Personal Theory of Counseling

Personal Theory of Counseling & Therapy

Misty Reinecke

Walden University

When dealing with counseling theories there are many combinations and theories to contend with, but only a few things that are written in stone. One of those things is the belief from the counselor that anyone who presents him or herself can be changed from their old or negative behavior, to new and more positive behavior. The theory in which the counselor uses to accomplish this task is not likely to be just one, but an integrated approach from a few through many different approaches used in counseling today (Corey, 2009).

There are arguments that state that it is more appropriate to use a personal theorist style with only one approach, but it is my position that taking a pragmatic approach mixed with a few other approaches using Cognitive Behavior, Reality, and Jungian theories, and drawing from others on a case-by-case basis is likely the most effective approach.

To find your personal approach to anything in the counseling field, you must first form an idea of what you believe is basic human nature.

Before I get too far into the human nature idea too far, I want to bring up a popular social networking site: Facebook, of course. I am typically anti-Facebook for anything remotely social that we want to survive, but what I have noticed over time is that if you watch an active Facebook user over a few weeks, the user will demystify themselves over that time very clearly. It is always a little more interesting of a process when they have written how “complicated” they are, or the opposite sex is, on their profile or a message at some point. Silly humans! Human nature is really anything but complicated.

My personal view of the characteristics of human nature consists of some rather simplistic ideas. I identify greatly to reality theory in the idea that this approach is based of the five needs Dr. Glasser formulated in this theory (Corey, 2009). All humans need and desire...