Since the beginning of our school counseling program, we have been asking for more information on the ethical side of counseling. Ethics plays such a huge role in school counseling and the decisions we need to make as counselors on a daily basis. I believe it has also caused a lot of stress and pressure in thinking about our future career. Currently, the information that I have about ethics has been told through stories about those counselors who have made poor decisions in the past. I have definitely learned that it is important to communicate with your school counseling peers before you make ethical decisions and that in many cases it is necessary to report many serious issues to the parents and other appropriate persons. I think the issue that I struggle with the most, personally, is that every situation is so different. We can learn about examples as much as we would like but there will always be something new that we experience. Something that I took from the Dollarhide & Saginak text this week is that it is not essential that I know the answers to every question but instead where to find those answers. I need to know the resources for ethics and who I can go to when I have to make an ethical decision. It is clear that it takes a lot of learning as you go as evidenced by the lack of concrete information and personal stories that have been shared by other school counselors. I look forward to gaining more knowledge from my practicum classes next year.
As I was reading through the counseling values in Chapter 3, I definitely noticed the clear bias to the Western culture. Many of the things we focus and base our counseling on come from a majority culture rather than being based on individual needs. Learning that a sixth counseling value, context and systems awareness, had been added excited me. By 2030 to 2050, the United States will no longer be the majority Euro-American, which means that the Western values will not be what the majority are subscribing to. It is so important as new school counselors entering the field that we become culturally sensitive and competent especially with so many new changes around us. Going along with being culturally competent, it is crucial that we are examining our own set of values and beliefs and how they affect us personally and professionally. The hearing aid metaphor that was used on p. 33 really explained the function of our own values and our client’s values within the counseling process (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012). “Rather that strive to become values-neutral (taking off the hearing aid), counselors should examine their values and attempt to make them as broad as possible (tune it to hear as many frequencies as possible), to acknowledge the wide range of various value systems that exist in the world” (Dollarhide & Saginak, p. 33, 2012). In order to serve the majority of students, I need to be able to accept and understand different worldviews. Ethically, this is the best way to counsel.
While reading Chapter 14, I was able to make a personal connection to the struggles I am having in my life right now. It seemed to me that Emily Dorado was stuck in some sort of a rut in her career. She wasn’t moving forward and she was satisfied with the amount of work she was accomplishing. Yet she was just getting by day after day. I also saw her talk about giving herself a break after all that she did do. Currently I am having some similar feelings of being stuck and not sure how to move forward. This is something that I fear in my time as a school counselor as well. There is so much that goes into the job, I could see myself getting stuck in the same routine, just getting done what I need to. I don’t want to end up in this position and I believe that finding my center is something that will benefit me. There is a “connection between our inner reality and our outer work (counseling or educating)” and this “challenges us to develop an ongoing dialogue with our own inner teachers” (Dollarhide & Saginak, p.251, 2012). I need to reflect on what I value, what is going on in my life and where I am headed. By doing this and taking care of my personal and professional needs, I can avoid some of the struggles that Emily showed in her story.
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