Development of the characteristics of the effective helper

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Case Study 3 Chelsea, Brianna, William, Tiffany, and Liam are in a growth group experience in their master’s degree program. This group experience is taken at the beginning of their master’s degree and is focused upon helping them learn more about themselves psychologically. Here’s the transcript of part of their first group experience where they were asked to talk about the characteristics of the effective counselor: Chelsea: “Well, I think all those characteristics are great, but I’m not sure that I can live up to them. I feel like I should already be skilled at empathy, acceptance, genuineness, and be perfectly healthy. And I can’t even remember the rest of those characteristics.” Brianna: “Chill out Chelsea. You’re much too much of a perfectionist. You need to learn how to just go with the flow. You’ll learn those characteristics over time, and if you don’t, who cares. It’s not like anyone is REALLY looking over your shoulder.” William: “Well, I don’t think you should have to rely on someone looking over your shoulder. You should want to embrace those characteristics on your own.” Tiffany: “I don’t know about you guys, but I am excited about the one called cultural competence. We all need to learn how to be more competent when working with diverse clients. That one characteristic is the most important. The others are all secondary.” Liam: “I love the characteristics called competence and cognitive complexity. I look forward to slowly gaining in competence as I go through this program, and I hope to view the world in more complex ways. I think I see that some of you are pretty dualistic in your thinking, and maybe if you all would learn how to understand different perspectives, you would be better off.”

1. Do you think Liam’s observations of the other students are on target? Can you describe how some or all the other students may be dualistic?

2. Do you think that Liam is dualistic in any way?

3. Who are you most drawn to (if anyone) in this short dialog? Why do you think that is the case?

4. What characteristics do you think are most important? Why?

5. Do you think the other characteristics, not identified in Item 4, will be not as well attended to because of your preference towards the ones, you picked in Item 4? Can you make an argument for giving special attention to the one’s you did not pick? Why or why not?

6. What expectations do you have for your master’s degree helping you grow in the development of the characteristics of the effective helper?