In What Ways Has Your Academic and Practical Experience Prepared You for Becoming a Counselor/Therapist?

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In what ways has your academic and practical experience prepared you for becoming a counselor/therapist? I found all of my psychology courses very interesting and informative, but there were three that were especially beneficial in preparing me to become a therapist. The most crucial was Abnormal Psychology. In this class I learned to identify major mental disorders, understand their etiology, and gained some practice in diagnosis at an undergraduate level. Developmental psychology is another important course I took. I did not realize how beneficial that course was until I started working in a clinical setting. Many of the unhealthy behavior patterns clients come in with were developed as a result of specific events that took place in the early years of their life. After have worked in a clinical setting the last couple of years I can guess the kind of childhood a client had just by observing him/her for a couple of days. Another extremely important course I took was Clinical Psychology. In this class I learned about theoretical models, clinical assessment, multicultural considerations, and different types of therapeutic approaches. For the final project, students were asked to create their own model of personality and therapeutic approach, and then develop three possible treatment plans based on the model. I spent many hours working on this project and did a huge amount of research on all the different theories and therapeutic approaches before coming up with my own model. When some of my classmates told me that it took them only a couple of hours to complete this assignment and that the textbook provided them with all the necessary information, that’s when I realized how strong my desire to become a therapist is. As informative as I found my classes at UC Santa Cruz to be, I believe that while working as a Residential Assistant in the two mental health

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