Syllabus: Spring, 2002

Instructor: Karen Prager

Office: GR 2.214

Office Hours: M 2:00-3:00 p.m.; F 11:30-12:30

Telephone: 972 883-2353

Web page: http://www.utdallas.edu/~kprager/index.html

1) To provide students with knowledge and practice in counseling strategy, process, skills, and ethics.

2) To help students understand the psychological sequelae of communication disorders for individual patients and their families.

Check my webpage periodically for course-related materials:

http://www.utdallas.edu/~kprager/index.html

1) Brammer, L.M., & MacDonald, G. (1996). The helping relationship: Process and skills (6th Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

2) Luterman, D.M. (1996). Counseling persons with communication disorders and their families (4th Ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

3) Kubler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. New York: Macmillon.

4) Packet of readings

5) Packet of articles

60% Final paper

25% Group presentation

15% Journals and class participation & attendance

Your journals are a confidential record of your experiences, impressions, and analyses of yourself, your fellow students, and your clients in your placements in counseling-type situations. Keep a weekly journal including your experiences in class and in your placement(s) of counseling-related experiences. Journal entries should be as detailed as possible because you will use them as data when writing your final paper. Include whom you (or a classmate) interacted with, when, where, under what circumstances, what was said & not said, and how you feel and think about it. Be as detailed as possible without revealing names of clients (to protect their confidentiality). You may also write about your experiences in class, particularly during roleplays and/or group discussions. Write about fellow students as well, and how you reacted to their efforts in roleplays or class discussions. Your journals will be graded only YES/NO (you either turned it in & got credit or you didn't), so feel free to speculate wildly on counseling process, on your own reactions, on why you think a particular encounter worked well or did not. Your journals are not the place to present yourself in a socially desirable light. They are for you to explore, in writing, what you are learning and experiencing as a counselor and as a person in counseling situations during the semester. Remember that what you learn about yourself is as important or more important than skills and techniques.

GRADE: Your journals are not graded for content. You are given credit for turning it in. Reasonably active class participation and consistent attendance merit an A for 15% of your grade.

You will have the opportunity to inform your classmates about a subject that is important for them to learn as counselors. You and your classmates will be broken down into small groups and asked to give a 40-45 minute group presentation.

Here are some topics that are very helpful for you to tell your fellow students about, and that have resulted in good presentations in the past. You are in no way limited to the topics on list, however! Let me know if you have ideas of topics you want to present that are not on the list.

**Marital discord, parenting, and children

**Anxiety and anxiety disorders

A good presentation should have some or all of the following characteristics:

1) Its objectives are clearly stated.

2) It is well-organized. For example, your fellow students are told what they will hear, then they hear it, then they are told what they just heard.

3) Your fellow students (and your instructor) receive a handout or two (with an outline, perhaps), and a bibliography.

4) Each member of the group contributes part of the presentation. However, the presentation must be clearly a group effort: four unrelated presentations, or presentations that overlap with one another, show poor teamwork.

5) There will be a 10 minute question and answer period following each presentation. Group members must be well enough informed about the subject to answer (some or most) questions.

6) Presentations do not have to be solely in lecture format. They can combine different formats, including demonstrations, skits, or roleplays, guided discussions with the class, demonstrative artwork, videos (for the ambitious), etc.

GRADE: Approximately 25% of final grade. The presentation will receive a single grade, given to each of the four or five people involved.

The purpose of the final paper is to integrate the material from your journal with the concepts in your books and discussed in class.

The paper should be 9-12 pages long, and have two parts (longer is not necessarily better).

PART I:

A. In the first part, talk about your own growth as a professional and a counselor.

For example, you may:

**discuss what you have learned about yourself and how your own behavior/skills have been changed or enchanced.

**discuss what you have learned about how you come across to others and about your strengths and vulnerabilities in a helping relationship.

**discuss when you are most effective, and when you are likely to be less effective

B. Show how one or more of the topics we discussed in class can help you and your reader make sense out of you and any changes you have experienced or new things you have learned. I suggest (but do not insist!) that you draw on one or more of the following topics:

**Brammer & MacDonald’s model of change through the helping process

**Any of the counseling skills we practice and their impact on personal growth or relationships

**Our discussion of affect and why it is important to respond to it constructively

**Our discussion of structuring and boundary setting and their importance in relationships

**Brammer’s and MacDonald’s model of crisis intervention and problem-solving

**Kubler-Ross’ stages of loss and grief

**Our discussion of families and their important role in shaping individual coping efforts

**and so forth, including any other issue or topic that comes up that strikes a note for you.

PART II:

A. In the second part, discuss one or two of your clients or fellow students and describe their growth and change. Use the same format as above: discuss some way that you have learned to understand that person or observed their growth and change that is derived from one of the topics discussed in class (listed above).

B. Example questions to consider when writing this part:

What was going on with that person, and how did a counseling process assist them?

What was effective or helpful or not?

If a fellow student, how was that person effective? How could she/he have been more effective?

The paper may be turned in in 2 parts during the semester or all at once on the due date (depending on when you want feedback).

Be sure and sum up the main points of your paper at the end (you’ll dothis twice if you turn it in in two parts).

GRADE: Approximately 60% of final grade.