Self-Transcendence: Maslow for the 21st Century

Counseling Session #1, Part I

Client: You know, Pledge. I’ve got to ask you. As a mental health counselor, why can’t your professional peers voice the pain and frustrations of so many like myself? I wake up every morning and don’t know whether I will be faced with the death of or an epic struggle with the war veteran I assist with day-to-day activities, which include some serious talks about reasons to live, and how to thrive in the face of so many psychological traumas endured on the war front and upon returning home to the callousness of public officials who refuse to budget benefits for those of us who sacrificed the unimaginable horrors that many of our fellow military and civilian brothers and sisters did not get the chance to survive.  

Pledge Tones: You bring up an important concern about mental health professionals not appearing enough in public to address psychological trauma and the long-term effects of humanity’s bravest having to soldier physical and mental wounds silently, the scars not having set in when added stressors like the lack of means to subsist in society with one’s dignity and integrity due to politics on Capitol Hill drive one to the extremes of reconsidering the calculus of life and death altogether with uncertainty.

Client: I have to also say that it frustrates me when people in your profession look down upon the general public. I mean, I’ve been in therapy many times where I’ve felt as if I was being told nonsense clichés like how people have enough on their plates to really care about what’s on mine and therefore I should reprogram me to keep myself focused on my appetite, or that redundant serenity prayer that your colleagues recommend incessantly- God give the strength to accept the things I can’t change and the courage to change the things I can before concluding, of course, with the wisdom to know the difference between those two scenarios.

Pledge Tones: I agree. You’ve just about had it with the repetitiousness, haven’t you?

Client: Of course! There’s got to be some way to subdue the egos of counselors, don’t you think?

Pledge Tones: There is the theory of paraprofessional intervention that surfaced in family therapy techniques in the 1970s, but was abandoned by therapists almost immediately and has been rejected by some state chapters of the National Association of Social Workers even into today, particularly in Texas. As you described your role in the life of the war veteran you assist, I was reminded of an article I read a decade ago that addressed how the nursing profession had embraced a new model of intervening on behalf of clients by recruiting and training paraprofessionals to fill positions otherwise occupied by professionally trained registered nurses who now are able to oversee community wide management of social projects based in neighborhoods where the disenfranchised remain isolated and unaddressed.

Client: Could I be considered a paraprofessional in Texas? If not Texas, then where else would I qualify? Would my war veteran friend be better served elsewhere and where would that be? Even I know that the United States Congress is overreaching its constitutional parameters! Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell think they can maneuver around established protocols because “the American people overwhelmingly voted for the Republican Party” in last year’s elections, as the GOP and likeminded Democrats have wanted to lead US to believe while they collect money right and left through powerbrokers and peddlers for nineteenth century infrastructure at home and policies abroad. Look at Fort Worth, Texas! We’ve got highways that our local officials advertised as a move forward for all Tarrant County residents with promises of rebuilding downtown into another San Antonio-like tourist attraction. The highways are extensive but expensive because there are toll rates involved, the result being the roads and projects essentially go unused.

Pledge Tones: Bureaucracies need to embrace multifaceted models, meaning that case aides, student interns, community workers, and volunteers must be valued as brokers in the helping professions in this new millennium alongside the licensed and degreed. In fact, the case aides, student interns, community workers, and volunteers like you could bring down the costs incurred by care facilities and the resulting credit could go towards financing and training paraprofessionals such as yourself to obtain licensure and perhaps even a degree on a part-time basis. There is a chronic shortage of allied health care professionals like social workers and counselors.  

Client: Sounds like those who are licensed and degreed fear that paraprofessionals will lead to their being shortchanged in some way. Doesn’t it sound like the professionals are insecure? I think so. Hey! Pledge! Why aren’t you afraid of clients like me putting you on the spot with questions that obviously must require thought outside of the usual rut? Is it the Proust questionnaire that you had me fill out along with the customary forms? I don’t like bureaucracies myself and think the Progressive Democrats and Secretary of State John Kerry must attend Congress two weeks from tomorrow when Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu addresses the United States Congress. In fact, I think they should design very specific questions for the Israeli Prime Minister to answer upon concluding his speech. What do you think?

Pledge Tones: I agree with you. Just like the need for paraprofessionals in the helping professions is a necessity today due to the way we have evolved and grown as a world, those GOP and likeminded Democrats that you mentioned earlier are overreaching their constitutional parameters but need to be herded back into their unilateral packs by the multilateral Progressive Caucus and the Democrats and Independents who are aligned with the President of the United States and his cabinet.

Client: Speaker John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell appear to have not settled their inflated egos, have they? I seriously think they and their neoconservative cohort have harassed Benjamin Netanyahu by declaring an early neoconservative win in the 2016 presidential election. The GOP and likeminded Democrats know the playbook finances of the 2016 Elections like New England Patriots’ Quarterback Tom Brady knew the Seattle Seahawks’ blueprints beforehand to instruct that final winning play upset by fellow New Englander Malcolm Butler. (To be continued…)