Monday, November 19, 2012

The Source Counseling for SLPs

Today we are excited to have a guest blogger Dr. Hope Reed! She is one of my former graduate professors, so I can personally attest to the fact that she is not only a great SLP, but also a professional who really knows her subject matter! We have asked her to share about her book The Source for Counseling for SLPs. Counseling is a subject that can be easily overlooked yet it is crucial to our profession. How have you incorporated counseling into your practice?
 
Hello, fellow SLPs and SLPs-to be (AKA CSD students)!
I have been asked to participate in this blog and share my knowledge regarding the evidence-based topic of counseling patients/students and their caregivers. I am passionate about counseling! I believe that if we take care of caregivers (i.e., parents, spouses, and so forth) that we better care for our patients/students, too. Neidecker and Blosser (1993, p. 247) stated it best, in my opinion: “Without counseling, therapy alone would be ineffective.” Speech-language pathology is a science, or WHAT we do. However, great clinicians have also figured out something else…that there is also an art to what we do, or HOW we do it, and that is counseling.
Picture from www.linguisystems.com
 

My experiences with counseling began when I was an undergraduate student at Alabama A & M University, as I was required (and gladly so) to take a course entitled Counseling Parents of Exceptional Children during my senior year. I went on to work in the public schools and home health care and found those to be “rich” territories for counseling. A requirement at the end of my doctoral program at Nova Southeastern University was to complete a counseling course, as well with the late Dr. Larry Bloom. My happiest moments and greatest successes, professionally, are direct results of my knowledge and grasp of the importance of counseling, meaning that I not only must attend to my patients’ communicative, cognitive, and swallowing needs, but I should and must also address their emotional needs and those of their caregivers. I must balance doing so without sacrificing my own mental health and happiness in the process (i.e., suffering from burn-out, assuming/taking on the problems of others as my own, and learning that what I do for a profession is NOT who I am as a person).

There is a great demand for more information about counseling in our field, and LinguiSystems (LS) recognized this fact several years ago. I have published an ASHA-approved online continuing education course as well as a guide about counseling (both are free, available from the LS Website in their FREE for YOU section). These items became so popular that LS then asked me to write a full book (also available on CD), published in fall, 2011: The SOURCE for Counseling for SLPs. The link to this product is provided below, and there, you will find a product demo and other information.  http://www.linguisystems.com/products/product/display?itemid=10690

I invite you to learn more about counseling, knowledge that will help you to be a better clinician, no matter your work setting or patient/student population!
Picture and biography from www.aamu.edu
Biography:
 Dr. Hope Reed earned her doctorate in speech-language pathology from Nova Southeastern University and her masters in speech-language pathology and bachelors in special education/speech-language pathology from Alabama A&M University. Dr. Reed is an Associate Professor and has served the program since 2002. She teaches child language, counseling, and methods/materials coursework. Dr. Reed is the only Certified Orofacial Myologist in Alabama and operates the world’s first university-based clinic for children and adults with orofacial myofunctional disorders. Her research encompassing counseling patients with communication and swallowing disorders and their caregivers, health literacy, and minority success in higher education has culminated in the publication of numerous books and articles. Dr. Reed is frequently invited to present at state speech and hearing conventions on the topics of counseling and PRAXIS passage.
 


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