My experience as a Counselor & psychotherapist has exposed me to the uncontroversial fact that everyone has their life challenges & may at some point, need help to be able to cope & carrying on with life…Pastors, Parents, friends, Elders, Bosses , colleagues & much more , erroneously carry out the role as counselors instead of advisers.. This is more evident with marriage, family& Relationship issues… Everyone seems to have answers without knowledge of the system within which these operate….
Despite Having attended prior courses which exposed me to basic counseling , pastoral counseling and counseling theories & methods, my experience with the institute of counseling in Nigeria ( ICN) is much broader and makes me exhibit a lot more confidence professionally.. It has exposed me to deeper study, research and practice especially through my responses to the very rich Case Studies, Examinations & Self test exercises…My Initial Apprehension of settling for an ONLINE PROGRAM , as I don’t live in Lagos & since I couldn’t fathom how an ONLINE PROGRAM will work out in Nigeria, has all been put to rest leaving me fulfilled and grounded for practice…..
I started out as a Pastoral counselor & had all natural groups attend my sessions , by this I mean youths, elders, men, women, singles, married etc. One thing I noticed in the course of this was the effortless ways God led me to handle their cases having them return with testimonies to God’s glory…..of course I had some major failures which made me challenge myself to know why we failed…This made me seek more knowledge…something within me just wasn’t satisfied as I needed more expertise which I found Online with ICN after going through their very rich curriculum .. It has happened to be my wisest professional decision as this is already yielding better results both pastorally and professionally…….
Going further to take a Diploma in Marriage, family & Relationships counseling is another feather to my cap.. My approach to handling these issues has completely changed. -Valerie Audu (This write-up is an excerpt from Valerie’s Counseling System Progress Report CSPR, one of the prerequisite for graduation at the Institute of Counseling in Nigeria).
