Clinician Beliefs

Becoming a successful clinician is like a work in progress, a clinician should never consider it completed. There is always room to learn, to grow, and develop while working in the Human Services field. The knowledge that a clinician learns comes not only from education but also from experiences and time working in the field. Overtime, a clinician can expect to look at his or her own beliefs, values, and experiences as well as family, cultural dynamics, and background. The main reason a person continues to learn and obtain knowledge, is because of the array of clients a clinician sees. In the textbook, I had to complete exercises that discussed our values and beliefs and how they will affect and interact with our professional lives. The values that are in my life affect and make me whom I am. Several values that bounce between my professional and personal life and some that do not. There are also some values that I need to improve on which will help me in both my professional and personal lives My most important values and beliefs are:

-Be respectful
-Be open-minded
-Be trustworthy
-Always do my best
-Have a big heart
-Work hard
-Enjoy life
However, the most important thing is to make my values and beliefs flexible so that I can view the clients and better assist them. This is not always an easy task to do, but because of my experiences and my education, I continue to make progress. A clinician takes the ability to adapt and be flexible with your own personal beliefs and values. My experiences in life have always revolved around helping things, whether it was people or animals. My parents use to tell me, and showed by old family videos that I was the biggest tomboy and helper around our family farm. From a very young age, I was often found helping my parents on the farm rather than playing with Barbie Dolls. I would do all types of work on the farm such as feed animal, clean the barn, and milk the cows. These items helped either animals or people. Being raised on a dairy farm, encouraged me to work hard. Once I started high school my hard work did not stop at the farm, I got my first job away from working on the dairy farm. I am still employed at the job and once again because of my hard work I have had several promotional experiences within the company. I have always been a hard worker at everything I do and have learned many of my values and beliefs. Another textbook exercise that I completed discussed how my own family and my culture background will affect my ability to respond and connect with clients. I have learned that how I view others and makes me comfortable when working with clients has to do with how and where I was raised. My cultural background can include my education, social behaviors, ideas, and viewpoints. For example, in one of the exercises I was asked how I would feel working with a client who was African American or a client who was gay. All these items are affected by how I was raised, and my cultural background. Society also influences the lives we live and how we view other individuals.
Textbook exercises were also completed concerning this. I have learned that society we live in shape, who we are, just like cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values. Society can be described as the world, and community we live in. One example of society affecting our beliefs is with same sex marriages. This is a very controversial topic of society. For a very long time, society said same sex marriages are not okay, and recently they are becoming accepted. Because society is saying that it is now acceptable, the people in the communities are affected by this and their viewpoints may be altered. While working with clients a clinician needs to keep their cultural backgrounds and society out of their
mind. Clinicians will experience working with clients of all types. It is important to remember that each client seen is different even if diagnoses, traits, characteristics, or anything else is similar. No two cases are alike. Clinicians will work with individuals with physical, mental, psychological, emotional, and verbal, and many other types of individuals. My job as a clinician is important. I need to remember that everything that shapes whom I am is important but private and should not be “worn on my sleeve.” Everything I do in life affects how I am shaped and how I view others. My values, beliefs, experiences, and the society also affect me. Keeping an open mind, and be understanding toward my clients is an important role and I will continue to devolve this in my experiences.