PSYCHOLOGY CORNER
COUNSELING SPECIAL CASES
AMY L. CHAVES
March 8, 2000
(Based
from the book COUNSELING IN PERSPECTIVE:
THEORY,
PROCESS, SKILLS
BY:
LILY ROSQUETA-ROSALES)
CONTEXT:
Counseling
Gifted Students: Gifted
students are above, above average and creative people who find it difficult to
join the mainstream of society, especially the
structured academe. Their
predictable developmental crisis are: incapacity to match their mental ability
with their school achievement—it’s possible that they are also
under-achievers; the confusing effects of adolescence, the narrowness of a
career compared to multiple interest and abilities, and the inability to adapt
or cope to new but shattering experiences.
The counselor must therefore be sensitive to the peculiarities of gifted
students and must address, during counseling sessions, their anxieties and help
them appreciate their rare gifts.
Counseling
Students in Residence Halls: The counselor’s task is to inspire and nurture the growth
and development of the residents together with identifying unusual talents,
characteristics and even problems. There
are three basic concepts in counseling that applies to residents:
(1) understanding precedes
assistance; (2) each
item of information must be interpreted
within the context of the resident’s personality;
and (3)
the kind of assistance given must be adapted to the individual.
The counselor uses environmental resources or university resources to
augment his assistance to the residents. However,
he is guided by the following ethical principles: promotion
of freedom of action and choice with self-responsibility;
avoidance of actions that hurt residents or place them at risk; equal treatment of residents;
and commitment to professional standards.
Counseling
Confused Adolescents:
Counseling
Disabled Individuals: a basic knowledge about etiologies of disabilities,
the skill to see the “gestalt” relevant to the situation, observing,
listening and understanding the disabled should be part of the counselor’s training.
While the family must be taught how to cope with the considerable stress
that confronts the immediate family, the
disabled must also be taught how to cope with frustration, rejection. isolation
and loneliness. The
counselor must also help the disabled not only for job placement but more
importantly, with adaptation and attitudinal change. There are three sources for
interventions: family, the
disabled, and the society.
Counseling
Children with Psychological Disorders:
Psychological disorders in children include learning, developmental,
attention-hyperactivity, conduct, mood and anxiety, depressive, and substance
abuse. Preventive programs as well
as counseling using the “class format” is recommended with play therapy as
its main component. Thus, the
counselor must have expertise in the child’s developmental level.
Counseling
Sexually-Abused Children:
The sexually-abused child tends to be self-destructive in adult life,
promiscuous, a drug addict, or a prostitute.
Characteristics which persist into adulthood are inability to trust, low
self-esteem, self-hatred, sexual identity crisis and feelings of guilt, shame
and isolation. Understanding is the
keyword for the counselor. The
counseling session which should be held in a playroom atmosphere should be done
in such a way in order not to threaten the child.
Counseling
Suicidal Persons:
Perfectionism,
unrealistic family and social expectations, lack of social skills, and
intellectual impotence are some of the reasons which contribute to suicidal
behavior. The counselor must be
perceptive, intuitive, and understanding. Early
detection of behavioral changes by
the counselor can greatly increase the success-ration in counseling suicidal
persons by providing alternative courses of thinking and acting
so that a meaningful view about the world can emerge.
Counseling
Drug-Users:
The major goal of the
counselor is to help the drug-user become aware of deep psychological conflicts
that are beyond one’s awareness. Through
unstructured sessions using exploratory procedure, the counselor leads the
drug-user to develop insight, thoughts, and feelings while putting emphasis on
controlling or eliminating drug use.
The latter can be done by encouraging abstinence or self-motivation.
Counseling
Gay Men: The
counselor needs to understand gay men and their relationship behavior.
He needs a lot of patience and the highest level of tolerance to work
with a homosexual client. Sessions
include earliest recollections of the gay man’s life, the subsequent events,
and the main factors that may have contributed to his sexual orientation.
Eventually, the counselor introduces counseling sessions for personal
change.
Counseling
Mid-Lifers:
The
counselor helps a mid-lifer by clarifying values and priorities, analyzing
covert issues in his life such as emotional factors, personality and
self-concept, family issues and heterosexual issues; reducing client’s anxiety
through counseling techniques best suited to the client’s personality and
helping him plan a new perspective plan and action plan in life.
Counseling
Couples with Relationship Problems:
Relationship counseling focuses facilitating the discovery of the
spouses’ views for each other, on understanding each other’s behavior, and
on helping each other gain autonomy while saving the relationship.
The counselor therefore must be
aware of the couple’s developmental histories, different
peculiarities, and different perspectives.
Counseling
Families in Crisis:
Emotional immaturity, lack of self-confidence, lack of responsibility,
poor interpersonal relationships, and sexual conflict contribute to marital
crisis. Difficult-husband-wife
relationship, the philandering husband, the domineering wife, disobedient and
delinquent children, in-law problems, separations, aging parents,
terminal illness, and death in the family are the common sources of
family crisis in the Philippines. The counselor leads the client into a
supportive and trusting relationship while helping him identify the
precipitating events which have led to the crisis, ways of coping and solving
the crisis.
Counseling
Unaccepting Step-Children:
The counselor must be able to communicate to the step-children the
reasons why their parent has remarried. He
must make them understand of the deep need of their parent to establish a bond
with another person for emotional support.
Thus the counselor helps the children through the stages of acceptance of
a situation they cannot change. This
is a slow process and time is demanded of the counselor.
Counseling
Combat Soldiers Under Stress:
Post traumatic stress syndrome respond to early catharsis and counseling
oriented toward acceptance of the event, with the expectation of quick recovery. The Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory is one way of assessing
the psychological gravity of the case. The
combat soldier processes the trauma through cognitive restructuring, carefully
eliminating its power, and resolving the traumatic experience.
Counseling
the Elderly:
Due
to advancing age and health problems, the elderly way experience recurrent if
not consistent depression which needs counseling.
The unconditional love and support from family members,
especially children are necessary in order that the elderly will still
find meaning and hope in life. Foremost
is the importance of medical supervision on the part of the care-givers.
Counseling
the Dying and the Grieving:
the
ultimate goal of counseling the dying is to assist people to accept things over
which they have no control. The
focus is how to cope with grief—that of the dying and those left behind. The counselor helps the grieving family through the
separation process.
EXPERIENCE:
My very recent experience in counseling was in the
area of death and grieving. My
mother was diagnosed to have stomach
malignancy last March 1998. I was
told that hers was a terminal case and that all that the doctor could give are
palliative means. I did not tell my
mother about it but I told her a half-truth—that she has stomach lesions.
At first I was full of hope. I
contacted other doctors who are specialists in gastro-intestinal diseases and
even an oncologist from Cebu who comes to Cagayan de Oro once every week.
These doctors did not give me any hope.
All they said was we could try this or that.
I did not want to subject my mother to further pain and discomfort.
So I made the last remaining months of her life as comfortable and as
loving as possible. I did not know
which was more painful: her own
pain or my own grief of seeing her slowly wasting away.
I would cry a lot but I would always put up a cheerful front.
Three weeks before she died, she gathered all of us—my two kids and
myself. She was crying but firm.
She told us she know that she is dying and that she is ready.
She told my two kids to be good, to finish their studies, and to take
care of a little sum of money she is leaving to them. Then she talked to me. My
heart was bursting with pain. I was
crying but it was I who assured her not to worry because nothing could ever
separate the two of us—not even death. I
requested her that if she dies, could she please come back often?
And that could she please let us feel that she is around?
When she was finally dying, all of us were there--my two sons, her two
assistants, our helper and myself. I
did not know where I got such courage to accompany her in her dying moment but I
was soothing her, telling her that we love her so much, that we will never
forget her and that we will see each other again.
I was holding her hand and I told her to relax and go nearer towards the
light because it is the source of all love, all peace, and all healing. She died
peacefully. It was May 20, 1998.
My mother would have turned 79 this coming May 29, 2000.
REFLECTION:
My mother’s death was an enriching experience for
me and for my two kids. Although
painful, her death provided me with the realization that it is because of death
that we can love intensely. Had
she lived healthily for a thousand years, I would not have cherished her and all
the memories I had of her the way I’m doing now.
I would have taken her for granted.
It is therefore because of
death, of this ending, that we, human beings, can really love genuinely and
intensely. In addition, I got to distinguish what is important in life and what is
not. The most important thing is
love. All other things are just
incidentals. That is why if there
is anything I would like to repeat in my life, I would repeat my relationship
with my mother. I would shower her
with unconditional love, kindness,
respect, and care.
My mother’s death also provided me with the framework of my own
mortality. Now I am less afraid of
death. Death is as natural as being
born. So when it is my time to go,
my two kids would also have their own framework of understanding my going.
I hope they will have the capacity of “letting go” when my time is
due because letting go is part of loving.
ACTION:
The framework that I have of my own mortality is therefore the basis for
my life’s goals in the context of what is and is not essential.
According to Lao Tzu, if there is anything that we need to develop, it
must be something that we could bring with us to our grave.
How true! And that is why, I
am developing my full potential, not as a self-centered, ego-tripping kind of
person but as an individual concerned with the way of living authentically and
genuinely. Self-development in all
aspects brings us to the apex of what it means to be truly human.
In addition, because I can
die any moment right now, I would be less serious—I will laugh a lot, play a
lot, love a lot and
view the world with a naughty twinkle in my eyes—a lot.
Also, I would place money to where it properly belongs: just a means but
not an end. I would not be bogged
down with bad relationships or with people who couldn’t appreciate my self.
I would be non-judgmental and I would
try not to make mistakes that I may not be able to bear. I
will enlarge my world, my horizon, my circle of friends and my knowledge.
I will be less protective of my children for their own sake.
I will become a better mother, better wife, better teacher, better
friend, better Christian. When my
time comes, I will then go without regret but instead with deep satisfaction and
fulfillment. Lastly, I will try to
be more healthy, more fit, more alive since I need all these to accomplish all
of the above.
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