Essay on Counselors Helping Battered Women to Overcome Career Challenges

Introduction

The article mainly talks about how career counselors, give advises to women who are being abused by their partners and for that, they want to end the relationship. When handling these matters, they prefer the use of social cognitive career theory. The counselors work with individuals from different segments in society. In the relationships, the battered women face a lot of challenges from their intimate spouses such as violence when the two are together hence affecting the women's career as well as the decisions they make. From the article, Catalano illustrates to us that intimate partner violence affects women nearly seven times compared to the rate at which it affects men. These forms of intimate violence include sexual violence, rape, aggravated assault, robbery as well as simple assault. From 1993 to 2004 many families have complained of intimate partner violence and most of these complaints are from women since men are the ones who have a say in every home. Annually the figures are estimated to be around 746,580 households complaining of the violence with a larger number of physical as well as sexual abuses not being reported so that actions can be taken. With a lot of violence's issues circumnavigating around women, we can also say that the battered women are survivors of the domestic violence experiencing the sexual as well as the physical assaults. For this reason, career counselors should understand the issue of intimate partner violence properly and be able to issue good pieces of advice to the casualties.

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The incidences of the abuses mostly occur to the women who around 20 to 24 years of age and also to women in the age bracket of 25 to 34 but the incidence is more hyped with the women in the 20 to 24 years' age group. During this period of 20 to 24 is when most of the women finish universities as well as collages and get employed. Therefore, with this issue of intimate partner violence, they may not concentrate properly at their workplace due to the tortures they are undergoing back at home. They will be asked to visit the counselors so that they can be advised well how they can handle the issues (the sexual, economic, emotional as well as domestic violence). With the physical harm imposed on the women being abused or battered, they will experience the consequences as well as the psychological effect of the abuse. The abuses will make them feel depressed (Wachter et al., 2009) their self-esteem will be low, they will also experience some posttraumatic stress disorders and at times also seen to behave in a suicidal manner. One of the consequences of IPV in women is isolation; hence the battered women always want to distance themselves from others since they feel guilty that their fellow women will start degrading them. Therefore, this will mentally affect them because when they think of how their fellow women will degrade them they prefer staying on their own.

With the abuses from their partners they decide to move out of the relationships or marriage and for this they have to be independent in everything they do, economically and even their physical safety. They make every decision in their life for themselves and for that they should make sure it's a good decision unlike when they were still in their relationship they could consult their partners before standing with a given decision. After separating from their partners they will experience a lot of difficulties economically since they have to search for employment if they had no so that they can support themselves since the support they were getting from their partners is now terminated. After experiencing all the problems of abuse and separation, some women are still affected by the mental torture due to the abuses they underwent and for this reason; the career counselors will assist in guiding them. The career counselors mostly use the social cognitive career theory to tackle the issues of battered.

Describe the new knowledge you gained in 2-4 paragraph

Through learning and understanding of the social cognitive career, the approach has been able to notice that the theory has helped the battered women who are the clients to the counselors to target a given perception that can be changed by the intervention. By changing some perception that the battered women thought that they cannot be changed, other perceptions will also be transformed. The counselors have been of much importance in making sure that what the abused women thought that can't be transformed has been changed and they are now living well with others. An instance is that the counselors can assist the clients to build their self-esteem, assess the expected outcome as well as examining the client's perception reality on the barriers plus support. Through reading and understanding, the entire article has been able to know how the career counselors assist the abused women so that they can overcome their problems.

Though knowing that many women globally get assaulted in their relationships, it has never come to my realization that a higher percentage of this battered woman lies at the age of 20 to 24. But through this article has understood this since during this period is when most of the relationships, as well as marriages, are at their tender period. The couples or the partners are trying to know each other what they like and what they dislike.

Describe what you agree and disagree with regarding the content of the article in 2-4 paragraphs.

From the article, the authors illustrate to us that women who experience this intimate partner violence go through many challenges during that period. This is true since, they undergo post-traumatic stress, isolation from other individuals, neighbors and friends who they fear might laugh at them for the assaults they are undergoing. They are also mentally tortured from what their partners are doing to them the assault they are going through. By so they will migrate from their homes and relocate to other places since they cannot bear with the situation. Their self-esteem is also lowered by their partners when they batter them.

With all this issue of abuse in households between partners, the career counselor comes in place to assist the women in experiencing this problem giving them proper pieces of advice. These issues affect the abused women since they are exposed to physical violence as well as emotional and when not given the consideration they can end up doing some wrongful acts. Therefore, it's advisable for this client who is the affected woman to seek counselors help. The counselors have used the social cognitive career theory to approach this issue and have offered good bits of advice to these casualties. Therefore, a counselor coming into assistance to battered women is a great idea.

Disagreeing to the issue of the battered women feeling isolated, we can explain this by saying that it's not the will of this women to get abused by their partners since no one gets into a relationship knowing that she will be assaulted hence we these women should not be isolated by others or even isolate themselves. Instead of putting them aside we should approach them and ask them what's wrong and try to issue proper solutions to the issues. With bringing them close they will feel good and share the issue. Therefore, it's not good to isolate yourself from others even if you are abused because when you are free with others and share the issue you will be assisted.

Suggest how you can specifically use the information professionally and personally in counseling.

Having knowledge about causes and consequences of battering a partner will play a vital role in finding a proper mitigating factor. As a counselor when brought certain cases to handle, I would use the experience found from the article to offer some crucial pieces of advice that will largely assist. With the cognitive approach being my main theory to use during the counseling I think it will many will be assisted. I would advise individuals to restrain from assaulting the women but seat down when there is an issue and solve it through dialogue instead of violence. When there are peace and happiness in a relationship it will always be sweet and both partners always enjoy their moments together.

Reference

Wachter Morris, C. A., & Shoffner, M. F., & Newsome, D. W. (2009). Career counseling for women preparing to leave abusive relationships: A social cognitive career theory approach. Career Development Quarterly, 58(1), 44-53.