The career that I want to have in the future is to be a marriage and family Therapist. This kind of therapist is actively engaged in helping families and couples become happier and more effective. A therapist becomes a sort of guide on a troubled family’s road to happiness. As with any career it requires preliminary steps to become both effective and skilled.
The first thing I intend to do in the upcoming year to become a therapist is taking classes that fall within the realm of marriage and family. There are certainly the classes associated with earning the degree itself, but I want to find classes that support and enhance my abilities in this field. This could include classes in therapeutic recreation, philosophy, or body language. Indeed whenever I am able to attend any kind of seminar outside of the regular college classroom that would teach me something valuable pertaining to this field I will take it. Classroom knowledge is vital, but certainly not comprehensive in every important way.
The second thing I plan on doing is being an active listener to my friends and anyone who comes to me with a dilemma. Anyone can offer advice, but there are very few good listeners in the world. In my limited experience I've discovered that more effective in helping people overcome their life troubles than giving advice is simply asking questions, listening and helping people come to their own resolutions. They know themselves better than I do, and often know the resolutions to their problems but they simply need help organizing their ideas. Good advice, as important as it is, is no substitute for the feeling of excitement which comes when people come up with their original good ideas. When people feel actively engaged in planning to improve their life they are more committed to making the changes they desire to see take effect.
The third thing I will do to help prepare myself for this career is read books based around interpersonal communication. Since communication is one of the most important and perhaps neglected elements of good relationships, I want to learn from experts about how to present thoughts and feelings tactfully and clearly. I firmly believe that most problems occur somewhere in between how the speaker thinks of something to say and how what they say is interpreted.
Helping people overcome relationship problems of any kind is something I've always found a lot of satisfaction in and it is something that is a great need in the world today and could become a career. As a result of this I hope to eventually open up a practice in this field. In this context my practice would be a business. I would like however, to be more than just counseling in an office setting. I believe there is a lot of value in things such as therapeutic recreation that could be incorporated in this or auxiliary to the purpose. I want my work to be loose enough that if something besides basic counseling is needed, it can be incorporated.
I believe there is much that can be done to help families in need, but I don't think there is any reason why preparing through some level of experience or another needs to be postponed.
