In counseling, the alliance that is developed between the client and the professional is important in ensuring the best of results is attained. The connection remains the determinant of how the process of service delivery will be affected at the time. This is evident as observed by an American psychologist, Jeffrey Kottler. In his book, “The Therapist of the Real World,” he explains how graduates face a hard time after realizing what they were taught in school is not all there is in the real world. It is through his observations that we come to understand that without a mutual connection between the counselor and the client, there will not be transparency or openness as people will feel judged. He goes, “Without a strong connection, accompanied by high degrees of trust and caring, not much else is going to be accomplished (pg. 81)."
This statement holds true in various works. For instance, in the American Counseling Association “Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (2015)” article, the authors, creates the different competencies that should be available for the successful process. The domains that perfectly resonates with what Kottler observes are stated and each given skills that may lead to better understanding of the client/counselor alliance. First, counselor awareness is important to ensure that the professional may develop knowledge, explore beliefs and attitudes, and skills. Also, they are aware of how their actions affect the society. Awareness of the client’s worldview is also necessary to create a long-lasting alliance by knowing the beliefs, knowledge on what shapes their worldview, skills of how to understand the clients’ worldview, and actions to help the client develop their worldview through self-awareness.
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Thirdly, counseling relationship, which is the most important, according to Kottler, is based on the knowledge on how the counselor and the client statuses affect the counseling relationship. The tow may have varying worldviews, and the counselor has to identify how this affects the process. There are biases, beliefs, values, which come into play during the process. Therefore, the professional should collaborate with the client to determine their worldviews, values, beliefs, and biases and how it influences the process. In other words, all these actions should be aimed at removing prejudices, stereotypes, discrimination, and build trust through conversations and connection.
In conclusion, a competent counselor must fully understand the client and know their worldview and how better to develop a plan to ensure that the best result arises. The alliance is aimed at intervening with and on behalf of the clients at all levels, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, community, public policy, and international/global levels.
References
Kottler, J. A. (2015). The therapist in the real world: What you never learn in graduate school (but really need to know) (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Ratts, M. J., Singh, A. A., Nassar-McMillan, S., Butler, S. K., McCullough, J. R., & Hipolito-Delgado, C. (2015). Multicultural and social justice counseling competencies AMCD: Alexandria, VA.
