Reflection Paper- Amber Helm PDF

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Michael Arnold COM 311 February 20, 2018 Reflection Paper: Amber Helme I was very happy to have had Dr. Helme come speak to us because I have spoken to and listen to many doctors and physicians, but I had never really had any interactions with a counselor. It was extremely enlightening to get a glimpse of what it is like to be a counselor and I certainly have a greater deal of respect for those in the profession. Being a counselor does not sound like a very strenuous or arduous profession, but after hearing Dr. Helme speak, it is clear that there is much more to it than one would think. The first major story that I really connected with that Dr. Helme brought up was the story about the woman who committed suicide by jumping in front of a car. I had a family friend who was only a year older than I who committed suicide last year. She was a teen mom, dropped out of college, but still had support from her family. When she committed suicide, it hit her family extremely hard and must have very difficult to deal with. Her family couldn’t help but think that they could have done something to stop her and still think that to this day. Both of her parents have been seeing counsellors to try and deal with the situation and have been much better since. After hearing Dr. Helme speak, I can tell that seeing patients who deal with deaths of loved ones (or in her story the person that hit the woman with the car) is just as difficult on the counselor as it is on the person being counselled. I could tell that there have been hundreds of cases and patients who had stories that have broken Dr. Helme’s heart. It’s hard not to have your heart broken when listening to some people’s tragic stories though. It was just very

apparent that being a counselor for people is a very gut-wrenching profession because you have to hear tragic stories over and over again, and then help the patient recover from that tragedy. Another story that Dr. Helme brought up that I found very interesting was how she moves from one patient to the next. She mentioned always washing her hands before seeing her next patient in order to cleanse from her previous patient’s session. I found this to be a really cool way of handling how to forget about her previous session because I feel like it would be extremely difficult to go from patient to patient without having lingering thoughts about someone else’s story. I agree that it is very important to have some sort of method of cleansing in order to start fresh with each new patient and I found her washing her hands to be a very interesting method for this. One of my main questions for her concerned how she deals with patients that she doesn’t really relate to. I completely agreed with her answer about just finding some common ground, even if unrelated or irrelevant. I feel like this is very important because it gives a base for a relationship to grow. If she shared the same favorite color with someone that is a better base for a relationship than having no base whatsoever. I work in a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician and I feel like this is a really effective technique especially when a patient doesn’t seem satisfied. I try and find something I like about them and compliment them or strike up a conversation to make them feel like I’m there for them and actually care about them. I feel like it is just really important to have strong relationships with people that you serve and try to help in order to gain their trust and to help facilitate a smooth transition for them in their time of need.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed hearing Dr. Helme speak about her life as a counselor. I think that she works in a very interesting profession that is clearly much more stress filled and emotional than I had previously thought....