Janeth Leigh Bennett LPC

Working with a client to determine his or her therapy goals is done in a collaborative way with a therapist. If I am that therapist, the client would work with me to determine what he wants his life to look like. For example, sometimes a client is stifled in an unhealthy relationship and cannot see the big picture of what life would look like in a healthy relationship. He may not even know what a healthy relationship is. With guidance, the client discusses and decides what a healthy relationship would be like for him and then identifies problems that are preventing that from happening. He and I would then set goals to address these stumbling blocks so that he can attain the desired outcome of a healthy relationship. Goals are basically steps to take you where you want to go.

I was a social worker for many years and knew the need for counselors. I had always hoped to get specific training that allowed me to become a counselor and so I set a goal to go back to school when my children got older. Well life sometimes throws baseballs and I became sick with a rare neuromuscular disease that rendered me nearly blind. After years of adjustment, a divorce, my children growing up, and getting a guide dog I made my move. My guide dog and I trooped off to college and graduated with a Masters degree in Counseling. Cannot keep an old gal or her dog down!

I think that one of the most insightful things I have learned in working as a mental health professional is that people have amazing resilience and determination to overcome problems and hardships even in the worst of situations. What may seem like a daunting and overwhelming problem in the beginning of therapy, often ends with the client having a much better understanding of himself and his abilities to overcome problems in general. It enables a catharsis which results in a much better understanding of the interbeing.

• Georgia, Licensed Professional Counselor, LPC005923

My work experience has been in both social work and counseling. As a social worker I worked in the substance abuse field, in social services with pregnant women and food stamp recipients, in group homes with developmentally disabled adults, and in a residential program with teenagers with family and substance abuse problems. My totally fun job was working in the school system in the pre-kindergarten program as a family facilitator which meant I got to work with cute little 4 and 5-year-olds, and their families. Upon becoming a counselor, I worked in a forensic counseling setting within a private practice. I then spent many years as a clinician on a mobile crisis team where I did crisis work with the mentally ill, chronically mentally ill, as well as with suicidal and/or homicidal individuals and substance abusers. This meant I worked in hospitals, jails, schools, residential homes and throughout the community assessing individuals and determining what their immediate needs were. Then I would arrange appropriate treatment options. Eventually I ended up in private practice where life was much calmer!