The study started from a question about the life of a professional school counselor while sharing fellow counsellors’ stories on how they performed their job, and intending to looking forward to their identity during continued art therapy counsellin...
The study started from a question about the life of a professional school counselor while sharing fellow counsellors’ stories on how they performed their job, and intending to looking forward to their identity during continued art therapy counselling.
According to the purpose of the study and to find the identity, the researcher used an ontological inquiry method, and this method pursued to achieve the fundamental significance of the inquiry by self-questioning and answering process. Thus, the researcher unfolded the life story of how they became a counsellor by narrative style and reviewed the researcher’s past life with sharing fellow teachers’ confusions and conflicts they experienced in school. Then, the researcher selected three professional counselors and applied three individual interviews in depth and performed art works. In addition, this inquiry preceded to find common themes from their conflicts and confusions .
In result, the study could find common significance and themes in the process so called ‘completion’ process which explore their identity as follows. First, these counselors stepped in ‘the position of professional school counsellor with expectations of a teacher’. They became counselling teachers with a hope of a stable job and worthy showing worth by communicating with students. Second, this expectancy turned to ‘confusion and burden“. Excessive official workload steadily estranged their counselling works from students, and they felt burdened to communicate with students by purporting counselling performances. Third, in these conflicts and confusions, they decided to take the course of ’the art therapy to find therapist’s identity’. Reasons for the decision were that teachers keenly realized the limitation of verbal counselling, students were less defensive against the art therapy, and it might be effective to express their inner minds with nonverbal way by adapting friendly media. Fourth, the art therapy resulted in counselor’s fruitful life and functioned as an intervention to communicate with students. Fifth, students were ‘the most important subjects and energy’ to school counselors. Counselors desired to improve their professionalism and learnt with passion for educating their students better. During this course, they found their identity and their significance as school counselors.
While composing such stories, the researcher found some significances as follows. First, the inquiry provided the researcher an opportunity to share stories about conflicts and confusion they experienced as a counsellor and to review the position of a professional school counsellor and art therapist. The research recognized the need of ‘self-comprehension and self-care’ to advance to a professional counsellor. Second, the teachers tried to listen to their inner voices to find an answer to their identity that brought conflicts and confusion. At that moment, the therapy not only worked as a communicational intervention with students, but also allowed their reinforcement of professionalism and inner growth. After all, they found their identity in the course of relating with their participants. Third, the counselors passionately lived with a strong motivation of self administering and learning. The school counselors focused on becoming ‘well supporting’ and ‘professionally skilled' counselors for participants.
Through this study, the researcher could qualitatively explore how these school counselors represented their experiences and activities in their identities and improved their abilities professionally. The way of improving the researcher’s professionalism of counselors worked as a way of finding identity and the researcher could receive answer on how to live as a professional school counselor through the study. Also, the researcher acknowledged that life is on the course of ‘completion’ and it is required to live truthfully and faithfully in every moment with the recognition of one’s life role.