1Running head: Brief Personal Reflection Paper.

Brief Personal Reflection Paper

Jeanese July

Grand Canyon University PCN-520

July 8, 2015

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Professional Counseling can be rewarding as well as demanding and offer a prospective

student a multitude of various disciplines and profession's to accomplish and pursue in one's career.

During the eight week course in Group Counseling Theory and Practice students were given an

extensive study of the ins and outs of group counseling. We learned the skills necessary to become a

group counselor or leader, from its design, implementation, as well as process to theories employed.

Corey, Corey, & Corey stated, “Groups have much to offer, but sufficient training in group work is

essential to the success in designing and facilitating groups in a variety of settings. (Corey, Corey, &

Corey, 2010, p. 1) This brief personal reflection paper will summarize some of the most significant

things I’ve learned throughout the course. It will include skills that I already possess and feel are

pertinent as a potential group leader, as well as some skills that may need improvement, and quite

possibly will need to acquire to improve as a professional. This paper will also include some areas

where I feel I am most confident as a group leader, areas I lack confidence in, along with the types of

groups that I think I would enjoy leading in my career as a group counselor.

This course was of great interest to me, and as the course proceeded I became more

encapsulated with learning more and more about the group experience. I’ve learned quite a bit about

group counseling and as a result I would love to eventually become a professional leader or teacher in

my profession. One of the most significant things that really inspired me was the fact that group

involvement can really become a very successful experience for first time group member with a

repressed emotional incident. When individuals had such a traumatic event in their lives and has

never addressed it or sought treatment, they will repress the event until it begins to submerge into

other areas in their life causing extreme uneasiness. The group experience can reveal for the first time

that they are not alone and this has happened to others as well and knowing this can relieve a lot of

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stress itself.

Another significant aspect of the course of many was to trust the group process, and never to put

too much emphasis on following a specific format designed for the group. To rely on a specific

regimen or process may actually stunt the successful outcome of the group, and the leader may

become too rigid on following an agenda that it can stifle the intended outcome. During any stage of

the group including the first session work may begin and may call for the leader to change the whole

format or group curriculum altogether. This is where the skills is especially acquired; the leader must

know when to trust the group’s process. Having been a member and a leader these are magical,

spiritual, and most critical moments as part of the group’s whole being, i.e. successful intervention at

its best.

In the beginning of the course, students were instructed to take The Multicultural

Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Survey (MAKSS) pre and posttests. In the pretest my scores were

a little limited on multicultural knowledge regarding students stereotyping other members according

to the information they’ve learned about various cultures. I disagreed with this statement in the

beginning but during the posttest I agreed. Although initially I felt that as a counselor we are

professionally trained to treat each client uniquely. But in reality and realistically we can sometimes

subliminally treat a client according to their ethnic backgrounds and culture, and especially initially.

Another area was ethnicity and cultural encapsulation. As a result of undergraduate and graduate

studies I have learned that I used to think I was colorblind, but have since learned that this is form of

denying who we all are as individuals.

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When enrolling in the program I knew that I had innate skills to become a counselor in

the field of professional counseling. However, I also knew that there were many skills that I had to

acquire and learn and that this would be a lifelong endeavor. Personal skills that I already possess

include: goodwill, genuineness, and caring, openness, intuitiveness, sense of humor, personal

dedication and commitment, courage, and commitment to self-care to name a few. These skills have

been successful in my ability to continue throughout the hardships of pursuing my education, raise

kids, unemployment, and most of all ability to remain clean and sober for the past ten years. A few

professional skills that I possess would include: empathizing, facilitating, linking, summarizing, and

blocking. As these professional skills are definitely correlating to the personal skills such as the

ability to have goodwill, genuineness, and care would naturally require someone to empathize with

the client, open up lines of facilitating enables the leader to use those skills as well as being intuitive

and so forth.

In order to be effective and well-rounded a group leader or counselor must know both their

strengths and weakness to prevent biases, and countertransference within the group process. Without

full awareness of one’s weaknesses can and will be transparent within the members as well and

prevent problems for the leader as well as the members. For that matter as a leader I am fully aware

of some skills that as a beginning student that will need to be perfected and worked through, which

include: on the personal level- I can be a little impatient and that would interact with my willingness

to want to solve my client’s issues for them, another would be to work on my defensiveness in coping

with criticism, which I noticed recently involving an incident with my brother who was just

diagnosed with cancer, and most of all becoming aware of certain culture issues as I mentioned

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earlier about correcting the colorblind awareness. It isn’t that I do not know about these differences

being an African American female. I just look at the individual and their issue and helping the clients

or members to overcome them to suit their personal or collective happiness. Some professional

weaknesses or dilemmas that I am striving to improve are my ability to active listen, reflect, question

and confront in a more natural, professional, and assertive manner. I am sure with more experience,

training, education, and confidence these will become second nature within my profession.

Upon deciding to pursue my Master’s in Professional Counseling, which is something I am

blindly passionate about, I had many concerns. Confident that I could actually visualize myself

working in an organization and eventually my own private practice, and very successful, I might add,

there were also doubts. This course is actually my fifth course and with each course, there were

sections that I felt unsure of, but trudging through it with courage, my fears eventually became more

tolerable and workable. I began looking over my past experiences such as sobering up, getting a job,

going back to school, for instance and how those fears, doubts, and frustrations became

accomplishments. At fifty-two I am learning to look at life from a different angle and confidence is

something I learn as I go on and pursue my dreams and goals realistically. My greatest confidence in

the goal of leading groups is that someone will leave the group with a renewed spirit and confidence

to pursue their ultimate goal(s) in life. And my lack of confidence regarding facilitating a group is

that I learn to be okay with criticism from the group experience.

The types of groups that I would enjoy facilitating are many: from task groups that raise moral

and production rates in a company or organization, to helping patients in a skilled nursing center. I

like watching a person going through a mental, physical or some kind of challenge, find the courage,

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confidence, and answer to their struggle and watch as the frown or gloom turn into a comfort,

magical, happy smile, sigh of relief, or baggage that has been lifted off of them, and look ten years

lighter.

In conclusion, group leaders or counselors may have their work cut out for them or they may

experience a rewarding and prosperous future in the industry. At some point a counselor may be

asked to lead a group or even thrusted into the process at one point. Having the knowledge, skills, and

courage to facilitate and lead a group can be the difference between a successful outcome and

complete disaster. As an aspiring student in the professional counseling field, this course can prepare

one for the ins and outs associated with leading a group. Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses,

the group process, how to design, facilitate, and terminate a group prepares students for what to

expect if given the opportunity to conduct a group arises.

References

Corey, M. S., Corey, G, Corey, C. (2010). Groups: Process and Practice Eight Edition. Cengage

Learning. Introduction: Part I and Chapter 2. Retrieved July 8, 2015.