World view of rehabilitation counseling

✍ Scribed by William M. Usdane

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 349 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0165-0653
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00115458

✦ Synopsis

Clearly the next decade will be a time of change and challenge. From their long history of useful service and continued growth, it seems reasonable to expect that rehabilitation counselors will cope with the new realities and accept the challenges to grow and improve their capacities. Leadership to promote positive community change and a strong advocacy for client rights will be among the rehabilitation counselor's privileges and responsibilities.

Worldwide, and as a challenge to a society in change, there is an exciting future in rehabilitation for the rehabilitation counselor.

A world view of rehabilitation counseling is far too demanding a task to undertake before all of you without noting that cultural differences, varied legislation, and a historic background of services for the disabled combine to delimit greatly whatever will be said about the counseling process with the handicapped. For it is the handicapped individual upon whom we focuswithout a total understanding and emphasis upon the expectations of the individual, there can be little counseling, and definitely very little rehabilitation counseling.

Perhaps it might be stated at the outset that disabled individuals in study after study have expressed very similar expectations of how rehabilitation counseling might benefit them. The outcome of a study by Diller (1959) is representative. Diller (1959) found that almost every patient expressed a wish for a return to physical normality or a desire to acquire motor skills. Almost one half of the group expressed a wish to be helped in regard to a vocational problem. Less than ten percent expressed a wish for freedom from worry or tension as a primary goal.

These findings from a world view of rehabilitation counseling are probably