my origins and use what happened to my advantage. I hope to be able to impart that to my clients as well.

I know that I am somewhat introverted in sharing some aspects of myself with my clients, and I judge this as a weakness as well. Perhaps I want to appear more perfect in their eyes, the one they will turn to who has all the answers. But cognitively, I understand this is not my role as a counselor. My conflict with my father has taught me to be less judgmental with others, more able to compromise and I find it easy to deal with confrontation because I have had so much exposure in the past. I am, however, able to see that the confrontation I experience with the client has very little effect on my personal feelings and emotions, and my response to this is less visceral. I feel I am aware of the possibility of counter-transference and will be able to separate my own issues from the issues that must be dealt with in session.

My counseling weakness will definitely be with clients who are especially judgmental or controlling. I feel this again stems from my relationship with my father as well as qualities I have recognized in myself. My experience with counseling so far, and maturity have helped me to overcome and keep in check these negative qualities. I feel comfortable in giving myself kudos for knowing these faults and working to keep them in check.

My desire to help all my clients would likely best be addressed by using a specific functioning model, such as Hutchen's TFA model. This model directs the client to make balance of his or her thinking/feeling and acting orientations. I feel that this would be an excellent model for my practice style, since I am inherently adaptable to situations and can model my counseling style based on the counseling order most specific to the client's orientation. This approach will allow me to serve the greatest number of clients I can, rather than those who simply fit my approach.

The unfinished business and emotional pain I have with my father will serve me in strength and weakness. I feel that my experience with my family ultimately brought me to this path, since my career makes me feel very focused and motivated, and I know I am making the right career choice. I feel have the right support systems around me, with friend and family members. I also think that I would benefit from counseling myself. I will discuss this issue later in part two of this paper.

Avoiding Burnout hope it does not sound to hackneyed when I say that I feel the main element to avoiding burnout in my career will be achieving balance. Many of the elements, which have attracted me to a career in counseling, are exactly the same elements that may make me more vulnerable to burnout. I know that this career will be especially fulfilling for me as a person and a professional and I look forward to working with people. In the same manner, I realize that I too have issues that should probably be addressed in order to keep my own issues out of the therapeutic area. I need to know which signs of burnout are the most likely. Will I experience fatigue, or will I engage in self-criticism for being unable to refuse the demands made upon me. Will I be cynical, negative or irritable?

For this reason, I plan to engage in a course of counseling to deal with the unresolved feelings I have about my father. Being with a counselor will not only help me personally but also keep me keyed in to what I love about the field. Being in counseling myself will help me rework the old tapes which move in my head when I think about my relationship with my father, and hopefully help me come up with better balanced ways of dealing with my relationship with him.

A also plan to be involved in professional organizations. Counseling, depending upon the setting of your practice, can be a very lonely profession, especially if you do not have ready access to colleagues with whom you can discuss particular cases, or bounce patient problems around. I think that my ideal working environment would be one of multi-disciplinary professionals working together in the same clinic, but who knows where I end up. In order to stay keyed in with others, I plan to keep up with continuing education and join all the local professional organizations I can in order to stay a part of the local counseling community. It will also be helpful for me to know what other options are out there, especially for patients who require referral to other providers.