DOES THE COUNSELOR ADHERE TO ETHICAL PRINCIPLES?
There are numerous ethical guidelines designed to keep counselors from harming clients. Perhaps most importantly, there is a guideline barring against dual relationships. When a counselor enters into a therapeutic relationship with a client, he or she should not have any other relationship with that person, such as teacher, friend, employer, or family member. Some exceptions to this rule may be found in villages or rural communities. The principle behind this guideline is to ensure the client’s needs are being met, never the counselors. A counselor should be there to meet your counseling-related needs for empathy, understanding, support, guidance, unburdening, getting unstuck, and healing. When a counselor gets their own needs met by the client, emotional or otherwise, they have crossed a serious boundary. When this happens, the therapy process is often damaged or ruined. This is just one of many ethical guidelines, and it’s important for a counselor to adhere to them all.
WHAT IS THE COUNSELOR’S CLINICAL EXPERIENCE AND ARE THEY LICENSED?
The more experience a counselor has treating an issue, the more expertise they can offer you. It is important to choose a counselor who specializes in specific populations and mental health conditions that most directly align with your situation. They should be open to discussing their areas of expertise while being willing to discuss the areas where a referral to another provider might be appropriate. Many counselors fresh out of graduate school have had excellent book learning, with postgraduate training in a specific modality often being the next step in a counselor’s career. Some new graduates enter private practice right away and demonstrate professionalism and proficiency. However, this is an exception and, even if proficient in their specific area of practice, nothing can replace the learning that comes from years of face-to-face therapy with clients of varying ages and demographics. Ask your counselor about their professional experience, time spent in practice, and any licenses and/or certifications.
IS THE COUNSELOR WORKING IN A SILO AND DO THEY PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH?
An important professional activity for any good counselor is regular professional consultation. This serves several purposes, including ensuring best practices and getting help with challenging problems, whether a client’s or their own. Professional consultation encourages the counselor to look at their own blind spots and receive constructive feedback. It provides counselors with a renewed perspective, a degree of objectivity, and ongoing professional development. Moreover, one of the best ways to learn how to help someone to heal is to do your own counseling. Experiencing the healing process firsthand is greater learning than any book or class credit. Think of good counselors as being “wounded healers.” Counselors who have been in the other chair at some point or, better yet, continue to do their own work, are probably better equipped to help because of their own experience as a client. A balanced counselor should always be involved in some type of processing of their own to off-load the stresses of their work and to mitigate compassion fatigue. They should also be open to receiving feedback. They should be willing to look at themselves, to check in with their feelings, and to honestly and openly admit to mistakes they may have made. It is important that counselors demonstrate a willingness to grow.
WHAT’S THE COUNSELOR’S PHILOSOPHY AND APPROACH?
Do your counselor convey a belief that you are inherently good, or do they employ a deficit-based perspective and focus more on pathology? Identifying the presenting problem is an important part of the counseling process, but maintaining optimism and positivity are more strongly correlated with client growth and satisfaction than being problem-oriented. Moreover, counselors shouldn’t affirm that they can fix your problems. Their job is to help you to resolve your own. Your counselor should offer a new perspective, emotional support and, when appropriate, individualized strategies while encouraging you to access and use your own resources. In this way, you learn to rely on your own resources and resiliencies rather than on someone else. Counterintuitively, a good counselor might think of their ultimate goal as being to put themselves out of work as a result of their clients increased ability to help themselves.
IS THE COUNSELOR ABLE TO DEFINE HOW THEY CAN HELP YOU TO SOLVE YOUR ISSUE?
Experienced counselors explain how they can help, the modalities they plan on using, and are open about their experience and proficiency with various techniques. They should be able to give you a basic road map of the work to be done based on your problem, including an idea of expected timeline for the duration of counseling and an indication of how you will know when counseling is finished. It’s also important for a counselor to provide hope but never guarantees. If you have the will to change and put in the necessary time and energy, healing is possible. Healing happens only after navigating through the layers of protective gatekeepers which can take time. In addition, people are not always at a place in their growth where they are ready to heal. In this case, no counselor, however talented, will be in a position to provide robust supports and help in a meaningful way. There are numerous factors at play in the counseling process that contribute to or interfere with healing. There are no guarantees without conditions. If a counselor makes promises, take that as a warning sign of poor boundaries and a lack of professionalism.
HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU’RE SITTING WITH THE COUNSELOR?
Do you feel safe? Do you feel comfortable? Is the person easy to relate to or do they feel cold and distant? Is the counselor overly logical or too emotional and empathic? Do they make promises or show arrogance? Seeing a counselor for the first time can be anxiety provoking, but it’s important to separate your anxieties and apprehensions from what the counselor conveys. If after a few sessions a counselor doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, then stop. There’s no contract or rule requiring you to continue working with anyone. However, it’s important to check in with yourself to make sure you’re not avoiding therapy through the veil of dislike or judgment of the counselor. If you find yourself reacting negatively to every counselor you see, the issue could be yours. That may warrant your sticking it out to work through your fears of the therapy process. Counseling can feel cathartic and rejuvenating, but it can also be hard work. If you have rapport and sometimes still feel like calling it off, stick with it. This is usually when the best work is done.