Counseling Strategies

Throughout my time in the School Counseling Program here, I have continued to learn more and more about the importance of looking at each person individually and holistically. Whether it be yourself, a fellow classmate, your counselor, or a student it is crucial to understand as much as you can about that person. Each individual reacts differently to counseling and the different benefits that can come from a counseling relationship. During the first week of my graduate program, I remember one of my professors talking about eclecticism and how as counselors we should never state that that is the type of theory we use with our clients/students. It took me a while to figure it out but I am starting to understand why just stating eclecticism is not appropriate. Many school counselors use this term because they have no clear direction or counseling personality that they fit into. They have never taken the opportunity to explore what works best for them or taken the time to truly understand each and every theory along with their benefits and issues. It wasn't eclecticism that we were being warned of but unsystematic eclecticism. Having no rhyme or reason to our practices and interventions being used with clients is unhelpful and unethical in a sense. "Interventions that are based on specific client needs and problems, rather than on the preferred strategy of the counselor, then to lead to better outcomes" (Nelson, p. 416, 2002). What we should be using as school counselors is technical eclecticism which refers to carefully determining what interventions would work best for each individual client. And the interventions that are being used are empirically sound as well as effective for that client's personality. Gaining this understanding allows for a much broader use of all we have learned during a program as well as providing a more effective counseling practice for our students.

When I started to read Nelson's (2002) article on counseling strategy selection, I was wondering how assessment was going to fit into this topic. Part of my struggle is the difficulty I still have with broadening my definition of assessment in counseling. I think part of me still sees assessment as testing that is used to determine a score for students. I am starting to understand more and more the importance it can hold for a school counselor's role. This article laid it out very nicely that assessment must be used every day all the time. When a student comes into your office, you are almost always not aware of their situation, their skills set, and who they are mentally, emotionally and so on. Part of our job is to determine these pieces of the puzzle as we get to know our clients and form healthy counseling relationships. The more we learn about a student the better we are able to help them help themselves. Chances are if we are learning about them, they are in turn learning more as well. This type of assessment process requires the gathering of information through multiple resources and it does not come just from a simple test score. Once we have several pieces to the puzzle however, the process of technical eclecticism becomes easier and more beneficial to our counseling process and success.

 Nelson, M. L.  (2002).  An assessment-based model for counseling strategy selection.  Journal of Counseling & Development, 80, 416-421.