This paper summarizes the key learnings from a course on group counseling theory and practice. The author learned about designing, implementing, and facilitating group counseling sessions. They were inspired by how groups can help those with repressed trauma share their experiences and feel less alone. The author also learned to trust the group process and not be too rigid in following a set format. Through the course, the author gained awareness of potential biases and strengths they can continue improving. Areas of strength include empathy, while areas to develop include active listening skills. The author feels most confident in helping people gain renewed spirit and is less confident with receiving criticism. They are interested in facilitating task groups and groups that help those facing challenges.

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Running head: Brief Personal Reflection Paper.
Brief Personal Reflection Paper
Jeanese July
Grand Canyon University PCN-520
July 8, 2015

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Brief Personal Reflection Paper
Professional Counseling can be rewarding as well as demanding and offer a prospective
student a multitude of various disciplines and profession's to accomplish and pursue in one's career.
During the eight week course in Group Counseling Theory and Practice students were given an
extensive study of the ins and outs of group counseling. We learned the skills necessary to become a
group counselor or leader, from its design, implementation, as well as process to theories employed.
Corey, Corey, & Corey stated, “Groups have much to offer, but sufficient training in group work is
essential to the success in designing and facilitating groups in a variety of settings. (Corey, Corey, &
Corey, 2010, p. 1) This brief personal reflection paper will summarize some of the most significant
things I’ve learned throughout the course. It will include skills that I already possess and feel are
pertinent as a potential group leader, as well as some skills that may need improvement, and quite
possibly will need to acquire to improve as a professional. This paper will also include some areas
where I feel I am most confident as a group leader, areas I lack confidence in, along with the types of
groups that I think I would enjoy leading in my career as a group counselor.
This course was of great interest to me, and as the course proceeded I became more
encapsulated with learning more and more about the group experience. I’ve learned quite a bit about
group counseling and as a result I would love to eventually become a professional leader or teacher in
my profession. One of the most significant things that really inspired me was the fact that group
involvement can really become a very successful experience for first time group member with a
repressed emotional incident. When individuals had such a traumatic event in their lives and has
never addressed it or sought treatment, they will repress the event until it begins to submerge into
other areas in their life causing extreme uneasiness. The group experience can reveal for the first time
that they are not alone and this has happened to others as well and knowing this can relieve a lot of

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Brief Personal Reflection Paper
stress itself.
Another significant aspect of the course of many was to trust the group process, and never to put
too much emphasis on following a specific format designed for the group. To rely on a specific
regimen or process may actually stunt the successful outcome of the group, and the leader may
become too rigid on following an agenda that it can stifle the intended outcome. During any stage of
the group including the first session work may begin and may call for the leader to change the whole
format or group curriculum altogether. This is where the skills is especially acquired; the leader must
know when to trust the group’s process. Having been a member and a leader these are magical,
spiritual, and most critical moments as part of the group’s whole being, i.e. successful intervention at
its best.
In the beginning of the course, students were instructed to take The Multicultural
Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Survey (MAKSS) pre and posttests. In the pretest my scores were
a little limited on multicultural knowledge regarding students stereotyping other members according
to the information they’ve learned about various cultures. I disagreed with this statement in the
beginning but during the posttest I agreed. Although initially I felt that as a counselor we are
professionally trained to treat each client uniquely. But in reality and realistically we can sometimes
subliminally treat a client according to their ethnic backgrounds and culture, and especially initially.
Another area was ethnicity and cultural encapsulation. As a result of undergraduate and graduate
studies I have learned that I used to think I was colorblind, but have since learned that this is form of
denying who we all are as individuals.

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Brief Personal Reflection Paper
When enrolling in the program I knew that I had innate skills to become a counselor in
the field of professional counseling. However, I also knew that there were many skills that I had to
acquire and learn and that this would be a lifelong endeavor. Personal skills that I already possess
include: goodwill, genuineness, and caring, openness, intuitiveness, sense of humor, personal
dedication and commitment, courage, and commitment to self-care to name a few. These skills have
been successful in my ability to continue throughout the hardships of pursuing my education, raise
kids, unemployment, and most of all ability to remain clean and sober for the past ten years. A few
professional skills that I possess would include: empathizing, facilitating, linking, summarizing, and
blocking. As these professional skills are definitely correlating to the personal skills such as the
ability to have goodwill, genuineness, and care would naturally require someone to empathize with
the client, open up lines of facilitating enables the leader to use those skills as well as being intuitive
and so forth.
In order to be effective and well-rounded a group leader or counselor must know both their
strengths and weakness to prevent biases, and countertransference within the group process. Without
full awareness of one’s weaknesses can and will be transparent within the members as well and
prevent problems for the leader as well as the members. For that matter as a leader I am fully aware
of some skills that as a beginning student that will need to be perfected and worked through, which
include: on the personal level- I can be a little impatient and that would interact with my willingness
to want to solve my client’s issues for them, another would be to work on my defensiveness in coping
with criticism, which I noticed recently involving an incident with my brother who was just
diagnosed with cancer, and most of all becoming aware of certain culture issues as I mentioned

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Brief Personal Reflection Paper
earlier about correcting the colorblind awareness. It isn’t that I do not know about these differences
being an African American female. I just look at the individual and their issue and helping the clients
or members to overcome them to suit their personal or collective happiness. Some professional
weaknesses or dilemmas that I am striving to improve are my ability to active listen, reflect, question
and confront in a more natural, professional, and assertive manner. I am sure with more experience,
training, education, and confidence these will become second nature within my profession.
Upon deciding to pursue my Master’s in Professional Counseling, which is something I am
blindly passionate about, I had many concerns. Confident that I could actually visualize myself
working in an organization and eventually my own private practice, and very successful, I might add,
there were also doubts. This course is actually my fifth course and with each course, there were
sections that I felt unsure of, but trudging through it with courage, my fears eventually became more
tolerable and workable. I began looking over my past experiences such as sobering up, getting a job,
going back to school, for instance and how those fears, doubts, and frustrations became
accomplishments. At fifty-two I am learning to look at life from a different angle and confidence is
something I learn as I go on and pursue my dreams and goals realistically. My greatest confidence in
the goal of leading groups is that someone will leave the group with a renewed spirit and confidence
to pursue their ultimate goal(s) in life. And my lack of confidence regarding facilitating a group is
that I learn to be okay with criticism from the group experience.
The types of groups that I would enjoy facilitating are many: from task groups that raise moral
and production rates in a company or organization, to helping patients in a skilled nursing center. I
like watching a person going through a mental, physical or some kind of challenge, find the courage,

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Brief Personal Reflection Paper
confidence, and answer to their struggle and watch as the frown or gloom turn into a comfort,
magical, happy smile, sigh of relief, or baggage that has been lifted off of them, and look ten years
lighter.
In conclusion, group leaders or counselors may have their work cut out for them or they may
experience a rewarding and prosperous future in the industry. At some point a counselor may be
asked to lead a group or even thrusted into the process at one point. Having the knowledge, skills, and
courage to facilitate and lead a group can be the difference between a successful outcome and
complete disaster. As an aspiring student in the professional counseling field, this course can prepare
one for the ins and outs associated with leading a group. Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses,
the group process, how to design, facilitate, and terminate a group prepares students for what to
expect if given the opportunity to conduct a group arises.
References
Corey, M. S., Corey, G, Corey, C. (2010). Groups: Process and Practice Eight Edition. Cengage
Learning. Introduction: Part I and Chapter 2. Retrieved July 8, 2015.