ACA Blog

If convenience wasn’t such a big factor in choosing a graduate program, I would not have ended up at Montclair State University in 2008. I entered the Counseling program with one thing on my agenda: get the degree as quickly as possible to work in higher education. The Student Affairs concentration was the only thing that had my attention and I had no interest in Counseling.

I was talking last week with a colleague about the tendency among counseling professionals we know to work themselves into exhaustion. We were struck by the number of people who work all week at academic institutions, clinical practices, or both, then do more of it on the weekends- and do so every week! It seems to be a pervasive pattern among counselors to overwork. We talk and write a lot, and certainly counsel clients to practice the elusive self-care in which boundaries are set, personal time is established, and the competing priorities of the outside world are put in their proper place. So why do so few of us do this?

I always do this before I go on vacation. I wonder if everything is complete. Have I finished all my work? Can I leave work behind and just have a good time? Oh, I know work will be there when I get back but….

As I am starting to wind down and limit my practice in order to spend more time on my speaking and writing, my quest for getting new clients in the door is no longer desired - and now I get more calls! I am amused to find that now that feel I have broken the “code” to learn how to get new clients I no longer want them, and the more I am not looking the more they call! So that my top 6 lessons learned do not go to waste, I decided to share what I learned so that earlier in your career you can benefit from my lessons learned. This is certainly not a definitive guide, but this is how I crystallized what I have found in my own practice.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you’ve undoubtedly been inundated with some form of media coverage about the Trayvon Martin shooting. Please allow me to take a minute to indulge my compulsion to write about this case and the underlying connection to professional counseling practice. Now, while I want to serve in the role of promoting the provocative by discussing the utility of hooded sweatshirts, skittles, and iced tea, I’ll refrain. While I want to debate with you the inappropriateness of utilizing “Stand Your Ground” statutes in this case, I simply won’t. Instead, I’m going to try to sell you on the premise that George Zimmerman, the shooter, was conditioned to think about the young, black male in the same manner that you have. Yes, YOU!

I am sitting In the lobby of the Cherry Valley lodge where our OCA meeting was held waiting for my ride home… I thought I should blog but wasn’t sure what to write about. I do know that I get energized from these types of meetings… just like at ACA… I think it is important to remain connected to others in the field and get involved in committees and such. I encourage anyone who hasn’t gone to an ACA event to definitely attend the one in Cincinnati next March. The time is well spent, attending workshops and networking. But more than that it maintains your professional identity as a counselor and you can walk away with new tools and techniques to use in your practice. If you have something to share you can present at the conference, it’s quite an experience. I presented at the New Orleans conference. It was good experience even though I feel I needed some improvement on my own presenting abilities, at least I conquered my fear of public speaking and can say I did it, put that one on my resume.

I don’t like risk, and the risks of opening a new practice are many. We need the right location, the right staff, the right operations, the right credentialing, and even the right marketing. The failure of any one of these key areas will cripple the project. While risk abounds, I try not to fear it, and over the years I’ve improved (perhaps only slightly) in my ability to access and manage it. In this column, I’ll write what I know about risk as it relates to business in the counseling profession.

I have been reflecting a lot recently about therapy. A recent post discussed clients’ plans that fail to come to fruition (see ‘a bit awry.’) A further thought occurred as I was writing said post. Another common theme with clients involves what I consider to be the ultimate variable, the ultimate uncontrollable, the ultimate enforcer of plans, intentions, dreams and ultimately when this entire shebang is finished, like it or not. So what is this omnipotent variable?

[caption id="attachment_4859" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Jennifer Bingaman"][/caption] It’s been four months since I started my counseling internship at a men’s residential drug treatment facility. When I started, I was nervous about talking to my clients, working with them, and developing rapport with them. I worried about knowing enough about certain drugs or lingo. I worried that maybe my skill set needed to be honed more. I had images of my clients scoffing at me because I was too naïve or I was not understanding them correctly. I worried my clients would make no progress with me as their counselor. These were the difficulties I envisioned.

When calling a help desk, how often have you heard a phrase like ‘This call may be recorded for quality assurance?’ I would suggest that as counselors, the easiest and most effective way to continuously improve our counseling is to record sessions and carefully listen to them later—listening for where we were brilliant and where we can think of other options we might have tried. From my counseling perspective, I would listen for responses I made where I enhanced the client’s experience of their own power and autonomy and for responses I made which discounted or prevented the client from owning their own ability to take charge of their lives.