Personal Approach to Counseling (Final Project)
The assignment is designed to help you integrate the theories of counseling you have learned to develop a personal approach to counseling. This paper must be written in APA format, typewritten, proofread, and is expected to show evidence of clear thought and application of theory. The paper is due to Blackboard by day 7 of week 5 at 11:59 pm. This paper will be a minimum of 11-pages in length (not including the references page/s or cover page). Suggested page ranges to help guide you are listed for each section of the paper.
In this paper, you will describe your personal approach to counseling and then apply your approach to a specific case.
Is there a template? In week one you were provided a template to help you organize your writing for the week 1-4 assignments. You may have noticed that in addition to formatting the template in APA, we used the assignment instructions to create heading to organize the paper. Next, we copy and pasted the questions that needed to be addressed under each section with screen clips of the rubric. We also suggested that you use transition sentences to begin each paragraph that included some of the same words used in the question that you were addressing in a paragraph. Last, we suggested that after you complete a section that you should review your work against the rubric to ensure you addressed all requirements. For the final project, we would like to see you generalize those same strategies to create your own template to organize your writing for the final project. For example, the below prompts are organized into two major sections with 9 subsections, how might you organize your paper using level one and two headings? The above strategy is a sure-fire way to clearly organize your writing and make sure you do not ever forget to address a question or rubric point.
Personal Approach to Counseling
In this section, you will describe your personal approach to counseling. Please address the following:
Philosophy of Human Nature: Discuss your personal philosophy of human nature (e.g., are humans innately good or bad, what motivates us, what is the cause of stress and suffering, how does change occur, how do we grow, how does wellness occur, how do we function?). Address at least 5 areas of human nature. -suggested 1-2 page in length.
Counselor Role: Discuss what you believe your role to be as a counselor in the following ways:
Discuss the counselor role in terms of qualities important for building a therapeutic relationship (being non-judgmental, demonstrating empathy, unconditional positive regard…etc.). Discuss what role you feel a counselor should play in helping clients/students make changes, work toward goals, and overcoming obstacles. Additionally, address roles that are specific to your preferred future work setting (e.g., clinical counselors and school counselors will certainly share some roles; but, there are other roles unique to each position). -suggested 1-2 page in length.
Theoretical Approach: Select at least three theories of counseling (that you learned in weeks 1-4) that you could see yourself drawing from in your preferred, future, counseling setting. Remember to identify your preferred setting (in-home, outpatient, population, elementary/middle school/high school, etc.). Discuss at least three central concepts of each approach and explain how they fit with your philosophy of human nature and role as a counselor. -suggested 4-5 pages in length.
Critical Evaluation of Approach: Describe the strengths and limitations of your personal approach to counseling. Also address strengths and limitations for working with a culturally diverse population. -suggested 1-3 pages in length.
TIP: Review the rubric while writing each section of your paper. The rubric contains specific information regarding how your responses to the above prompts will be evaluated and scored
