What I’m against:

Having women be told they should get a job as a secretary or teacher simply because they’re female.

Telling someone with a TBI / traumatic brain injury that he can only work as a janitor or custodian.

My OVR counselor at the state agency for individuals with disabilities right off the bat told me I could go to school to be an elementary school teacher.

Nope. I didn’t ever want to do that even when I obtained my B.A. in English in two years before I met her. Nope.

Luckily I convinced her that I could work in an office.

The true career counseling I received was in the summer of 1996 when I met a therapist who turned out to also be a career coach. I told him I was in danger of losing yet another office job and he gave me practical vocational assessment.

This therapist I saw only five times yet he is the one who told me that I’d be good having a job as a librarian.

From this experience I always wanted to help peers find their right livelihood and find the jobs that would be a good fit with their personality and gifts and talents.

People I’ve created resumes for have gotten job interviews that lead to job offers.

What I’m for:

Using personality assessment tools to help a person discover a better career option.

Goal-focused and time-sensitive and practical rehabilitation methods that give peers real-life skills to succeed in society.

Not having to rely on the services of a community mental health system where the staff reinforce that no one can recover:

If they got into this field to help people why does it seem those staff don’t care about whether they can help us recover? Why don’t they even try to help us recover? Are they satisfied to spin their wheels not going anywhere?

I will search in my computer archives for two news articles I wrote at HealthCentral to see if I can repurpose them here. The articles focused on social skills training and cognitive remediation.

Stay tuned because in September I will return to a focus on employment..