Mock Quals

Wheeeww. I don't know if I spelled that right, but it's supposed to be a sigh of relief. My mock qualifying theory exam is over. Yeah!! It was what we did as a final in my Advanced Counseling Theories course. We had two questions to answer in three hours. The first question was concerning diversity and how different counseling theories address/integrate phenomena associated with diversity. I had to pick two theories that I thought addressed diversity well and then pick two theories that I thought didn't address it well. For anyone who's interested, I chose existential counseling and integral counseling as adaptable to many different clients; I chose classical psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology as those that don't address diversity as well as the previously mentioned theories. The second question asked me to respond to other mental health professionals who asserted that a person didn't need to pick a guiding theory of counseling. Do those sound fun or what? All in all, I think I did pretty good. I wrote about seven pages of text double spaced.

So now that that is over, I have to study for my statistics exam. Preparing for today's exam really makes me ponder what it is that causes people to "change." There are so many different ideas and I do believe that each one has validity; however, from my narrow, egocentric perspective I believe that insight and awareness are what counseling can provide, but that change is a very individual, complex process. It may be that change isn't even the right term to use there. I can't think of a word that reflects what I'm trying to say. Anyway, thinking about how people are, how they exist, how they function, how they get through pain is an amazing thing. It makes my head hurt. God made us all unique, and this uniqueness is displayed in how we each deal with what comes our way. Alright, I've got to get to work but I wanted to take some time to celebrate life going on after mock quals. Thanks for reading.