Yan Wenming, Department of Radiotherapy, Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University
Yan Wenming
Chinese Journal of Practical Medicine, May 2007, Vol. 7, No. 10: 955-958
[Abstract] In view of the current realistic problems in psychological counseling work in China, several suggestions and requirements are made on the conditions and qualities a qualified psychological counselor should possess. A psychological counselor must go through special training and training and obtain a qualification certificate before he or she is allowed to work. The counselor must study the theory of counseling, master the methods and techniques of counseling, and actively participate in the practical activities of counseling to improve his or her business level in order to become a qualified counselor.
[Keywords] Psychological counselor, essential conditions and qualities
[CICS] R395.1 [Article ID] B [Paper ID]
With the increasing degree of industrialization, urbanization, and informationization, the pace of life is accelerating, and social competition is intensifying, the pressure on people is increasing day by day, and many people want to release the psychological and mental pressure through self-regulation, but it is often not what they want. People urgently need a confiding partner
Therefore, the need for psychological counseling and psychological guidance is becoming more and more urgent. Counseling, as a professional activity to provide effective psychological assistance through scientific methods and means, is an important career field in modern society and will become one of the ten most popular professions in the new century. However, there is a shortage of professionally trained counselors in China at this stage. Therefore, the psychological counseling industry in China harbors great potential and business opportunities and has a wide scope for development.
The rise of counseling in the world has been more than half a century, in the work of counseling has accumulated a lot of experience, and a lot of professional theoretical research, the formation of the psychological subdiscipline of counseling psychology. China’s counseling began in the 1980s, and scholars have conducted theoretical research on counseling therapy and mental health education in conjunction with the practice of counseling, and relevant theoretical works have been published one after another. The research of counseling psychology has already been established in China. Universities with psychology departments have organized systematic training to train professionals for counseling psychology. All these have provided conditions for counseling workers to improve their own business level.
The psychological consulting industry has become a popular high-wage profession in the 21st century, but the real professionals are rare, and many people engage in this industry with their own momentary love, but ignore the basic qualities and necessary conditions that the psychological consulting industry should have. As a counselor should first of all have a charismatic personality, this charisma is reflected in: love of life, have good adaptability, can properly handle their own psychological conflicts, eliminate daily interference, willing to help others, and should be a serious and responsible person, so that the inquirers feel concerned about their difficulties, can sincerely and frankly talk to the inquirers, so that they are willing to expose their hidden feelings, worthy of their trustworthy. In addition to the above basic qualities, counselors should have the necessary theoretical knowledge; in addition, counselors should pay special attention to moral cultivation, they must have high professional ethics, and should not disseminate information casually when they need to keep the confidentiality of the clients. Counselors should also continue to know themselves and understand themselves, only after they have analyzed and understood themselves, they can understand others; finally, counselors should also follow a principle: not to draw conclusions for the client, all counselors do is to analyze the problem and analyze the causes of the problem to the client.
To sum up, this requires our professional qualification department to strictly check and select qualified psychological counselors to better serve the general public. (1) The qualification requirements for practitioners should be improved. Psychological counseling requires strong professional judgment and appropriate counseling skills. Practitioner standards should improve the educational requirements for practitioners. (2) The validity of skills identification should be ensured. (3) The relationship between training and qualification needs to be clarified. (4) Promotion and qualification accreditation should be distinguished. [1]
Psychological counseling is a special, important and complex work of helping people. People come to counseling so that they can adjust their mindset, study and work more effectively, and face various problems in life more positively, thus improving the quality of life and living a fulfilling and enjoyable life. The task of the counselor is to improve this ability in them. Therefore, he must have some special conditions and qualities: I. Knowledge conditions Psychological counseling is a profession, which has its own theories, methods and techniques. People engaged in counseling work do not rely on good intentions, enthusiasm and general common sense alone to comfort and persuade those in distress or encourage psychological patients to fight against illness. They must be specially trained and certified before they are allowed to work. Counselors must study the theory of counseling, master the methods and techniques of counseling, and actively participate in the practical activities of counseling to improve their business level in order to become a qualified counselor. Counselors must develop a multifaceted knowledge structure, such as the basic theoretical knowledge of general psychology, child psychology, personality psychology, social psychology, mental health, psychopathology, psychometrics, clinical psychology, etc., and master psychological helper skills, and methods and techniques of counseling and treatment such as family therapy, behavior modification methods, music therapy, and cognitive therapy. In the process of psychological counseling, we will encounter various problems. For example, the youth’s outlook on life, worldview and values, interpersonal relationship problems, personality development and social adaptation, young students’ professional thinking and learning methods, adolescent physiological and psychological problems, and love and marriage problems. This requires a comprehensive knowledge structure of counselors. Counselors should not only have professional knowledge in psychology, but also take the worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism as their ideological guidance, and resist all superstitious ideas that are contrary to science. In addition, they should have knowledge of education, sociology and basic medicine. Only by developing one’s knowledge structure in various aspects will one be in a position to give proper inspiration, education and guidance to the clients.
In counseling, you may encounter a wide variety of clients with different mentalities and unexpected problems. In addition to learning from books, counselors must also learn from practice to enrich their counseling experience and improve their business skills. In addition to learning from books, they should also learn from practice. They should summarize their experience in counseling practice, learn and develop the theories of their predecessors, improve their ability to analyze and solve problems, and develop their own unique style. Only by combining theoretical knowledge and practical ability can we understand how the difficulties of the inquirers are formed? What are the root causes of the conflicts and contradictions? What is the real meaning of their psychological symptoms? And what defenses are used to deal with internal conflicts? Only then can we talk about assisting the client in analyzing the problem in a targeted manner and guiding the client out of the dilemma to promote personality growth. Professional ethics
Counseling is a job that requires time and effort, understanding, compassion, care, and patience for the client. Only a person who is willing to help people can give warmth to the client in the counseling relationship, create a safe and free atmosphere, accept various positive and negative emotional experiences of the client, and enter the client’s inner world. The counselor must have a strong sense of responsibility and be able to talk to the client honestly and frankly so that they are willing to reveal their inner privacy and secrets and deserve their trust. Counselors must protect the personal interests of the clients and respect their personalities and wishes, and respecting privacy and keeping secrets is an important part of protecting the interests of the clients. It is important to protect the interests of the clients.
This is the minimum ethical code for the counselor. When helping a client overcome a psychological obstacle, the client should be guided by good ethical and moral concepts. This is important for the development of the client’s character and personality. When helping clients to overcome psychological confusion, psychological counseling should guide them to face life with a positive attitude. We will guide them to deal with various problems in their lives, and to resolve conflicts between ideals and reality, interests and professions, and relationships between individuals and the community and between individuals and others. This will help them to be relieved of their psychological barriers and at the same time to improve their mental and moral qualities. The basic model followed by psychological counseling is education and medical treatment, and thus psychological counselors should have both teacher and medical moral character [2].
Third, psychological quality [2] The counselors themselves should be psychologically healthy people, and the better the level of psychological health of the counselors, the greater the help they can provide to the inquirers in the counseling relationship. On the contrary, if the counselors themselves are not psychologically healthy, their own distorted values and difficult and eccentric mentality can cause confusion and conflict in counseling, and may even induce certain pathologies in the inquirer.
Competent counselors are motivated, optimistic and full of life in their work and life outside the counseling relationship. They can bring enthusiasm and vitality to their counseling work by incorporating their optimism and love of life. Psychological counselors should not only heal people’s wounds with their excellent skills, but also give positive infections and influences to the clients with their noble and sound personality power. A psychologically healthy person can understand others from objective reality, interact with people of different temperaments and personalities, understand people’s situation and difficulties and give sympathy, support and help appropriately. If a counselor lacks mental health and has strained interpersonal relationships, how can he or she give proper guidance to clients? Counselors also have their own joys and sorrows. However, they are good at overcoming them and have a high tolerance for frustration. They can satisfy their own needs in terms of love, hate, joy, anger, and desires outside of the counseling relationship. They sympathize with the client, but do not let this sympathy go too deep, and keep their own cool head and psychological independence throughout the consultation process. The counselors gain insight into the inner world of the clients through their words and expressions during the counseling process. Some clients do not know much about the nature and principles of counseling, so it is easy for them to talk in circles at the beginning of the session, talking about trivial issues and hiding their real problems. A perceptive client can identify problems in time and bring the conversation deeper. A good counselor must be deep and sincere in his or her feelings. A counselor should be frank, serious, and sincere in his or her conversation with the client. Only sincerity can shorten the distance between people and make them feel trustful and open their hearts without reservation. The mood of the counselor should be relaxed, happy, confident and full of humor, so that he or she can relieve the tension of the client and talk about his or her problems in a relaxed environment. The good psychological quality of the counselors is also demonstrated by their high concentration, good memory, fluent speech and the ability to deal with various unexpected events. In addition, sufficient patience, flexibility and resourcefulness are required. In conclusion, the good qualities of a competent counselor are manifold. He is a person who has high moral character, rich professional knowledge and has healthy psychological quality.
The practice of psychological counseling in mainland China has been carried out for several years and a lot of experience has been accumulated, however, the current situation of uneven quality of counselors in China is worrying.
Becoming a qualified counselor is an arduous and challenging process. The personal growth of counselors is the core factor that affects the effectiveness of counseling and is an important issue in the professional development of counselors. In our country
In the professional development and education of counselors in China, the personal growth of counselors has attracted attention
[3], and in relation to the Chinese culture and the current situation of the counseling profession we believe that some of the major thematic tasks that need to be accomplished in the personal growth of counselors should be as follows.
First, to establish a correct outlook on life and values. The counselor’s outlook on life and values refer to some basic assumptions and views of the counselor himself/herself on issues such as human nature, the real world, life existence, the value of life, and personal attitudes toward life. Specifically, they include personal outlook on life, values, etc. Life view and values are two aspects of one issue. Life view is the inner foundation of values, and values are the outer manifestation of life view in practice.
Second, rich social experience. Counselors should have a clear understanding of the major issues in life, such as love and love, life and death, gender roles and identity, power status and money, etc. They should have an active attitude to explore these life issues. Personal experience of these major issues and their growth are important to become a qualified counselor. A rich experience is a favorable condition for growing into a qualified counselor.
Third, the courage to face the reality. A person encounters a variety of events in his or her life, including remorse, anger, resentment, pain, anxiety, sadness, guilt, and so on. Such events are often associated with vivid memories and imagination hovering in the subconscious or conscious mind, and can be unconsciously brought into reality to influence one’s perception of the reality of life. These events often persist until the individual is brave enough to face them and deal with them. If the counselor’s own trauma is not healed or the inner conflict is not resolved when entering the inner world of the client, the counseling work is likely to encounter considerable difficulties.
Fourth, examine and continuously improve oneself. How a person sees himself or herself includes the definition of his or her identity, the perception of his or her abilities and the ideals or requirements for himself or herself. The counselor must be constantly clear and self-aware of the individual’s needs, strengths and weaknesses, internal conflicts, common defense mechanisms, vulnerable personality traits, emotional states, and other aspects. Weak self-awareness of these matters will have a negative impact on work, life, relationships, and clients.
Fifth, love for the job. Lack of enthusiasm for the counseling work, which is seen as a routine, depression, emotional and physical fatigue and exhaustion. In the long run, the counselor will close himself/herself and thus affect his/her work. Coupled with the lack of supervision and continuing education opportunities in counseling management and practice; lack of cooperation with others; lack of sufficient time; lack of positive results; uncertainty in evaluation indicators; personal pay mostly; lack of sense of achievement; under strong work pressure personal marriage, health, economic and other family life conflicts, can lead to the loss of confidence in counseling work.
Sixth, improve the level of professional ethics. Professional ethics in counseling is a frequent dilemma in counselors’ personal development and counseling practice work. Van Hoose and Penredas divided the development level of professional ethical judgment of counselors into five stages: punishment-oriented, institutional-oriented, social-oriented, personal-oriented, and principle- or conscience-oriented. This theory suggests that a counselor’s level of professional ethics is a process of continuous development and growth during his or her professional development Different professional training affects the level of ethical development and the stage a counselor is at Appropriate training can enhance a counselor’s level of professional ethics. The higher the level of a counselor’s professional ethics, the higher the demands on the counselor’s values and self-concept. From another point of view personal growth is also necessary for the counselor in the development of professional ethics [4].
In order to become a qualified counselor, one must strive to improve his or her professionalism in several aspects mentioned above. The goals to be achieved in each area are related to external factors such as the cultural environment in which the individual counselor lives, but are determined to a greater extent by the counselor herself. Each counselor may also have more specific personal problems. It is important to note that it is not necessary to complete all of these thematic tasks to become a competent counselor, but rather to engage in active self-exploration, experience, and self-growth through these thematic tasks. It is an enduring task throughout the counselor’s professional growth and work practice, and the continuous achievement of the goals of these thematic tasks will enable the counselor to develop and mature. If not, it is difficult to become a qualified professional counselor.
References
1. Shen Zili. Management of counseling work from the promulgation of professional standards for counselors. Journal of Jiangxi College of Education [Social Science] [J] 2003 Oct. Vol. 24, No. 5: 49-51.
2. Professor Zhang Xiaoqiao in Theory and Operation of Psychological Counseling.
3. Guirui Lin. Personal growth of psychological counselors [J]. Journal of China Youth Politics College, 2002 (2).
4. Meng Li. Personal growth in the professional development of counselors. Journal of Shaanxi Normal University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition) [J] March 2004, Vol. 33, No. 2: 117-121.