ACA Blog

[caption id="attachment_4859" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Jennifer Bingaman"][/caption] I’m sure it’s no surprise, but working at a residential drug treatment center can be interesting. We have a bunch of grown men living side-by-side all trying to work through some heavy issues along with their addiction. We have anger and apathy. We have motivation and we don’t. We have a good proportion of Axis IIs intermingling with people who have never had to understand something like a personality disorder. It’s an adventure in understanding for staff and clients most days.

I worked with a Masters-level counseling student, “Jennifer,” a number of years ago, and I was her onsite supervisor. She was completing her internship requirement at our agency, and it was the last requirement prior to graduation. The population our agency served was severe mental illness, and the agency was a private, nonprofit providing counseling and case management to this population. The clients were voluntary, stable, living and working in the community.

A question I’m often asked by counselors is whether they should specialize. That is, should they focus their counseling practice in a specific area? It’s a hard question to answer, as even successful business people disagree. In this column, I’ll describe four ways that counselors can specialize, and offer some insights into how specializing can help (or hurt) a counseling practice.

I’m often a day late and a dollar short when it comes to social movements. I was the last in my circle to get a smart phone. Until late last year, I still watched the same box television that I’d bought for my first apartment 20 years ago. I almost never read the same books that everyone else is reading (Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” was a fun exception) and I miss most of the blockbusters until they’re out on DVD. I was extremely pleased with myself for seeing “The Hunger Games” last night, then, just a few days after its release. No, I didn’t read the book (See? I’m just not up on what’s hot).

If you began working in your local city jail when I did you probably worked with men with alcohol problems. Over the years the population of our city/county jails has changed. In 1998, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were an estimated 283,000 prison and jail inmates who suffered from mental health problems. That number is now estimated to be over 1.25 million. The rate of reported mental health disorders in the state prison population is five times greater (56.2 percent) than in the general adult population (11 percent). Women prisoners have an even higher rate of mental health problems than men: almost three quarters (73 percent) of all women in state prison have mental health problems, compared to 55 percent of men.

Recently a very bright, professionally accomplished client in her 40‘s asked me, “Is it okay to have my own thoughts?” She wasn’t kidding - she meant it! Although she had had a Ph.D., and was a sought after speaker and teacher, emotionally she was a “people pleaser” who was taught early on that it was “selfish” to be too stuck on her own thoughts. In her personal life, she was easily swayed by the thoughts and opinions of others, deferring to them so she would not be seen as “selfish. Interestingly enough, we chuckled together over the fact that the message came from her very critical and overbearing mother who demanded that her daughter put her mothers needs over her own.

[caption id="attachment_4859" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Jennifer Bingaman"][/caption] I pride myself on how honest I am. While sometimes my honesty can scare off the faint-hearted, I’m happy with that part of who I am. I’m an open book.

March, recognized as Women’s History Month, is drawing to a dreary and demoralizing close. To many women, it hasn’t appeared there was much cause for celebration lately. Women’s reproductive freedom – and it with it our potential for full and equal participation in society – has been under near-constant assault recently by some lawmakers and religious groups.

Last month, I gave you several tips on listening to improve your relationships. As you may recall, I said you could avoid "going upcreek without a paddle" by using your O.A.R.S., in which OARS was an acronym representing four active listening skills. In this blog post, I will give you tools to help people navigate tough waters once you've deployed your OARS.

I am currently involved in an interesting conversation thread as part of an American Counseling Association group on LinkedIn. First off, I highly recommend that counselors get on LinkedIn and create a profile. It is a great way to network and be part of a counseling community. Once on there, take a moment to join the ACA discussion group – it is there that you can communicate with other professionals and expand your knowledge. Discussion thread messages may be directly emailed to you – in case your want to be in the know. And in the know, I am!