ACA MEMBER BLOGS

Do you ever get to a place in your life where you feel like you’re in one place and can’t move forward? If you have ever felt this way I’m sure you can attest to how frustrating the feeling is. Sometimes there’s road blocks preventing you from moving forward, unplanned circumstances, or just a matter of time.

Congratulations! You have mastered the core coursework in your counseling program in preparation to begin your clinical experience. Whether you are entering this step of graduate coursework or looking ahead for what is to come, this post is intended to provide you with a roadmap to achieving a valuable and enriching clinical experience.

When I considered devoting this month’s blog to the topic of marketing a counseling practice, my first thought was that I’ve covered this topic before (last time in 2016) and what could really have changed between now and then? As I reviewed some of my old writings, I realized much has changed. So very much. This month, I present to you a few of the more significant changes

Last month I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama with my mentor to see the Peace and Justice memorial. After reading about it last April, I knew I had to go and see it, and having my mentor, Ellen Ziskind who was a Freedom Rider, join me would make the experience even more impactful and meaningful.

Recently, I met with a friend who was having trouble with his boss and was considering quitting his job to start a company of his own. After a long day of talking, we came to a firm decision: starting a business isn’t for him. Not because he’s unable, but because he would hate it.

As a counselor or counselor-in-training, the versatility and broad scope of factors we need to consider are wonderfully diverse. Therefore, as new professionals or students, we need to build quality resources.

You wouldn’t let a stranger into your home for hours every day to train your kids how to think about themselves, would you? You wouldn’t invite a salesperson in for dinner night after night to pitch their newest hi tech products or apps for your kids’ smartphones while you and your family were eating together, right?

In September, I traveled to Budapest to talk to a wonderful group of psychology students about my mother-daughter relationship work. They created a video of the talk, which I want to share with you. During the talk I explain that mothers and daughters do not relate in a socio-cultural vacuum, rather the mother-daughter relationship is a mirror reflection of how families and society treat women.

Maybe it’s New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe it’s “Blue Monday” (January 23rd) the day by which we’ve all broken our resolutions. Maybe it’s a post-holiday emotional hangover. Maybe it’s just that the days are depressingly short, and dark, and very cold. Maybe it’s a combination of all these things that makes it so that, for many counseling practices, the first 3 months of the new year are the busiest!

Often times I reference the Serenity Prayer to my clients because the challenges of this world often times are things that are out of our control. When said situation seems to overwhelm and flood their thoughts with anxiety, fear, or doubt I remind them to “…accept the things they cannot change; courage to change the things they can, and to seek the wisdom to know the difference.”