Clinical Implications and Neurophysiological Background

Question: Discuss about the Clinical Implications and Neurophysiological Background. Answer: Introduction Counselling is a therapy intervention, that includes an individual willing to share or talk about his or her problems and related feelings in a safe and confidential environment to a counselor (McLeod, 2013). A counselor is an individual equipped with relevant counselling skills and is believed to have the ability to give the right advice to the individual seeking help also referred to as the client to solving his or her problem. Counselling began in the 20th century after it was discovered that back in the tribal lineage , people would come together to form groups where they would share their problems and even sometimes their dreams (Di Mattia Grant, 2016). The groups included the most dependable people in the society like the priests who would come with a way forward to help them find solutions to the problems they were experiencing. According to German neurologist, his psychoanalysis theory allowed individuals to tell their problems to a trained individual with the ability to und erstand their subconscious being and help resolve the problem. Counselling did not take place immediately until later when research was carried out to enhance understanding on why some different individual behave in different ways. This paper will concentrate on a counseling case of a client affected by anxiety resulting from different relating issues to help her come up with a way of solving the various issues. Outline one of the common and effective counselling approach used in counselling of anxiety cases, this will help outline the counseling skills required and enhance an outline of the counselling session that has been used (David, 2014). For the purpose of these assignment, the person selected is a university student in his last year of study and also doubles as a casual laborer though she doesnt check in for the job frequently as its required by her employer. As an immigrant in Australia, she has the role of learning the ways in which people survive in the country together with her family. Her two parents are unemployed and she doubles up as a student and also a family provider as she is the source of their daily bread and other related basic support requirements. She has been worrying recently about the situation facing her family as she has no clear directives of securing a job opportunity or rather employment after her graduation at the end of the year. The problems she is experiencing has characterized her as being overwhelmed by anxiety, as a result she saw need of seeking for counselling support from a qualified counselor. Her general practitioner referred her to the counselor to whom would help her in overcom ing her anxiety to coming up with a solution to the various existing issues that are affecting her. According to slander (2002), anxiety is what a person can see as dangerous or threatening without understanding the context in which the feeling comes along. The common symptoms include lack of sleep, being overwhelmed, excess worries with no clear reasons, insomnia relating to nightmares incases of any sleep. Psychologists have carried out research to find out why individuals with anxiety tend to unreasonably become angry and can easily result to harm of what surrounds them. According to Cuijpers, et al (2014), findings show that individuals filled with anxiety are filled with doubts of any event that comes their way as they in most cases lack personal belief about issues they face even if they knew about them before they got anxious. There are various disorders that are as a result of anxiety with phobic anxiety disorder as a good example among many others. In some cases its normal for an individual to feel anxious relating to the existing situation or circumstance, example, if a s tudent has been studying well in school he or she has anxiety to know if the results will favor him or her after seating for an exam. In the same way, our client in this case is a student who expects that after studying in the university she will be able to secure a job opportunity to be able to support her family. With both of her parents being unemployed, she is anxious of what would follow if she is unable to provide especially now that her mother is unwell. The main counselling approach that is applicable in this case is REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy earlier known as Rational Therapy. This is a psychotherapy, comprehensive and active form of counselling that the counselor uses to enable him or her give advice to the client by giving related directives, to do away with their irrational mind settings and come up with thoughts or a mind setting that can help them (Mayo-Wilson, et al, 2014). REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy According to Dr. Albert Ellis (1955), REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy of counselling is the most directive, efficient and effective model of problem solving (Ellis Rovira, 2015). The model illustrates that anxiety, depression are not caused by events alone but its in accordance to ones beliefs on the events resulting to those unhealthy and unrealistic feelings and other relating behaviors of self-denial. REBT is an active directive that only relates to solving current problems that do not relate with the past or the future but with simply what is here right now. Its a solution oriented therapy used by counselors to help their clients in solving cognitive, emotional and other relating behavioral problems (Newman, et al, 2015).This approach illustrates that emotional suffering concept is not only related to negative view of the surrounding but also to a human belief system about the surrounding. The framework also stipulates that the human conscious is controlled by both rat ional and irrational thinking tendencies where irrational thoughts results to lack of clear strategies to achieving set goals and rational thoughts to achievement of the set goals. Our case represents a situation where the client is overwhelmed by irrational thinking relating to self-blame on the issue of lack of strategic employment opportunity as well as inadequate support of her family. This has resulted to extensively low frustration tolerance in her various efforts, anxiety leading to depression. To enhance this counselling approach, the counselor understands that one of the main pillars of REBT is irrational thinking patterns, anxiety which has mainly been identified with the client in this case and relating feelings of human disturbances (Predescu, et al, 2015). This gives a clear view on why the client feels absolutely out of place and space to continue hoping for an opportunity to rise for her to earn a living for her family. Following the active directives of the counselor with a listening ear and an understanding of the issues resulting to anxiety of the client, at the end the client tends to change her mind to concentrate on the positive thoughts im portant for personal development. REBT teaches on unconditional self-acceptance important for enhancing self-worth to help achieve mental wellness (Shebib, 2013). Counselling process is carried out between the client and the counselor where, the client talks about her or his problem to the counselor with an aim of getting assistance on how to come up with the solution to the existing problem. The counselor cannot make a decision on behalf of the client, he or she cannot give a solution to the problem affecting the client but can only give advice or view on how the client can solve her problem. As a result, both the client and the counselor should have skills or rather traits to enhance the counselling process. These traits are as discussed below; Confidentiality. This is a crucial skill of the counselor as he or she is entrusted with all the information given by the client. According to counselling code of ethics, a counselor should not reveal any information given to him or her to any other party or discuss it outside the counselling location with a different person if not the client. The counselor in this case cannot use the clients information in another session with a different person or even use it as an example. Attending. Being attending indicates that the counselor is with the client both physically and psychologically giving the client to confidently share their world with them with no fear. This is also important as it ensures that the counselor is able to connect with the client through effective listening of what the client has to say. This is clearly and effectively enhanced through direct eye contact with the client, facial expressions that shows one is paying attention among others abbreviated using the term SOLER. In our case the counselor is attending as she understands clients level of thinking meaning that she is with her both physically and psychologically. Empathy. This basically means that the counselor should try to fit in the clients situation through understanding of their situations as much as they can. This involves the counselor forgetting his or her world for some moments to temporarily join that of the client to help acknowledge their feelings. In our case, the counselor clearly shows empathy where she tells the client that she understands how she feels and the level of sadness in her mind and heart. Summarizing. Its important for a counselor to summarize the sessions to help give a way to solving the problem. In cases where the session will proceed in the next day, the summary would be very important to help focus the client. In our case, the counselor made a summary at the end to enable the client reflect and focus on all that she had said. With enhancement of REBT the client was able to gain focus and develop rational thinking about how to solve her problems (Kristensen, et al, 2016). In the same way, the client should have the ability to communicate with the counselor. Communication is an important tool for passage of any given information from the client to the counselor. Ability to listen and understand by the client also ensures that counselling process is active and in most cases productive (Grillon, et al, 2014). Structure of the counselling session The first stage of the counselling session involved creating a good relationship with the client or rather rapport. The counselor has a role of ensuring before the start of the session, the client is at ease with her through rapport creation. This has been done through first greeting the client and welcoming her to the counselling session where the venue has already been set following counselling venue setting requirements. The counselor also introduces herself by name and also as the clients counselor for that session, talks little about the level of confidentiality that will be maintained with an assurance that nobody apart from the two will learn about the information they share. Creation of rapport at the begging of the counselling process is very important as it ensures that both the client and the counselor know each other, the clients gains the assurance and confidence that any information she gives to the counselor cannot be revealed to anybody else. This is important to enha ncing effective counselling process. Second stage involved the client speaking about her problem while the counselor was listening as she took less notes with no distraction caused. This gives the client a platform to clear her soul and mind about the anxiety she is experiencing. As the counselors probes in some questions to clarify some information from the client it ensures that she does not misunderstand any detail as she attends to the client. This ensures that the client is able to give all the relevant information concerning her problems to enable the counselor come up with a favorable counselling approach to solving the anxiety problem. Third stage involves the counselor identification of REBT counselling approach to help give a way to solving the anxiety problem facing the client. Being an active and directive approach to solving present related issues dealing with thinking pattern capacity, the counselor indirectly influences the approach as she talks to the client to enable her change her irrational thinking to rational thinking. Summarizing is done to ensure that the client remains focus towards achieving the set counselling goals of coming up with a probable solution. At the end, the client is able to understand the directives, understanding of the counselor to coming up with a solution to solving the anxiety problem where she decided to remain positive. In this case, the counselling goal to enhancing the client develop a rational thinking was achieved. To sum it up, effectiveness of a counselling process is enhanced by the ability of a counselor to create a good rapport and also ensure that she has the right c ounselling skills as well as the clients ability to communicate (Turner, Slater Barker, 2014). Critical Analysis of key issues discussed above According to philosophers, every human being needs an opportunity to express him or herself depending on the situation facing him or her at that time and requires time to be solved. As a result, counselling is an intervention therapy that any individual may require to go through at one point of his or her life. There are various counselling approaches or rather frameworks that are used to enhance counselling process. In this case REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is the framework enhanced to ensure that the clients problem has a probable solution through the various active directives given by the counselor. This kind of approach is applicable on present situations not relating to the past and its characterized by cognitive theory of counseling as it relates to the pattern of thinking the client has enhanced (Hallion, et al, 207). Effective counselling is enhanced by the counselor being impacted with the right counselling skills that enhances application of the various frameworks and approaches to conducting a counselling process (Wood, Barker Turner, 2017). Every counselling process should begin by rapport creation important in ensuring that there is a clear understanding between the counselor and the client, also important to enhance trust in the counselor by the client important for effective counselling process. The counselor has no right to making any decision for the client unless in extreme cases where the client and his or her associates, friends and family cannot make the decision. The client should always make her or his decision willingly without pressure after receiving advice or relating active directives on how to solve the problem from the counselor (van Deurzen, 2015). Conclusion Journal relating to REBT Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy illustrated that individuals overwhelmed by anxiety, depression among other emotional variations have a tendency of dishonoring their own wishes as they dont believe in whatever they believed was right for them ( Vinai, et al, 2015). Self-blame and pity with little or no sleep are some of the social symptoms they enhance. Counselors have a role of ensuring they enhance their clients level of trust and confidentiality in them during counselling as its the greatest counselling code of ethics among many others. Before handling any counselling case, the client should first understand the problems facing the client and the main reason why its important to seek counselling. 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