WEEK ONE
This lecture covers chapter one of the Okun book, the Introduction of the Small book and Toxic Relating of the Small book.
Welcome to Psychology and Sociology 15, Introduction to Guidance and Counseling. My masters degree is in counseling and guidance, but it is a field that I sort of ‘fell into.’ I explain this further in the section "About the Instructor." This is a field that I have a great amount of interest in and hope to convey that through the lectures. Although the information will be lecture style, I write my lectures as if I am talking to the class, and I hope this makes it more enjoyable and easier to understand.
Your book is one source you can use to understand counseling
and guidance. I will take my lectures from the two required books, but mostly I will pull in
information from other sources. You will be tested on information from the books
and from lectures. I will not lecture on everything that is in your text because
that would be redundant. I will cover some things that I feel are important, but
I will leave other things for you to read on your own.
Effective Helping
Chapter one introduces the human relations counseling model in the context of the 21st century. Changes that have occurred in our society and the helping professions is described. Particular attention is paid to the process of helping an increasingly multicultural population, the setting in which counseling is conducted, and the current political, socicultural, and economic factors impacting service delivery. The increasing pressures on individuals and families as a result of societal change are elaborated, as is the accompanying need fore more human services. The ecological model, which examines the reciprocal influences of individuals, their families, and the larger systems in which they are embedded, is presented as a framework for understanding the impact of these interrelated influences on helpers and helpees.
Let's stop here for a minute and review a few key terms:
1. ecological model-numerous models have evolved over time which seek to explain the individual in relation to society. The ecological model is just one of these models. In this model the individual is vied as an element of the primary system, which is an element in a larger system. To understand the individual, a person would need to understand the the larger system as well.
2. Who are helpers? A helper is anyone who assists others to understand, overcome, or deal with external or internal problems. This can be a professional counselor or therapist, but can also be a teacher, social worker, parent, friend, sibling, coworker, just about anyone who assists another person. So in that sense, we are all helpers in one way or another. This is one reason these books are so wonderful; you can begin using it in your life today!!
3. Who are helpees? The people being helped. Has anyone every helped you? Most likely, yes. So, in that sense, we are all helpees too!
There is another model discussed in this book.
The human relations counseling model can facilitate professional, generalist and
nonprofessional human service workers to become more self aware in order to
build their own healthy interpersonal relationships so that they can be more
effective as helpers. This model has three equally important and interdependent
dimensions:
A. A two stage process: 1. relationship building and 2. strategy planning and
implementation.
B. The use of effective communication skills used to accomplish the task of the
first two stages
C. This dimension discusses issues effecting the helper and the helping process,
such as personal values, ethical considerations, and strategies of empowerment,
change agentry, and advocacy.
The major purpose of counseling is to assist people with normal developmental concerns. Normal conflict arises when individuals have difficulty fulfilling both their own needs and the expectations of others and of society. Conflict may arise because of contradictions regarding a person’s motivations, attitudes, or feelings. People may have mixed feelings about decisions they are making in their life. Conflict may arise between individuals and important persons in their lives. Financial problems or illness may also be sources of conflict. These are examples of normal developmental concerns that counselors help individuals work through. These transitions and situational conflicts are one reason for the increase demand for counseling services.
Another reason for the increase in counseling services is because of the growing numbers of reported cases of child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and substance abuse. Many persons from dysfunctional families need counseling and support services. Unless victims of abuse and their families get help and learn more constructive ways of relating to each other, they tend to perpetuate the abuse.
The primary role of a counselor is counseling individuals, groups, or families regarding personal, interpersonal, or career concerns. Counselors are also involved in outreach and educational programs, in assessment and diagnosis, and in crisis intervention. The services provided by counselors are voluntary, confidential, and they focus on the developmental, situational problems of persons of all ages and of various multicultural backgrounds.
Some say that the demand for counseling
services has increased rapidly because people are experiencing more conflicts in
their everyday lives as a result of escalating social, economic and cultural
pressures and upheavals. While I feel this is true to a certain extent, I feel
that the increased demand for counseling is also because it is more accepted
today. People are more open with other people, family, friends, coworkers, about
problems they are having. They are also more willing to seek help in resolving
normal everyday conflicts. For example, about nine years ago I was a year
into my marriage and my husband and I were seeing a counselor for problems we
were having in our marriage. I mentioned this to my grandmother, who was
in her seventies at the time, and she said, "In my day we didn't see anyone else
for problems we were having. We worked it out ourselves!" I said, "Oh,
Grandma, everyone needs a good counseling session once in a while!" My
Grandmother wasn't very accepting of talking to others about personal problems.
Counseling and psychotherapy are more common these days and defiantly more
accepted.
This course is aimed at giving you a brief introduction to counseling. I realize
that not all of you will go into the human services field. Nevertheless, this
course can be very effective for you. Every person is involved to some degree
with other people. You may work with them, go to school with them, live with
them, take care of them, whatever. These two books and activities that we will
do in this online class will help you to become more self-aware which will
increase your ability to build better relationships with others. Skills will be
taught that will help to you become a more effective helper in whatever capacity
YOU decide to use these skills.
Communication skills are a main topic of this course. There are many, many forms of communication. Ineffective communication is often at the root of most interpersonal difficulties. Effective communication is necessary and vital to develop and maintain positive interpersonal relationships. One reason written communication is often misunderstood today is because of the frequency of it. Does that sound a little strange? We use written communication so much, wouldn't we get more "practice" in it and do it better?? Think about the emails you write. Do you address them to someone or simply start writing? Do you proofread them for errors? Do you spell check them? Do you write in full, complete sentence or just, "Hey, s'up?" Do you "sign" your name to identify who you are or do you expect the person to know? Things to think about.
Professional helpers
Professional counseling is a process during which counselor
and client develop an effective relationship, one that enables the client to
work through difficulties. Counselors follow a human development perspective.
They believe that individuals go through stages of development throughout their
life spans. Often as clients go through a transition in their life
disequilibrium in attitudes and feelings is experienced. The process of
counseling emphasizes a clients strengths and potential for growth instead of
focusing on symptoms as pathologies or defects that must be eliminated or
prevented.
Professional counseling was developed in the 1940s as a reaction to the overemphasis by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers on pathology and mental illness. Counselors focused on the developmental needs of normal people, particularly during transition periods as they struggle with conflicts and anxieties of adjusting to new tasks or roles.
When counseling began in the 1940s and 1950s the main focal point was client situational problems, problems that affect clients’ optional functioning in colleges, schools, and workplaces. During the 1960s and 1970s, personal problems and self-growth movements were the focus of counseling. Recently, counselors are now considering the person’s well-being in context with his or her environment. The client’s relationship with others is also a primary consideration in the therapeutic process.
Professional counselors and counseling
psychologists
Professional counselors are similar to counseling
psychologists in that both are trained to attend to the normal developmental
conflicts of clients. How do they differ? They differ in their professional
identification and level of training. Professional counselors have masters
degrees or doctorates in counseling. Counseling psychologists have doctorates in
psychology with a specialty in counseling.
How counseling compares with psychotherapy
Counseling and psychotherapy generally differ in terms of
severity of the client’s problems. Counseling is generally short-term and
focuses more on situational problems of everyday life. Psychotherapy specializes
in more serious inner emotional problems that require more long-term therapy.
The two are often used interchangeably and often overlap.
Other mental health specialists
Other mental health specialists who offer counseling or
therapy services are clinical or psychiatric social workers, clinical
psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychiatric nurses, and school
psychologists. Schooling, licensure, and training differ for each of the
specialists. Special training for mental health counselors includes diagnostic
and evaluative skills, familiarity with entitlement programs, and knowledge of
psychotropic medication.
Where do professional counselors work?
The following descriptions of various work settings cover
first the traditional counseling services-schools, colleges, various public and
private community agencies including mental health clinics, and federal and
state counseling agencies. The second section features current trends in
community counseling.
School Settings
Secondary Schools
Counselors in this area are also trained to offer
individual and group counseling, consultation, classroom guidance, and
career planning activities. Yet, for the most part, they are often bogged
down in clerical duties and crisis intervention duties that leave
insufficient time for counseling. Because of the lack of preventative
counseling, crisis often occur.
Four-Year Colleges and Universities
Counselors in university and college counseling centers
are in the best position to apply their training to counseling clients with
normal developmental concerns. University counseling best
represents the model of developmental counseling recommended by ACA
(American Counseling Association). Yet short-term counseling is emphasized
which limits students to about 10 sessions.
Community Colleges
Counselors at the community college serve a wider range
of clients than do counselors at four-year colleges and universities.
Multicultural counseling is important in community colleges because of the
wide variety of students that attend these colleges.
Community-Based Mental Health Services-These agencies are unique in that their funding is dependent on state and/or local resources and whose administrative policies are determined locally. The following are some community-based mental health agencies.
A. Public Clinics and Agencies
B. Private, Nonprofit Clinics and Agencies
C. Private, For-profit Clinics and Agencies
D. Inpatient Residential Facilities
Federal and State Counseling Agencies-Federal and state agencies provide counseling in the following areas:
A. Federal and State Vocational Rehabilitation Services
B. Employment Offices
C. Correctional Facilities
Counseling in the Community: Current Trends-Counseling in the following areas has been gaining prominence.
A. Business and Industry
B. Community Career Centers
C. Managed Health Care Programs
D. Religious Organizations
E. Comprehensive Community Health Centers and Neighborhood Clinics
50% of clients do not return to counseling the second time.
Why is this? Most of the time it is because there is no connection. If counselors increase
their basic counseling skills the connection between
counselor and client will be increased. These basic skills are not just
something counselors can use, but a person could use in many aspects of his or
her life. For example, when communicating with friends, children, co-workers,
employers, or spouses, if you were to use some of the responses, the person
would feel that you understand the message they are sending. You would
communicate your understanding through your response. The responses are:
1. Paraphrase-With this response the therapist restates the content of what was said. This lets the client know that you are listening and understanding. It builds trust and also encourages the client to give more content. You may also use paraphrases when emotion is too premature. Example: The client says, "I just enrolled in college after not being in school for four years. I am working full time, I am involved in community comities, and am a single parent. I’m not sure I have time to accomplish all I want to do." The therapist would paraphrase the content by saying, "You have quiet a bit on your plate." Notice there is not an emotion word in the response.
2. Reflection-this is giving back emotion or an affective message. This also lets the client know you are listening and understanding and builds trust. This also helps the client to identify their emotions. You need a large list of affective words so that you can accurately communicate the feelings that the client is experiencing. The client can feel validated through accurate reflections. Example: To the message above from the client the therapist could reflect emotion by saying, "You feel overwhelmed by all of the ways you are being pulled, and this is compounded by the uncertainty you feel about returning to college." In my masters program we weren't allowed to use the "F" word. The "F" word in counseling is "frustrated." Too many times this word is used when it is a general word for many different feelings. It could mean crabby, distressed, divided, hassled, oppressed, mistreated, strained, uneasy, or angry.
3. Summarize-1-3 sentences that pull the session together. Just summarize the essence of that was said. This can be done at any time during the session. This is very useful with a client that talks a lot before pausing to allow the counselor to respond. If the client covers several topics at one time, the counselor can summarize by saying, "Let me see if I've got this right"... and then restate two or three things that the client said.
It will be very important as we go through this book for you to do the activities that are available in the book. One very effective activity is Exercise 1.2 on page 18. This will help you to clarify some of your values as related to helping. There are not any right or wrong answers as it all deals with your personal values, beliefs and preferences.
Please also carefully review the human relations counseling model that was discussed earlier. The remainder of the book is based in this model and it is important that you understand this model. When you look at the model in dimensional terms on page 23, it helps to put the model into a visual perspective. First look at the stages; relationship and strategies. With each of those stages, there are factors that are playing in the interactions. The skills of the counselor/helper and the issues of the counselor and client/helpee are always present. The success of the helping relationship is crucial to the mutual determination of appropriate goals and objectives. These can only be established once the relationship has been established. Then the strategies used by the counselor are implemented based on these goals and objectives. Sometimes strategies don't work and have to be reevaluated, thrown out, and new strategies implemented. This forces the counselor to have a wide variety of therapeutic approaches and strategies. It also forces the counselor to realize that he or she makes mistakes and that each client is very different.
Becoming Naturally Therapeutic
What a wonderful title! This book is aimed at
helping the average person become more of a helper and more effective in his or
her interactions with others. Please read the Introduction and Toxic Relating
for this week. When people listening to others with their heart rather than with
their brain, it has a much more healing effect and is more helpful to others.
People who have trained themselves to be helpful through education and degrees
often have lost the ability to listen with their heart and, therefore, are not
as effective and helpful as they could be.
Love is discussed as a choice that people make rather than an emotion that people feel. Somewhere in the history of the English language the expression “falling in love” began to be used to describe the sublime experience of finding someone to love. While it is a beautiful idiom, there is inherent risk involved in selecting the verb “fall” because it mostly means accidental, involuntary, with no choice involved. It has also led us to use the term “falling out of love” which is an all too common phrase heard these days when describing a failed relationship. It makes it sound as if love is something that cannot be controlled. Too many people believe that love is a condition, a feeling that involves 100 percent of the heart, something that happened TO you. People disassociate love from the mind and, therefore, from any choice.
Love is actually a decision. While a person may fall in love with someone by emotion, love progresses and grows by decision. Stephen R. Covey relates this experience: “At one seminar after I had spoken of the importance of demonstrating character within the family, a man came up and said, ‘I like what you are saying, just don’t have the same feelings for each other that we use to I guess we don’t love each other anymore. What can I do?’ ‘Love her,’ I replied. He looked puzzled. ‘How do you love when you don’t feel love?’ ‘My friend,’ I responded, ‘love is a verb. The feeling of love is the fruit of love. So love your wife. You did it once, you can do it again. Listen. Empathize. Appreciate. It’s your choice.’” You cannot ‘fall out of love’ because love is something you decide.
I am going to get sidetracked a little here just to give you a little more information about this topic. In the book The Five Love Languages, it also talks of love being a choice. If love is a choice, then couples have the capacity to love after the obsession has died, the honeymoon has ended, and they have returned to the real world. This kind of love begins with an attitude-a way of thinking. Love is an attitude that says, “I am married/partnered to or with you and I choose to look out for your interests.” The person who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision. So if love is simply a decision, how do we meet each other’s deep emotional need to feel loved? If we can learn that, and choose to do it, then the love we share will be exciting beyond anything we felt with infatuation.
Learning how to show love to another person is often like learning a new language. There a 5 love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
Words of Affirmation-verbal compliments, encouraging words, kind words, humble words. Example: A wife wanted her husband to paint their bedroom. The materials were purchased and the prep work done. Yet the husband hadn’t begun to actually paint. This was very irritating to the wife who was anxious to have her room back to normal. The more she nagged her husband, the more he resisted. She attended a seminar where the 5 love languages were being taught and decided to put the teaching into action. He husband’s love language was words of affirmation. The wife stopped nagging her husband about painting the room and begun to praise him for the work that he did complete. Two weeks later her bedroom was painted without her having to say another word.
Quality Time-Togetherness (focused attention), quality conversation, learning to talk, quality activities, meeting for lunch, going out in evening, playing games, walking, NOT TV. Many times a partner will feel love the most by the other partner just taking a few minutes to talk and listen.
Receiving Gifts-gifts are symbols of love. They can be purchased, made, or found. If you are a spender, you will have little difficulty purchasing gifts for your partner, but if you are a saver, you may experience emotional resistance to the idea of spending money as an expression of love. One thing here is the gift of self or presence. Physical presence in the time of crisis is the most powerful gift you can give if this is your partners love language.
Acts of Service-doing things you know your partner would like you to do. Cleaning house, cooking dinner, getting the car washed, are some examples and these need to be expressions of love, not done out of fear, guilt or resentment. If you manipulate by guilt, “If you were a good partner, you would do this,” or coerce by fear, “You do this or you will be sorry,” is NOT love. We must not allow ourselves to be used or manipulated. Some people may need to change their stereotypes about roles of men and women. There are no rewards for maintaining stereotypes, but there are tremendous benefits to meeting the emotional needs of your spouse.
Physical Touch-Many research projects have concluded that babies who are held, hugged, and kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact. Physical touch includes holding hands, hugging, kissing, sexual intercourse, back rubs, putting your hand on your partner's shoulder, etc. Many men assume physical touch is their love language because they frequently desire sex. For men, sex is physically based because their physical need (orgasm) is usually met. Thus it is not emotional-it is physical. For women sex is emotional. Most sexual problems in relationships have little to do with technique, but everything to do with emotional needs. Think about that as you think about your love language.
How do you find your love language? This can work in any relationship; spouse, sibling, parent-child, co-worker, friend, etc.
Meeting then need for love
in the relationships that you have is a choice that you make each day. If you
know their primary love language and choose to speak it, their deepest emotional
need will be met and they will feel secure in your love.
A complete opposite to meeting others emotional needs is toxic relating. In
toxic relating the listener/helper is acting out of his or her own unmet needs.
The helper sees his or herself as the healthy person trying to "save" the helpee.
In truth, we are all on our personal journey with our personal struggles and
issues that we have to face everyday. If we can admit to this, then we can step
back from ourselves and our imperfections and listen with empathy to another
person to help them with their needs, not seeking to get our needs fulfilled by
doing so.
Please complete assignments 1, journal
1, discussion question 1, and respond to the postings of two other
students.
Discussion Question One:
Over 50% of people do not return to counseling after the first visit. Why do you think this is? What qualities do you see as being the most important to the therapeutic relationship? Why do you see these as important?
(Your discussion posting should be at least two well-developed paragraphs of at least 100 words in each paragraph.) Remember to respond to at least two other students. Respond to their answer; do not just tell them your answer to the discussion question. Your posting to others should be at least one paragraph of 100 words.
Please submit Assignment One and Journal One below: