Preliminary Conception of the Counseling Field

Preliminary Conception of the Counseling Field

Harmonie Bullock

July 19, 2019

Introduction

        When asked what initially attracted me to the counseling field, I have to go back to my childhood. I am someone who had a tumultuous upbringing full of instability and abuse. Being as such, I consequentially had to undergo counseling to heal from my past. It was during the years of my youth from age 11 to 17, that I met weekly with a Licensed Professional Counselor named Marilynn who would end up being the most influential person I would ever meet. After an attempt on my own life that went wrong, my grandmother put me into counseling as a first measure at trying to help me. Marilynn ended up being all that I needed. She helped me to understand people, understand myself and it was during our last year together that she told me “one day you’ll be counseling me”. She said I had wisdom beyond my years and my experiences paired well with an introspective mind.

Unbeknownst to me until my recent announcement of going forward to fulfill the calling of becoming an LPC, Marilynn had secretly told my mother that I would be an excellent counselor and that it seemed like my destiny. Because of Marilynn and our precious six years together, I have a strong influence and forged alliance with the counseling field as a whole. My professional goals were being made so many years ago. My years as the one being counseled have left a lasting impression on me of what kind of couleur I will want to become.

Specialization Focus and Identity

        I was the troubled teen that some only hear about on tv. I was a high school drop-out, a drug addict, a promiscuous girl with no care to live or die and with a vendetta against everyone I my way. I literally had done every unimaginable thing by the time I was 16. Being that I was raised by my grandparents, they just couldn’t keep up, God bless them. Now that I am approaching 40 with a family of my own, it has only been within the last decade that I finally began to wake up and decided to go to school and get my bachelor’s degree in Human Services. My thought was that I could help troubled teens find themselves in the same way that Marilynn had helped me. I minored in High Risk Youth Studies and despite all the preparation to work with delinquents, have now found myself working as a behavior technician utilizing Applied Behavior Analysis in a clinical day treatment center for kids with developmental disabilities.

As having been someone who was in Special Education most of my life, primarily for bad behavior and a diagnosis of depression and ADHD, I now find myself serving those who are in Special Ed for other reasons. The children I work with will not benefit from counseling or intensive mental health treatment as would those considered to be at-risk youth/delinquents. These children are living with uncorrectable disabilities, such as Autism, Down Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, Global Delay, Angel-man Syndrome and many other rare disorders that are out of their control. The children I work with on a daily basis have severe needs and the therapy that I do with them is more based around life skills such as hygiene, sitting at a table and eating, going to the bathroom and being able to withstand there behavioral episodes without hurting themselves.

My work in the field of Developmental Disabilities combined with my long-standing passion for helping at-risk teens has brought me to a confluence in attempting to choose a specialization for my practice and focus for my learning goals. I know that I do not want to permanently work with kids with severe needs. I also know that those with ADHD, EBD and high functioning Autism are statistically at a higher risk for dropping out of school and having co-occurring disorders such as depression and anxiety (NCES, 2019).