Counseling
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- Exploring Cura Personalis with Daily Mindfulness Practice in and Advanced Counseling Skills Course
- Developing Men and Women for Others: Integration of Wellness Exercises to Prevent Secondary Traumatic Stress
Exploring Cura Personalis with Daily Mindfulness Practice in an Advanced Counseling Skills Course
Michelle Flaum Hall, Ed.D.
Mentor: Leslie Ann Prosak-Beres, Ph.D. (Education)
Introduction
The term cura personalis, which is Latin for care of the whole, individual person, is an Ignatian value that is woven into the very fabric of the counseling profession. Counselors are passionate about caring for and valuing others. They are trained to be skillful listeners, experts in the change process, and advocates for mental and emotional wellbeing. Because counselors expend great energy caring for others, they sometimes neglect caring for themselves. In the Counseling profession, we call cura personalis Self-Care, and it is a value that is encouraged within our profession--for students, practitioners, and counselor educators alike.
One way of caring for the Self is to become more reflective, introspective, and attentive to one's own experience. Howard Gray, S.J. (2008) states that this kind of disposition "suggests three activities: be attentive to the reality about you, reverence what you encounter, and appreciate how this kind of presence leads to revelation" (p. 200). Ignatian spirituality calls one to learn the art of stopping, reflecting, and appreciating, or in other words, "becoming more humanely alert and responsive to the world around you" (p.200). Ignatian spirituality, although a Western tradition, shares many characteristics with an Eastern tradition: Buddhism, and more specifically, Mindfulness.
Developing Men and Women for Others: Integration of Wellness Exercises to Prevent Secondary Traumatic Stress
Rhonda Norman, Ph.D.
Mentor: Shelly Webb
The Course
COUN 671-01 Clinical Mental Health Internship is the final clinical practice class that engages the community with clientele from local agencies and organizations.
This experiential course is designed as an integrative field experience. Students are expected to engage in on-site counseling program activities with clientele that allow application of the Clinical Mental Health (CMH) Counseling program curriculum.
Background Information
During the clinical mental health internship class counselor trainees (CT) are treating some of the most severely traumatized clientele who reside in lower socioeconomic communities. While treating trauma survivors with few resources, counselor trainees are susceptible to compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress. Compassion fatigue is when we find it difficult to be compassionate with our clientele, and secondary trauma occurs when our client's trauma narratives impact us in a way that we begin to experience trauma symptoms related to their stories.
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