What do professional counselors do?
Professional counselors (therapists) develop a professional relationship with clients in order to support, empower and provide unconditional positive regard to help clients improve their mental health. If you’re experiencing life challenges that create problems in the areas of emotional and psychological functioning, this can impair your personal mental health and wellness. Working with a counselor is a collaborative process. A counselor works with individuals, families, couples and children to work on a variety goals in order to improve outcomes in daily functioning.
How does counseling work?
If you’re experiencing problems that are causing emotional turmoil and psychological distress, a counselor can help you with finding potential solutions and to help you identify goals to deal with some of the challenges you’re experiencing. A counselor works in collaboration WITH YOU. You are your own expert because only you know how you truly feel. Working with a counselor can help you better isolate, identify and express those feelings, with the end goal of promoting behavior change and achieving the best version of you―optimal mental health. But, how do we get there? We can get there together, by exploring feelings and emotions, improving communication, improving and building on coping skills and self-esteem. Counselors possess the skills and clinical training to help you work through your problems.
How do I select a counselor?
Professional counselors receive extensive training and are licensed by the State they practice in. Our training prepares us to work with ALL people and it is mandatory that we uphold high standards for ethical practice and inclusion. So it is important to ensure that your counselor is State licensed. This ensures that their practice of counseling is regulated and approved by the State Department of Health. This also means that the counselor has met specific requirements for licensure such as a required amount of hours of clinical training and experience, and specific academic standards in counseling ethics, working within a multicultural framework, psychopathology/diagnosis and substance abuse. These are a few of the many important requirements that a licensed counselor would possess.
Some other considerations such as a counselor’s gender, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation might also be important to you. Think about what your comfort level is around others who are similar to you and those who are different from you. Is it important to you, that a counselor reflects similar demographics? What I have found is that this is a personal choice. I also believe that working with a counselor who can demonstrate multicultural competency is very important. What it means to show multicultural competence is one’s willingness to work with others, and also to show a fluency and understanding of other cultures―going beyond racial issues and inclusion. Most often the comfort level in the client and counselor relationship evolves within the first couple of sessions. I do therefore believe that keeping an open mind might be helpful when thinking about seeking the professional services of a counselor.
Find out more about our counselor Santokh by clicking on the Counselor Profile link in the main menu.