My philosophy of counseling lies in the belief that people are capable of putting in the effort required to realize their full potential and bring about positive changes in their lives. As a person-centered school counselor I believe in developing relationships with students, families, administrators, teachers, staff, and community partners to promote a powerful way of being and relating in the world to promote growth, change, and healing.

There are three key qualities

1. Unconditional Positive Regard: unconditional positive regard is an important practice for the person-centered counselor. The counselor needs to accept the student for who they are and provide support and care no matter what they are going through.
   

2. Genuineness: a person-centered counselor needs to feel comfortable sharing his or her feelings with the student. Not only will this contribute to a healthy and open relationship between the counselor and student, but it also provides the student with a model of good communication and shows the student that it’s okay to be vulnerable.
   

3. Empathetic Understanding: the person-centered counselor must extend empathy to the client, both to form a positive relationship and to act as a sort of mirror, reflecting the student's thoughts and feelings back to them; this will allow the student to better understand themselves.

Other therapies I favor include:

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) can help children to reframe how they identify, interpret and evaluate their emotional and behavioral reactions to negative experiences.

Realizing that emotions and behaviors can be regulated and managed is empowering and can lead to improvements in self-control, emotion regulation, coping skills, and emotional awareness during this critical developmental stage.