Post #9

10/29/12

I was happy to see that there were sections in chapter six devoted to counseling individuals with disabilities and mental illnesses. As a TSS, I work with children and adolescents on the Autism spectrum, and it’s my job to get to know my clients, capitalize on their strengths, help them improve their weaknesses, and live their lives to the fullest extent possible. It is exhausting, but rewarding work. However, I know that despite the academic and social progress they make in school, many of the clients I have interacted with over the years will not be able to have their own full-time jobs when they reach adulthood due to the limitations of their disorders: they may only be able to attain factory-type jobs where they’d be doing one simple task, or a few, at a time, over and over again, or they may be able to do some type of clerical work, or things like that.

Brown (2012) noted that, “people with mental health problems are likely to experience multiple failures and lower occupational status than they would have achieved without the illness” (p. 122). Even if these individuals do manage to get jobs, many of them will need full-time care and supervision, never being able to live completely independently. It’s incredible the amount of obstacles that these people face on a day to day basis, and it breaks my heart that after how hard these children have to work their whole lives to achieve many small milestones that we tend to take for granted, they will still face insurmountable obstacles in moving forward in a career path.

It’s good to know that these individuals are not necessarily going to be lost in the shuffle of growing up, going to college, and getting a job; I think career counseling has never been more important than it is for individuals with disabilities and/or mental health disorders; just like everyone else, these individuals need help assessing their abilities and interests to find the right direction for a career, but for these individuals who need so much extra care and assistance just to get through daily living tasks, career counseling could do so much to help improve their lifestyles. Because effective career counselors really take the time and effort to make sure that each of their clients (including those with special needs) are guided toward a career path that suits them best based on their skill levels, in addition to their physical abilities and interests, I believe that individuals with special needs (especially those with disabilities and/or mental illnesses) can really benefit from career counseling and need to be given the opportunity to experience it.

Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.