Counseling Core Elements

One of the two core elements that I feel is a personal area of strength is positive regard. According to Wikipedia, an individual that has positive regard of others has, “blanket acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does.” To me, this means being someone that is non-judgmental and someone that truly looks at a person’s inner being, not just what the outside shell may look like. A client’s personal growth can be influenced greatly by his or her counselor’s positive regard. When a client knows he is accepted by his counselor, it will help foster a much more beneficial and positive relationship. Another core element that I feel I possess goes right along with positive regard; warmth is something that I
I believe that I am capable of both of these elements, however, my lack of counseling experience leads me to believe that I just don’t know how to properly execute them in a counseling setting. I think of instances when I have gossip sessions with my friends or talk to my parents or children about different things. I know that for the most part, we talk about things in a very generalized fashion. I definitely know how to self-disclose information, but I’m not sure if I do correctly or not. I am sure there have been many times where I have shared my personal experience with someone based on the subject at hand and only after finishing my sentence did I realize that I probably should have kept my mouth closed; the conversation wasn’t about ME but I kind of turned it into that. Sometimes I think that sharing my story or experience will be beneficial to whomever I’m talking to, but I realize now that in the counseling world, it has to be used at the right time or it will have the complete opposite affect. I think that a communications course or two that teaches effective methods of communication would be something important for me to look into. I also think that both concreteness and self-disclosure are core elements that, for me, can only be learned, practiced, improved upon, and mastered through counseling