Beginners Guide to Counseling
Stability | Solutions | Growth
Montage by Victor D. Bloomberg, December 7, 2022
Stability is achieved through Crisis Intervention; and this leads to Safety and Hope.
Solutions are created by Problem-Solving; and a person Adapts and Progresses.
Growth is inspired by Hopes and Dreams; that leads to Happiness and Contentment.
Stability
The Wall Street Journal reported on Puerto Rico in 2017 during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The natural disaster was made worse by governmental responses; and people coped as well as they did through social bonds and nongovernmental humanitarian aid.
Stability is destroyed by personal violence.
Beaten, Montage by Victor Bloomberg, December 2016
The montage “Beaten,” represents private disaster which happens all too often within families. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) became national law in 1974. Before then, each state did their own protective policies, starting in the 1960s. Since then, funding and implementation of Child Protective Services has been uneven and unjust - even as some kids have been rescued from the private hell of their families.
All of the safety issues that vulnerable people face are too many to list here. You know them. This space is dedicated to readers who want to share national and international resources to help people get to safety. Please let us know resources to add to The List at the bottom of the page.
The Dove Returns with an Olive-branch ~ Story of Noah, Engraving by Bernard Picart, c. 1720, Source: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Core beliefs can give hope through tough times, and shield us from being overwhelmed by sudden devastation. The great flood of the Noah myth was over in 40 days. Yet, beliefs can inhibit learning needed for successful adaptation to enduring stress, by giving false hope. Climate catastrophe will not yield the beliefs, hopes or disregard.
You can see how this applies on a personal level. Hope that a chronic abuser will keep a promise of "never again" offers no protection against future injury. A viable safety plan which requires community resources does raise the probability of escape from dominance, control and injury.
Safety and hope go hand-in-hand. This space is dedicated to national and international resources that give hope through safety. Please let us know resources to add to The List.
Solutions
"I have a problem. I need a solution."
Decades ago I heard a story:
A dragon lived in a cave on a mountain. In it was treasure. The dragon terrorized the village and wreaked destruction. The adults could not kill it or trick it to leave. A child appeared and spoke the dragon's name. Thereafter the dragon's power and treasure became the village's.
Problem-solving correctly names the "dragon" and creates a solution that can be done with the resources at hand. But often a problem has more than one name, and the solution is a web of power and treasure. Here's how I describe the web of power and treasure:
Individual self-care, skill development, and personal growth.
Family and friends who understand the problem and support its solution.
The "village" which provides resources and opportunity to sustain a solution.
Social movements that expand justice for oppressed communities.
ADAPT
Talk-therapy can focus on adaptation to a status quo, functioning better and conforming to social expectations. The riddle is, "Does adaptation create new problems? If so, what good is it?"
An intern of mine at a milieu treatment center said to me, "My client keeps going off, protesting all of the rules. The client yells, 'Don't tell me what to do!' He won't focus on the reason why he's here." I replied, "Telling him to 'focus' is another command. But he's rebelling against dominance and control. He's protesting, 'See me as a person, not a cogwheel in your treatment machine.' I asked the intern, 'He is throwing a fit and demanding to be seen, what can you do to respond to his need to be free of domination and control?' The intern was stymied. I asked, 'What about using the calming ritual that you all do in group?' The intern said, 'He's too worked up to do that.' I asked, 'What about saying his name in a soft tone?' I suggested adding reassuring safety words like, 'I care about you' and 'You're okay with me right now.' Then do the calming exercise. Only later talk about how all villages have rules that allow people to get along and get things done. The result was the client adjusted to the milieu, functioning improved because the "village" supported self-care, moment-to-moment, so that the client could benefit from and contribute to the program.
The story is an example of problem-solving that mobilized the web of strengths provided by individuals and relationships in the context of a "village" with a distinct identity and cultural norms. The hope is that the person will graduate from the program with new abilities for self-care, selection of friends, and participation in a "village."
PROGRESS
I recently watched a documentary, “My Octopus Teacher” (2020.) It told the story of a man’s personal change which was connected to his daily dives into the same kelp forest. Through the daily dive he saw things that otherwise would remain hidden, and that led him to an understanding - an awareness - which before he could not have imagined. I shared this with an intern who said, referring to my career as a clinician, “You’ve been daily diving for 30 years.” I replied, "Actually I’ve been diving into the same sea for more than 60 years.” Incremental learning helped me survive and progress, but it was Big Change that brought me to new plateaus from which I have not slid back downhill. I've noticed something similar with clients. Some make incremental change and are content with that, while others are like a caterpillar emerging from a pupa. These kinds of changes are connected. There are more stories about the connection between incremental solutions and Big Change in Transformative Psychotherapy and Telehealth.
Personal Growth
Personal growth can lead to Big Change, and it shows when we have fewer problems that require solution-focused counseling, and we have fewer Avoidable Crises. Avoidable Crises occur repeatedly. It is as if we are on a merry-go-round, we grab for the brass ring, and then we get a high-voltage electrical shock. It is sometimes called "self-sabotage." It's looking for love in all the wrong places.
Unavoidable crises are something else. I am sure that each of you can think of an unavoidable crisis, such as sudden social isolation caused by the pandemic. A refugee from violence or climate catastrophe faces the unavoidable crises of the total loss of their way of life, their community, and their heritage which was rooted in the place that they fled.
How can a person be happy in the aftermath of unavoidable crises, the damage done by past trauma, or the recurring let-down of self-sabotage? Personal growth therapy explores how we weave in happiness, throughout it all. The growth is seen when the tapestry being woven reveals more joy than sorrow. Joy is in the foreground and sorrow is the contrast of the background.
CONTENTMENT
How can a person be content when societal oppression is ever present? What is the role of a psychotherapist as a client struggles with that? My view is that we bear witness to the inescapable impacts of societal oppression on our clients and we are at our best when we recognize Internalized Oppression.
Internalized Oppression is a strange idea. What is it? It is something inside and it keeps a person down. I listen for words that might have a private meaning rather than how it is commonly used or words that don’t quite fit actions. Often in session a client uses a single word that contains many meanings. Our work is to untangle it and as we do, the personal troubles reveal a connection to social issues. It is an example of an observation made by a philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, “Multidimensional language is made into one-dimensional language, in which different and conflicting meanings no longer interpenetrate but are kept apart; the explosive historical dimension of meaning is silenced.” (1)
Contentment becomes possible when the silence becomes spoken and the energy that is released can be used creatively.
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Societies (2nd Edition). 2002. D. Kellner, Editor. Rutledge. Page 202. (Originally published in 1964).
THE LIST
Amnesty International is a global movement to end abuses of human rights.
Disastershock - How to Cope with the Emotional Stress of a Major Disaster
Human Rights Watch - Refugee and Migrant Rights Division defends the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, displaced people, and migrants worldwide.
Trevor Project - Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Services to LGBTQ Youth
