Benjamin Hearn

It’s been a long week, and I’ve not had the time I generally care to have to dedicate to a particularly cohesive entry. I’m writing on my lunch break today. I have felt like I’ve been in the finals week of grad school between private clients, my full-time job, and rushing to complete materials for submission for this year’s ACA conference.

Like many (and probably most) of my fellow counselors, I have taken graduate courses in professional ethics where we’re taught some of the foundational ethical values and practices for our work.

I currently work in a high school and have previously experience in a homeless youth center, a wilderness program for adolescents, private practice, and an elementary school. I still consider myself to be young. I graduated and began practicing recently and have yet to hit 30. I like to think that I have some degree of understanding of the world which children and adolescents inhabit are like.

Mindfulness. It’s a term that we have probably all heard over the past few years, as it is quickly becoming a fad of sorts not only in mental health, but also for CEOs, afterschool programs, and medical clinics.

A frequent conversation held in my home is how counseling can support medicine. My husband is currently a medical student in his third year and going through rotations where he sees numerous opportunities where counseling services for patients outside of the doctor’s office could be beneficial.