Counseling

Chapter 8 was an easier chapter to read because it focused on the aspects of being a school counselor that I am excited about, the actual counseling.  I appreciated that the chapter was broken up into all the different types of counseling that are essential to a school counselor's job.  The first part that really stuck out for me was the section on multicultural counseling.  Since entering the program, I have felt this to be the most interesting while the most challenging topic.  During career development, we focused part of the semester on addressing multicultural perspectives and I really struggled to understand the process.  While I understand the importance of discussing culture and being aware that it affects students, I had a hard time with the material because it seemed to stereotypical to me.  My goal has always been to approach each person as their own individual who has different life experiences and views.  Throughout the counseling program I have seen these ideas form but from a basis of stereotypical material.  Currently I am also in Multicultural Counseling so this semester I have been gaining much more information about the topic.  I am starting to better understand how often it gets overlooked and how much it can affect a counseling session with a student.  The way that the book approached the idea was that "any characteristic that could conceivably alter a person's value system, perspectives, and self-perception" should be addressed within a counselor client relationship (Dollarhide & Saginak, p.126, 2012).  It also talked about the importance of gaining multicultural experiences and working with diversity.  I completely agree that in order to better our counseling skills we need to work with groups outside of our comfort zone and stretch our understanding and awareness.  My job as an outreach counselor for the MU Scholars Program is so beneficial to my future career as a school counselor.  I am having the opportunity to work with students from all backgrounds and gain a better respect for their different cultures and how it has influenced their lives.  It is definitely hard to do but important to know how to do.  I can also see the discrimination that these students are facing on a regular basis, even in the smallest form.  Can you imagine the years and years of discrimination that students may face without it ever being addressed or recognized?  School counselors have the chance to bring those issues to light and make the school environment a better place for all students.

Another area of the chapter that seemed crucial to me was group counseling.  The experiences I have had so far in the school counseling field have involved a lot of group work and I have been able to see the benefits that it can provide to the students.  As an intern working at Fulton Elementary, I had the opportunity to be a part of several small group sessions as well as try to run one myself.  The school counselor I was working with used these groups quite often to bring students together and focus on skills they needed to develop.  One of the best run groups I got the chance to observe was a self-esteem group for fourth grade girls.  I found it to be very interesting because the group included a couple of the bullies in fourth grade, a couple of the popular girls and a really quiet girl.  Bringing together different types of students for the same purpose and finding common ground.  I was easily able to relate these groups to the Dollarhide & Saginak text (2012).  They mentioned how in research it has been found to be more successful to address the needs of students than individual counseling especially at-risk students.  Fulton Elementary is a Lancaster School and has a huge variety of students from different backgrounds and SES.  It makes sense to me that group counseling was such a big part of the school counseling program there.  It gave the school counselor more of an opportunity to reach out to more students while connecting those students to each other.  I find groups to be extremely adaptable as well.  They can be used for varying sizes, students, topics and can be done in different formats.  I think what I would like to see more of is group counseling in high schools.  It can be just as beneficial but it is harder to get the students out of class.  I hope that wherever I end up someday I am able to use the benefits of group counseling to help my students.


Dollarhide, C. & Saginak, K. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs: K-12 delivery systems in action (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.