Asking for Help

Running head : TERMINATION OF COUNSELING

Termination of Counseling Program

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Termination of Counseling Program

Confronting a psychological problem involving one 's child is truly a difficult experience for every parent . Although it is but common especially during teenage years , a parent cannot help but feel too concerned because the future of the child is at stake . Undergoing this situation entails a lot of considerations including finding a good counselor to whom one would confide everything , including family secrets

When my son was thirteen years old , we came

to a point when we had to seek help from a counselor . Being a teenager , he became very difficult to deal with , did not want to go to school , and grew cold to us . Also nothing seemed important to him . All our advice regarding his future and how important it is to have education seemed to fall on deaf ears . It seemed like we had accepted a boarder in the house , because he became very distant , much like a stranger in the house . He did not like to talk a lot about what was bothering him , but he looked troubled . We knew then that we needed intervention so we sought the help of a local counselor When we found one , we hoped that things would change since . However , we were surprised that after five sessions , the counselor terminated the services , without advice of referral to other counselors

Seeking a counselor 's help is not similar to asking help from a medical doctor . It involves trust and unveiling of secrets . As parents , we had to cooperate to make the counseling successful . We needed to confide a lot with the counselor , and reveal everything in relation to my son . On the part of my son , he also had to give his trust to the counselor although it was not easy for him to open up to a stranger . Also counseling sessions incurred quite a big cost especially for an average family like ours

Considering the tremendous sacrifice and emotional investment that we had to put in to make the counseling successful , it was very disappointing that the counselor decided to terminate his services without considering our feelings . As parents , we felt very disappointed from our previous experience . For this reason , we vowed not to seek help again from the same counselor . The experience also made us have second thoughts to seek counseling again next time

Although my son moved on later with our own guidance and he is alright now that he is in college , the experience we had held back our trust in counseling service . The termination done by the counselor caused a trauma in us because even though we are not professional counselors , we felt that our rights had been violated . Later on we found out that the practice of terminating service without proper transfer is against the code of ethics

According to the American Counseling Association (as cited in Barnett 2008 , it is not proper for counselors to abandon or neglect...