Discussion: Overcoming Challenges to Working With Life

Contextualize these issues within your professional practice, and think about how your experience might impact your work with clients. Consider whether there are issues you might find challenging to work with because of your personal history, values, or beliefs, and then reflect on how you might address these challenges.
For this Discussion, you will examine your personal experiences and the challenges you might encounter when working with life transition and developmental issues as a couple and family practitioner.
By Day 4
Post a brief description of the life transition or developmental issue you find most challenging to work with and explain why this issue is challenging for you. Then, explain professional development steps you might take to overcome this challenge.
Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the resources.
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
By Day 6
Respond to two of your colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways:
Ask a probing question.
Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
Offer and support an opinion.
Make a suggestion.
Expand on your colleague’s postingColleague 1: Khalila Post a brief description of the life transition or developmental issue you find most challenging to work with and explain why this issue is challenging for you. I find working with stepfamilies composed of adolescent children as the most challenging life transition issue. I come from a blended family. Both my parents remarried when I was 11 years old. My older brother and I lived with our mother and visited our father every other weekend. Prior to my mother remarrying my stepfather, I was accustomed to our family structure and dynami. I did not take the news of my mother remarrying well. My stepfather and I developed a healthy relationship. It was not until my teenage years where we began to experience challenges in our relationship. There were problems regarding boundaries. During these years, my mother and I also had problems within our relationship. She would confine in her husband, and I felt as though she broke our trust. My mother and I participated in a mother-daughter therapy session to improve our relationship. Considering my personal experiences, stepfamilies can be challenging for various reasons. These reasons include a stepparent joining a family with a system already established, the stepparent being an outsider, children having trouble adjusting to change, and the step couple developing a healthy relationship (Gurman, Lebow