Beliefs, Values, and Clinical Gestalt with Individuals and Systems

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My Beliefs, Values, and Clinical Gestalt with Individuals and Systems Paper Professional helping and how I approach it is based on my own personal and professional beliefs, values, past experiences, and familiar and cultural background. The way that I approach my client’s situations will depend on my immediate environment. Because I will be working with children services, the large majority of my clients will be abused and neglected children. It is important to possess empathy, respect, and genuineness in order to build a meaningful productive relationship with my clients. According to Encyclopedia Britannica (2012), belief is defined as “a mental attitude of acceptance or assent toward a proposition without the full intellectual knowledge required to guarantee its truth”. In other words, a belief is something that a person assumes is true because it is accepted by a specific group. Although beliefs are strongly held convictions, they are nothing more than opinions in the sense that they have no proof or validity. They are developed through what a person sees and hears in his or her life’s experiences. A person’s beliefs are generally based on his or her values. Values are ideas that a person considers to be important to him or her. A person’s values and beliefs determine his or her approach and judgment toward the world. It is important, as a helping professional that I am aware of my emotions and behaviors when dealing with clients. It is also important that you separate personal beliefs and values when dealing with clients. There may be times when my values and beliefs conflict with the client’s choices or decisions. This is to be expected when working with people. In professional helping, personal assumptions should never be made about a client or situation. Most assumptions are based on beliefs, values, personal experiences, and familiar or cultural
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