A personal theory of counseling Robert G. Sanderson, Study notes of Career Counseling

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A PERSONAL THEORY OF COUNSELING ROBERT G. SANDERSON INTRODUCTION It so happens that my lifestyle is inextricably interwined with deafness and deaf people, personally, socially and professionally. Hence, I feel most comfortable in undertaking the task of writing a personal theory of counseling and in limiting it to the area in which I function. i. THE NATURE OF MAN I believe that man is a rational being who, given sufficient information about his own psychological, sociological, cultural, biological (that is, total environmental) development, will be able to make those choices which will enable him to achieve a satisfactory adjustment. A man may guide his own destiny only to the extent that he is conscious of the forces and controls at work upon his life, and resists them with determination to achieve a goal in opposition to those forces. His brain is capable of learning new behavior, of in- dependent thought, of intuitive “leaps to new levels” which cannot be ascribed directly to leamed behavior. I believe that if man does not have the perception to understand himself, then he will be easily manipulated and his behavior controlled by the dominant forces in his life. I believe that people who are handicapped by deafness develop certain perceptual differences. That is, they perceive the world Mr. Sanderson is a vocational rehabilitation. counselor for the State of Utah, 22