Share Your Thoughts

ACA would like to know how your career path led you to the noble profession of counseling. This month's topic asks readers to share the path that led them to being a professional counselor. See what your colleagues and others say, and then feel free to post your thoughts as well.

Please tell us your story, and your comments will be posted to the section below as we receive responses.

In your own words:

My path to counseling came indirectly. I never set out to be a counselor. In my mind I was going to be a lawyer. It wasn't until I was seeing a counselor to deal with my fathers death, that I thought I might like to do what the therapist was doing. I wondered if I could be able to sit in a chair and listen to peoples problems. Shortly afterwards I received a job offer to work for the Missouri Division of Youth Services, and began counseling teenagers one on one. Suddenly it seemed like a whole new world was opening up to me. I loved what I was doing,and then I decided to enroll in the professional counseling program at Lindenwood University. I have now graduated and am working in Paducah Kentucky for a counseling agency and love what I do. I hope someday, I might have the opportunity to teach what I've learned to others.
- Brian Ouellette

In 2002 I graduated from college with a Bachelor's Degree in Paralegal Studies and began my career as a paralegal in a small local law firm. My career goal was to help bridge the gap between attorney and client, to bring a sense of compassion and understanding to the practice of law, while advocating for those who could not advocate for themselves. Four years and two law firms later I realized that my chosen career was not furthering my ultimate life goal of helping others in their time of need. I took a look at my life and realized that I could not fulfill my lifes dream through my chosen career path, a difficult truth to face. I separated myself from the firm I was working for, and took a paycut to work at the local high school in the counseling department. One year later, and with the encouragement of a school counselor, I applied to graduate school in an effort to pursue my Master's Degree in Educational Psychology. While I know that I will never have the earning potential as a school counselor that I had as a paralegal, I recognize that at the end of each day I spend as a school counselor I will have touched the life of someone, and that influence will continue to encourage them long after I depart this life. In essence, my life goal will continue to shape this world long after I am no longer "physically" here.
- Franciene Sabens

I'm 51 and just got my GED last June. I now have 10 classes toward my degree in counseling. I want to do a lot of volunteer services in my neighborhood. I have several friends or acquaintences who have trouble handling their problems and can't afford a counselor. As insurance goes up, fewer prople will be able to afford insurance so fewer people will have access to counseling. That's where I come in at -- "with Gods help of course"
- Patricia Jackson

It seems very easy for me to figure out why I am going down the path that I am at this time in my life.? I am 60 years old and loving every minute of my master's classes in Community Counseling.? I have a minor in psychology dating from 1972 and the human mind has always fascinated me.? However there is something much more involved with my choosing this path right now.? I have had a lot of issues in my life, too many to go into right now.? These issues have placed me in counseling situations as the client most of my life.? I have had to figure myself out basically.? Because of this background, I have become a great listener, a person who really does sincerely like people, in all their ways, and I really do want to help people live better, fuller, richer lives. I have also discovered just in attending the few classes I have so far, my story is not such a unique one.? It seems the more I hear stories of other classmates, the more I realize that a lot of future and past counselors also have a lot of issues that they had to deal with in their lives, and in so doing they figured out how to cope and balance, and would like to help others do the same.? Afterall the great fathers of counseling and psychoanalysis developed their own therapies and theories through trying to cope with their own issues and with those of their clients who came to see them as medical doctors.
- Judith Schechter

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