Counseling Career Exploration Paper Example

Introduction

Ever since I attained self-awareness, it has always been in my interest to venture into psychology. My goal has not only been to study and acquire vast knowledge in the field of psychology but also to indulge in a career in this field. The way in which the human mind works has always fascinated me in many ways. In my younger days, I always wondered how a man was able to remain sane and mentally stable even with many and different occurrences surrounding him. However, I came to realize that there are times when one becomes pressured too much by events and their mind cannot hold anymore, thus subjecting them to stress and trauma. This trauma and stress tamper with the normal functioning of the human brain and mind.

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Having considered all this, I gained an interest in the field of emotional and mental health counseling for military members and their families. With psychology, it is obvious that one must work closely with society and with the social class to be specific. It has always been my priority number one to help people in need. Military members and families both undergo a lot of trauma. Service members are always subjected to a lot of violence during combat, and their families always in worry for them wondering whether they will get back home safely, which becomes a source of great stress and trauma for both parties, (Holland et al. 2016). With this kind of problem, these two groups of people need someone whom they can feel free to open to and express their problem and maybe try to seek a way out of their unpleasant situations. In many reported instances, these people do not seek help due to many barriers in the system, fear of stigmatization and the lack of knowledge on whom to approach with such a case (Hom et al. 2017). This, therefore, calls for the necessity of mental health counselors in the military field to offer a hand whenever called for.

To work as an emotional and mental health counselor for service members and their families, one needs to meet some personality skills. To start with, it is vital that one be emotionally stable since you will be trying to stabilize the emotions of traumatized individuals. Secondly, one needs to a high degree order of patience to be able to listen keenly and offer advice to troubled individuals. Another vital requirement is that one should be highly social and talkative, and in a position to create rapport with ease to gain the confidence of their victims. Lastly, one needs to be humane and sympathetic. All these are personal traits that I possess. This plus the desire to help people and my passion for psychology acted as inspiration for me to choose this career field.

Entry Requirements

The entry requirements for this career are both academic and legal requirements. On the academic part, one needs to first complete a bachelors degree in social, behavioral science or a degree in psychology. This is the most basic requirement. With the completion of this degree, one is a counselor, but not qualified to acquire a license. To acquire a license in mental health military counseling, one is required to earn a masters degree in any of the above fields and concentrate on military populations, a course offered only by accredited universities. After the masters a degree, one proceeds to an internship as a postgraduate to acquire skills and experience in the field of mental health counseling to acquire professionalism. Thirdly, one must take and pass any licensing exams. After one is licensed, it is advisable to further their education to doctoral level and keep up to date with the career trends in their field.

There are annual examinations taken to ensure that one remains updated with the current trends in the industry. A certain period of internship is also a requirement in the field, for a practitioner to have adequate interaction time with mental health patients.

Job description

Emotion and mental health counseling deal with assisting people to solve problems that they face in life. Mental health counselors work in consultation with mental doctors and social workers to deliberate their duties effectively. Emotion and mental health counseling for servicemen and their families, therefore, deals with assisting military families to deal with depression, stress, anxiety trauma, loss, and grief. To be a mental health counselor, one must not necessarily be a serviceman of a member of the military family ( Hall 2016).

A mental health counselor for servicemen and their families can also work as a counselor in general fields. Counseling theory and human development are part of the basic courses that a counselor takes, and this implies that they can do basic counseling in any field that does not require specialization. Since mental counseling is a field that requires a lot of dedication, the career paths open for these practitioners are quite minimal, as specialization is vital. It is important that a mental health counselor and many clinicians to specialize and put enough emphasis in their fields to avoid the creation of gaps in their specialty ( Chin 2018). Basically, this is why many practitioners in this field do not indulge in other activities, but rather give full dedication to their profession.

The work setting for emotion and mental health counselors for military members and their families is in the military hospitals found in military bases and in any other hospital designated for military use. The fact that they deal with servicemen and their families means that they must stay as close a possible to their premises. At times they may be required to accompany servicemen to their battlefields and therefore work from where they set camp when they are out for or any other duty delegated to them. Military academies is another place that they can work. Other places include mental health facilities for the military and other government agencies.

The salary of emotion and mental health counselor for military members and their families ranges from $ 20410 to $ 60980. This salary is dependent on a number of factors. The factors include the state in which you are working from since different states pay different salaries. The other factors are the work experience in terms of years of practice and academic level and the number of certifications one holds.

The standard working hours of a practitioner in this field are forty hours a week. Practitioners can either offer to work as full-time workers which is the primary subscription. However, some practitioners are practitioners in other fields they work as part-timers. This career is flexible and not highly demanding in terms of time and working hours, unless under special conditions such as during major military operations.

I spoke to a practitioner in this field who told me that what they like most about this career is the time flexibility that it offers. Another aspect they like about the job is that you get to deal with the same kind of people who have similar or close to similar problems. This makes it possible to find and offer solutions to your patients without great struggles. What this person dislike about the career is that there are times when you encounter a patient with totally a difficult recovery. Some patients will take a very long time to recover from their emotional imbalance or trauma such that they give up hope of ever recovering. This becomes a challenge to the practitioner as the patient needs to be optimistic for therapy to work effectively. When the condition of the patient becomes extreme before they seek a therapist's attention, it sometimes becomes difficult to restore them to their original state.

The profession today

Counseling started at around the beginning of the 20th century. In 1940, a man named Carl Rodgers discovered that counseling was psychotherapy where a patient explains their problem and decides the direction to take when counseling comes to play. During world war two, counseling advanced to greater levels, where soldiers were mentally prepared for war and the traumatized soldier was counseled to restore their mental stability. At this point in time, counseling was not done as a profession.

Today, counseling is done as a profession by highly trained expatriates. It is not heard of in today of an untrained mental health counselor. Education and licensure are vital requirements today. This emphasis is to make sure that mental counselors are always updated with the current quality and technology in mental health.

Trends in mental health counseling are dynamic. Older trends are always being faced out by time. Some of these old trends are improved and updated to accommodate current needs. Newer trends come to play every other day according to the dynamism of mental problems. This is one of the factors that call for regular certifications by mental health counselors.

A new kid in the field of mental counseling is the introduction of online mental counseling where one can access this service via the internet. This could be a challenge for some practitioners and patients as some conditions require physical contact between the patient and the therapist.

The high preference of the internet by many people in the world today is one of the major concerns in this field. Many patients want to use online applications to find solutions to their problems in the comfort of their homes. As stated earlier, this can be difficult with mental health counseling as some patients can be highly affected to a condition where they cannot handle internet devices correctly or even handle therapy instructions as required. This requires physical interaction.

Transition

To move from MJC to a career as a mental health counselor, I will need to complete a degree in mental health counseling at the college. After this, I will have to undertake a masters degree in the same field and major my focus on military organizations. After being conferred with the master's degree, I will be required to do some certification exams to attain a license as a mental health counselor for military members and their families. With this, I will require to be registered in the state that I wish to work in as the legal requirement in that state. To become nationally recognized, I will have to take the National Board for Certified Counsellors exam, and meet a certain number of contact hours with patients ( Lichtenberg et al. 2016).The major employers are both the state and federal governments. Other employers are private practitioners in the field of psychology and psychotherapy. Mental health hospitals and military academies are other major employers.

The schools that major at offering this career specialization are New York University which offers a masters degree in mental health and wellness counseling, North Western University, and the University of Southern California. These are the major institutions that are widely known to offer the specialty in mental health counseling in the USA.

Any other career anticipation is associated with some challenges. The same applies to the field of emotion and mental health counseling for service men and their families. To start with, I do expect to face the problem of lacking employment timely. Fresh graduates are faced by the problem of lack of employment when they are new in the market (Pirog 2016). How I plan to counter to challenge is by persistent job searching. I will try my best not to get tired of seeking an employer until I get employed. The primary idea here is to not give up. Secondly, it will be challenging to acquire all the certifications needed after acquiring the master's degree. This plus the requirement to be nationally recognized will be a great challenge. I plan to mobilize enough resources so that I will not have to stop halfway for lack of enough funds.

With the great demands commanded by this career, some resources are vital for me to fully accomplish...