My Values, Beliefs, Clinical, Gestalt with Individuals, and Systems Paper

In this paper I would like to address my own experiences, principles, values, cultural background of my own life when I encountered physical and verbal abuse. Bearing in mind the people who I will be working with also have their struggles with physical and verbal abuse as it will improve my professional relationship with my clients when I start getting involved with people who suffers from Domestic Violence. With the exercises I have done within this week or two I have really opened up my mind to new approaches to treating people who suffered physical abuse. Only through time will I learn what they are and how I can apply them both in my personal life and my career. During my experiences what I have learnt about my personal and professional life as it relates to clinical helping and their relationship to my own experiences, principles, values, cultural background context of my life, and the types of clients I may have to work with are factors that I would like to address in relation to the text exercises and journal entries that have done within these two weeks.

People have their own perceptions and beliefs when it comes to physical and verbal abuse. It can be by choice or a learned behavior that people become abusers. Some people may reflect on their own values when they witness a woman who is dealing with verbal and physical abuse. If she does not seek help, it may lead people to think that this is the only life she knows off and are too afraid to seek help for herself and her children (Hall, G., 2010). The clinical gestalt toward the abused victims should be that the professional should focus on finding a solution and dealing with the current issue at the present moment. One should not allow their own beliefs and values come in between clinical treatment with their clients (Yontef, G, 2007).

When I take a look at my personal assumption about helping people who also have to struggle with physical abuse, I cannot help but reflect on what I went through when I was dealing with physical and verbal abuse. From my experience I felt ashamed and assume that people who struggle with physical and verbal abuse are also ashamed. It may be believed that they feel there is no way out of the situation. Professionally, I firmly believe that they need help and resources to help them get out of that environment. If they have not reached a state of learnt helplessness and even in that state it is believed that if they truly want to get away safely they will do anything so they can live life safely and without fear.

For myself to have a relationship with people who struggle with living with physical and verbal abuse with the aim of helping I would have to take into consideration their experiences, principles, values, and cultural background. While I cannot detach my own beliefs and values I would have to appreciate that they may not share the same. While my epistemology underpins all my interactions, in order for me to gain a relationship with my client I have to make sure that my own thinking does not get in the way.

The ability to help the abused is affected by the larger societal systems. The major organ that impacts the ability to help is when governments cut the budget for those who need the help, but cannot afford it. When they start cutting the budget it not only affects the victim who is seeking help, but it affects the professional who is in the field. In my personal life I believe that when I was a victim there was more money and resources available to help people in need than today.

There are no boundaries with regard to people who suffer from abuse. Anyone can become a victim. The people that I will work with