Inside School Counseling: An Interview With a Licensed Counselor

Introduction and Educational Background

The subject of this interview began her journey as a public school counselor by earning a Bachelor of Science degree in counseling, followed by a Master's degree in school counseling. Before receiving her license, she was required to complete a set number of supervised hours during training and pass the Praxis examination. Her specialty is school counseling, and she is affiliated with the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). Her role within a public school involves assessing and identifying potential opportunities for students interested in attending strong high school programs. She works primarily with middle school-aged children.

She chose counseling as a career path because it enables her to connect with others and foster growth and understanding in young people. Pointing children and teenagers in the right direction — and helping guide them toward a career of their choosing — is, in her words, a rewarding and motivating experience. To become both a licensed and certified counselor was a long and demanding road, yet the desire to help people, especially youth, had been with her since childhood.

She has been a certified and licensed counselor for fifteen years. It took approximately eight years to complete all the requirements and establish herself fully in the profession. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision, which she believes will open additional avenues, including the possibility of teaching. She reflects that once you reach a certain level of education, you recognize that there is always more to learn — and that technology is increasingly being introduced into counseling practice.

Building Rapport and Core Counseling Techniques

She describes having a strong working relationship with her clients, one in which open communication is central. Building rapport, she explains, begins with asking open-ended questions and developing a genuine sense of what the client wants and what their personality is like. By allowing clients to speak more freely during the initial sessions, they tend to feel more comfortable sooner. She notes that her caseload includes an equal number of boys and girls, and she observes no significant difference in communicativeness between genders during sessions.

In terms of technique, she begins sessions by letting clients lead the conversation more than she does in later sessions. She uses open-ended questions, paraphrasing, summarizing, and careful notetaking. These are foundational skills in counseling that contribute to making strong first impressions. Clients, she emphasizes, do not want to be told what to do — they want to arrive at conclusions themselves.

When it comes to theory, she finds both behavioral and cognitive-behavioral theory particularly useful. These frameworks assume that behavior is learned and that a person's thoughts can influence and alter both behaviors and emotions. For example, some clients express that they do not know what they are capable of and are afraid to find out, failing to recognize that their negative thinking is limiting their potential. She finds it remarkable what the human mind is capable of when guided appropriately.

The counseling process itself, she says, is like trying to remove a scratch from a broken record — it can seem repetitive, slow, and long. Clients who are less open to counseling simply need more time and patience. They may also need to feel more heard. In her experience, resistant clients are often those who feel they have no voice, or that their voice does not matter.

Working with EBD Students

She encounters two primary types of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The first are internalizers, who tend to present with anxiety disorders and depression. The second are externalizers, who more often exhibit oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder. Most of the students she sees with these characteristics come from single-parent homes and are economically disadvantaged. Without a strong support system at home, these students are more likely to develop such disorders. She also notes that males tend to appear more frequently in this category than females, at least based on her experience.

For students experiencing depression and anxiety disorders, her approach centers on helping the client develop the vocabulary needed to describe what they are feeling and to identify symptoms and cues. She also works with students on identifying triggers and recognizing the potential consequences of acting out. For students with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, the approach similarly involves building awareness — helping them understand their actions, their triggers, and the consequences of those actions. Instilling an increased sense of self-awareness, she emphasizes, is key to addressing these kinds of disorders.

She also recounts encountering a student who displayed sociopathic characteristics. The student was calm and composed initially, appeared charming, and said all the right things. However, she was manipulative — telling the counselor only what she believed the counselor wanted to hear — and she manipulated those around her, including parents, friends, and teachers. It was only through persistent questioning and consistent attempts to summarize what was said that this pattern became apparent. The counselor acknowledges that she doubts she made any meaningful progress with this particular student.