Philosophy of Counseling

In general I view myself as behaviorally and cognitively orientated however through the years within my professional experience I found myself being somehow an eclectic counselor. As I grow professionally and expand my knowledge, I find myself incorporating in my counseling style, various other techniques from other models of psychotherapy. I have administered many techniques from varying theories, thus, I believe it would be inaccurate for me at this point, to identify my style of counseling with one particular mode or theory. Throughout my graduate work I often played in my mind the ways in which I would counsel others. It was of my understanding that I needed to "stick" with one theory. Luckily that wasn't the case. I allow various theoretical models to grow on me and as I applied them to clients and tested them out, I was able to make them my own. The way I will approach this paper is to make some bullet points and elaborate was has brought be to choose certain models over others. • What drives my behavior? Well, I always had a genuine interest in helping others. when I look back at my childhood, I can remember being concerned about the elderly, about the homeless, about people that were quiet and shy. I always carried this thought in the back of my head: " they just want (need) someone to talk to" and for some reason I always felt guilty for not approaching these people because I believed that person should have been me. Obviously I wasn't educated on theories at the time and didn't know what to say, but I had this interest in wanting to "be there" for them. 1 I can confidently say that my childhood experience has had a significant impact in the development of my philosophy of "helping"/counseling people and, on the other hand, education is what helped me be a better counselor.
• I will introduce the second bullet by stating a quote from Henry David Thoreau "Simplify the problem of life. When the mathematician solves a difficult