Last Blog

I can’t believe summer is here! I accidentally did chapter 15 last week, a whole semester and I still can’t do this assignment correctly- oh well! :)

 I found chapter 13 to be very interesting. Having started as a School Psychology major there was more attention to the DSM than I would have initially thought but after taking this class it makes a little more sense. All of the different details we have learned about assessments it is still not our job to "diagnose" based off of the results. We can recommend things but we are not to diagnose. Hence this piece clicking about School Psychologist stepping into this role. Even their role is not as extensive as that of a Clinical Psychologist. I always find the diagnostic interpretations of disorders to be fascinating, and again, after taking this class, I'm finding myself asking new and different questions about how these findings are drawn. How does one decide how many times a behavior needs to be exhibited to be considered diagnosable? It makes me think about norm referenced samples and some Psychologist years ago sitting in a mental hospital an observing the behaviors around them relative to each patient. Possibly this is how they started to draw conclusions about what behavior would be considered to be normative enough to generalize. I agree with the statement that clinically there is not as much emphasis on counseling which I think everyone can agree that we are future school counselors because we enjoy the counseling aspect.

The Drummond and Jones text has definitely provided me with a more comprehensive understanding of how assessments work but I have learned so much more from the hands on piece of administering assessments. The feedback that has been given during class participation activities or presentation feedback has been so valuable. I have learned so much about myself and the areas that I can improve on as future counselor. I think that my hesitancy in this class initially has been met with realistic abilities I was not sure I had. I have been distressed that sometimes I was not able to understand concepts fully until after I had presented, or sometimes raised my hand and had an opinion about something; but on the whole I feel more able to compete in the world of competent school counselors! Thank you everyone for a great class and your feedback- it has been really helpful in a lot of my growth areas.

Drummond, R. J. and Jones, K. (2010). Assessment procedures for counselors and
helping professionals. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.