1st Post of the New Blog - back to counseling

I realized a short while ago that my blog on the topic of counseling had become more of a blog about myself. Well I want to get back to that idea of writing about counseling my experiences and thoughts about psychology.

I was taught that a major componet of healing within counseling is the personal relationship that is established between client and counselor. A friend of mine brought this question to my attention. If a client is feeling that the counselor is ineffecitve or not helping, then who's responsibility is it to deal with that problem.

As a counselor I would hope for all of my clients to find me therapuetic, but I know better in reality. Change is difficult and can be painful therefore resistance is occurs often. It is an easy idea for counselors to fall into that resistance is all the fault of clients, that do not desire to get better or are to afraid to change. I think that as counselors we need to reevaluate and seek to understand if our relationship is therapuetic or not. Lacking a good relationship we should seek to then immeadiatly refer our client to someone that would be a better match.

On the other side of this idea, is that client's need to take responsibility for thier healing. If engaged in a therapuetic relationship that you feel is not moving forward or is not truly helping you, then speak to the counselor. You have to right to the best possible treatment. Counselors seek to help their clients either through thier intervention or by setting you up with someone that can help. Periodically let your counselor know if they are doing a good job or a poor job, we like to know. It helps us to grow professionally and to provide better service to our clients.