WHY I CHOSE TO BE A COUNSELOR

My undergraduate degree is in Counseling, precisely BA in Counseling.  It is a career I pursued years later after my high school days.  In my early life, it never occurred to me that one day I would be a counselor or practice counseling as a profession. This is because, unlike professions such as law, medicine, and engineering, counseling has been viewed as a profession for the “less serious” students, therefore, the likelihood of getting a “good” job and a successful life career was not visible.  In addition, the existing perception about counseling is that it is, for example, for those people who are seeking a divorce or are going through life problems, or are mentally sick and is used as a last resort. These perceptions made counseling a less attractive career to pursue.

However, as I started my career as a development worker, and later as peacebuilding for the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), a faith-based organization in Kenya, I began to see the link between people’s physical needs and psychological needs.   

My work at NCCK involved providing assistance (food, clothing, shelter) to the conflict-affected individuals and communities, and to regain some livelihoods after the violence. It also involved supporting interventions to rebuild social cohesion as well as mental health for those directly affected. 

At the height of the ethnic violence in Kenya, I interacted closely with the affected populations and got to know their needs.  I was in the camps of the Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) in the Rift Valley, Nyanza, Western, and Nairobi provinces, providing relief assistance and taking care of various physical and psychological needs of individuals and communities including reconciliation. I met many individuals and families who had lost property, livelihoods, and loved ones through the violence.

I wanted to help them overcome their grief and traumas.  And although I had been doing this kind of work for many years now, I recognized I lacked formal training. I thought I would be more effective if I had the relevant skills and knowledge in psychological counseling. I felt I needed a degree to be certified and work as a professional in my work and to give me the confidence to the people I serve.

Secondly, the relevance of counseling today applies to all aspects of life. For example, I find it appropriate to apply my counseling skills in the community in which I work or in the church where I attend regularly. As a matter of fact, I found out that we are always confronted with situations and challenges that face us and our colleagues, friends, neighbors as well as family members. These problems are part of our daily lives and could include marital problems or a youth going through the adolescence period, people planning to change their careers or are planning for their retirements, etc. I also see a lot of relevance to counseling in schools and churches. As a parent, I get several invitations to speak and to provide guidance to the pupils and students in the school where my children go and in the church where I attend. These are areas I could contribute and make a difference in the life of people.

As we know it counseling involves helping others to help themselves by making better choices and becoming better choosers of options. The counselor’s repertoire of skills includes those of forming an understanding relationship, as well as interventions, focused on helping clients change specific aspects of their feelings, thinking, and acting. This is important when one is working with the client to explore their circumstances and enable them to re-evaluate his or their experiences, capabilities, and potential.

In my counseling profession, I take great pride when assist clients to confidentially express their feelings, without diverting their attention to their own feelings and when they become self-motivated.  Since self-reliance is a central tenet of counseling, I'm motivated when I notice that my client may have met someone, who truly listens without prejudice and whom he or she can trust utterly. 

My Strengths and Weaknesses

I have found out that my strengths lie in the fact that I am able to learn not to make judgments on my own values and try to much as possible not to impose them on other people. This has come out of my experience working with diverse communities and faiths in my area of work. I try as much as possible to retain the ability to listen to and accept the views of clients. I believe this was developed through my previous training and experience where I learned about the importance of communication skills. Since my work involves working with people all the time, I found that my social skills have also been enhanced, a quality that I believe is key in counseling. As a counselor, I am also expected to show complete discretion, never revealing what others say or do within the counseling context since confidentiality is paramount in a counseling relationship.

At the beginning of my counseling career, I experienced a number of challenges including feeling anxious when I was going to meet a client, having self-doubts about one’s ability as a counselor, and wanting to give advice to the client. Over time I realized I needed to develop my own counseling style and not being able to define one’s specific role as a counselor and not developing one’s own counseling style and be natural in whatever I do. 

Overall, counseling has helped me to be a better listener and to better understand myself.