Camryn Jenkins
Liberty University
Attitudes and Beliefs Reflection Paper
November 7, 2021
Abstract
It is important for counselors to keep their own personal values and opinions to themselves when
counseling. While keeping personal values, comes training to do so. There is training for
counselors that make sure they do not expose their own beliefs and opinions to their clients, no
matter the circumstance. While confronting things such as different religious beliefs, people
doing things different from your own, even things more disturbing than expected in a counseling
session. The three topics I chose for my reaction, I chose because the stood out the most to me
and made me the least comfortable to rate. In order to be a counselor, there are many things to be
accountable for, including being authentic. There must be a way to be authentic in a counseling
session, even if the session is about something you don’t believe in or accept. In this paper, I will
explain the three things from the inventory that bother me the most, I will react to them, and then
write my response, along with what my actions will be to not let my believes come out in a
session. According to the ACA code of ethics, counselors must respect their clients’ identities, no
matter what. That is why there is training for counselors to be able to resist from using their own
opinions and beliefs in any session. There are several things a counselor must do in order to be
professional in a counseling session including, learning how to keep their own opinion to
themselves, learn to be authentic with a client whether believing what they are doing is wrong or
not, and even accepting the people who do wrong and having to help them anyway.
Introduction
Counselors are required to respect their clients, no matter how diverse they are.
Therefore, a counselor’s attitude toward a client’s beliefs must not ever be shown. A counselor
must never discriminate no matter the circumstance or topic being discussed. Being a counselor,
while things such as values, beliefs, and even honesty are important, it is also important to make
sure these things are not discussed in a counseling session. According to the ACA code of ethics,
a counselor is supposed to set forth ethical and professional obligations that provides the intent to
take care of clients when needed in a professional way. A counselor must be trustworthy, have
autonomy, and commitment to a client’s well-being. If divided into multiple sections, the
principles for being a counselor are integrity, objectivity, competence, confidentiality, and
professionalism (Code of ethics at a glance, 2021). There are many things that I do not believe in
and many things that rub me the wrong way. When reading the attitudes and beliefs reflection,
there were many things that I could talk about and give my opinion, which is the point of the
paper. To be a counselor, I can’t let these things get to me in a way that I want to share my
opinion about them. When rating the inventory, I found that there was a lot of things that could
bother me in the counseling profession. In my reactions and reflections, the things I noticed I
should work on is keeping my opinion to myself, no matter what. I know that showing a client
that you are judging them can affect the session, so I will have to work on that as well. I would
never want to make someone uncomfortable or feel as if I were judging them.
Reaction
One question I found most to answer was the man convicted of pedophilia and court-
ordered for counseling. This question is so uncomfortable to me because thinking about helping
someone who had no mercy for the children they had hurt. My role as a counselor would be to
have mercy for this person in a way where I have no opinion and cannot give my thoughts about
what they had done. Being a counselor to this kind of person has got to the one of the worst
things about being a counselor. The second question I found the least uncomfortable to answer
was the man who has found a way of cheating the system and getting more than his legal share
of public assistance. I know life can be hard, and getting assistance is hard. But it is even harder
to accept the fact that people aren’t getting the assistance they need because people like this man
are taking advantage of the system and the assistance he does not even need. That is selfish and
that is something that can make me angry. Lastly, the women who has decided to leave her
husband and children to gain independence. I get leaving her husband, but her children are a
different story. If she has children, she has made the commitment to care for those children and
she took it as a responsibility to take care of them when she decided to have them. I know that
she cannot be a young girl anymore if she has children, so what makes her think it is ok to
abandon her children. As a side note, she does not realize the damager it will do to her children
to up and leave on them. She could easily leave her husband and get split custody of her kids, but
she is obviously selfish. My reactions to all of them inventory was pretty much a negative
reaction. If I had to pick one that I would be most comfortable with talking about it would be the
interracial couple coming for premarital counseling or a gay or lesbian couple wanting to adopt a
child. I feel as if these are easy things to talk about because they are normal things that should
not be judged in the world.
Responses
The values I have, have been learned from my family, more specifically my grandma and
mom. There are other beliefs that I have not gotten from them as well such as believing in same
sex marriage which they never have believed. I learned my values from as soon as I can
remember, and I was taught by being spoken to when things were bad or if I had questions or
even random times when needed. My family taught me to be a good person and what good thing
are. I have also been taught to have a strong opinion in what I believe. There are a lot of things I
don’t believe but the things I do believe are very important to me. The reason I chose the three
questions I did was because they were the most bothersome to me. I know that being a counselor,
I cannot have such strong opinions as I do, which is why I chose those questions and how I want
to work on that. Though these things are wrong to me, I am going to have to learn to respect that
people are the way they are, no matter how wrong I believe they are. The three things I chose to
talk about weren’t the only things that bothered me, or I was uncomfortable with rating. There
were many others I rated low on being comfortable including the person that had little
conscience for others and uses other for personal gain. Most of the things on the list I did not
agree with, and that just shows I have a lot to work on. I knew there would be a lot of things I
had an opinion about, but I did not realize that I had so much to think or say about them. While
my reactions were very strong, there was also a thought in my head to try and put myself in each
person’s perspective. For some of them, that worked, but when it came to the pedophile, there
was no thought I had to help me think of why it was a good idea for them to do that. I would
never want to make someone feel as if I am judging them, but it is hard to realize that people like
on the inventory exist. It is going to be hard counseling someone who for instance, wants to
leave their children and wife or husband for another lover. I would at least want to tell them to
get half custody or at least try for their children, that they don’t have to stay with their partner,
but that is not what my job will be about. My job is to help people with what they are going
through and listen to what they have to say. I will accept the fact that these people want to do and
will do what they want. If there was anything I learned, it is that I have a long way to go in order
to be a professional counselor.
Action
Personally, the work I need to do about my strong opinions is to work on not judging
someone if it has nothing to do with me. Professionally, I will need the counseling practices that
help obtain my values and opinions to myself. Obviously, I have strong opinions about most of
the things on the inventory, and that shows me there is a lot I must work on. In order to work on
my strong reactions to the questions, I am going to have to learn how to control my strong
opinion if I want to be a counselor. For the issue, I am going to have to make it a point to not
judge other people, no matter what, if I want to make it professionally. Working on not showing a
client that I am judging or want to judge them and show them I care and want to help them is
going to be a major key if I want to pursue as a counselor. I know that counselors must assess
their values and beliefs constantly, therefore, I know it will be a life lesson for me to continue to
work on the things that bother me. It was a good experience to assess the things that I had a
strong opinion on or the things that I could see myself helping someone with. Though as a
counselor, I will have to find a way to help someone with any situation, no matter my beliefs or
opinions. In order to be the successful counselor, I want to be, I am going to have to experience
the kind of things on the inventory and go through helping g a client without judgement or even a
hint of unsettledness. To be a counselor, I must graduate from grad school, finish my internship
and practicum, obtain a licensure or certification, and choose my career path whether it is to
advance my practice or not. But, before I complete my certification, I must advance in being able
to keep my opinions, values, and beliefs to myself.
Conclusion
In conclusion to my reaction and responses to the attitudes and beliefs inventory, there
are many things I must work on in order to be a counselor, including not letting other people’s
actions or beliefs get to me. I must not share my opinion on their actions or do anything about
them in. a counseling session. To be a counselor, there must be no judgement or sharing of your
own beliefs for a client to feel comfortable in a counseling session. It is important for counselor
and counselor trainees to always spend time identifying their own values and beliefs in order to
affectively work as a counselor especially with people with mental illness. A counselor putting in
their own belief to a client can cause the client to leave a session without help because their
counselor is basically discriminating on their beliefs. A counselor needs credibility in order to
obtain the professional job of a counselor. To gain credibility, a counselor must gain trust from
clients. In order to gain the trust from a client, there needs to be discretion but not when a
counselor shares their beliefs. The type of discretion when the counselor does not share the
clients details about what they are seeing them for. My opinion on manty things on the inventory
is negative, which makes me think I have a lot to work on. I know that a normal person would
think a lot of the things on there are messed up, but as a counselor, you cannot think as a normal
person. A counselor is there to make the client feel safe and not judged. There are many things I
must work on if I want to pursue this career, but luckily my journey has just started, and I have
plenty of time to work on things. If there has been anything I have learned about taking the
inventory, it would be that there are a lot of things that bother me and a lot I must work on.
References
2014 code of Ethics - American Counseling Association. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2021,
from https://www.counseling.org/resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf.
Code of ethics at a glance. CIMA. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2021, from
https://www.cimaglobal.com/Professionalism/Ethics/CIMAs-code-at-a-glance/.
