Transcript Slide 1

Counseling Style Presentation
Integrating mind, body, & spirit through
diverse techniques and existential outlook
Michael Reeder, MS, LGPC
Therapist in private practice
Brookland Pastoral Center & Hygeia Counseling Services
Washington & Baltimore Locations
Version 12/17/06
© Reeder 2006
Overall Assumptions
• Holistic Balance:
– A balance of several factors is needed for health.
• Existentialism:
– Search for meaning
– Fears: Meaninglessness, Isolation, Death, & Freedom
• Evolution & Transcendence:
– Clients seek to evolve and transcend once:
• basic needs are met (Maslow)
• basic needs are impossible (such as dying)
© Reeder 2006
The Model
Body
•Skills & Techniques I Often Use
•Who Benefits Most
•Client Examples
•My Assumptions
Integration
Cognition
Affect
Make sure to look at the Notes section
for more thoughts on each slide!
Spirit
© Reeder 2006
Client Examples
I’ll use some fictionalized examples of what I’d
do for people from each of the model areas
• “Max” (I’ll refer to him several times)
– 47-year old divorced white male
– Fighting alcoholism, depression, and hopelessness
– Years of moving from counselor to counselor
• Mainly values medication, not counseling
– Former company vice president now living in a group
home on low income
© Reeder 2006
Cognition
• Skills & Techniques I Often Use:
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Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques: ABC
Psychoeducation
Development of personal stories
Concrete tools:
• Thought Journals
• Card Sorts
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© Reeder 2006
Cognition
• Who Benefits Most:
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Verbal, analytical clients
Clients with negative self-talk
Clients willing to do homework
Clients needing to learn about their condition
• Client Examples
– Max: Assigned thought journals
»
© Reeder 2006
Cognition
• My Assumptions:
– Existential Underpinnings: Finding meaning
through understanding and story-making.
– The client must buy into the treatment
• I explain, show treatment plans, and sometimes
diagnoses
• The client has a brain and is an equal partner in
the treatment process
– Understanding is curative… but rarely
enough.
© Reeder 2006
Affect
• Skills & Techniques I Often Use:
– Basic humanistic counseling techniques:
• Reflective listening, unconditional positive
regard…
– Gestalt
– Card sorts
– Guided imagery
© Reeder 2006
Affect
• Who Benefits Most:
– People who have trouble accessing their emotions
– People needing emotional expression, support, and connection
(anyone!)
• Client Examples
– Max: Gestalt empty chair
• His drinking self versus clean self talk
• More pros and cons to drinking can be generated in 5 minutes than
in 20 minutes of group discussion!
– Beth: Emotional card sorts
• Build vocabulary, deeper precision of recognition, prompt
conversation
»
© Reeder 2006
Affect
• My Assumptions:
– Humanistic counseling techniques underlie
everything!
• Quote:
– “All forms of psychotherapy, when successful, arouse
the patient emotionally.” – Jerome Frank
© Reeder 2006
Body
• Skills & Techniques I Often Use:
– Referral: Medical and psychiatric
consultations
– Relaxation & breathing
• For physical stress release
– Body-centric approaches
© Reeder 2006
Body
• Who Benefits Most:
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Persons with medical conditions
Persons needing psychotropic medications
Anxiety & panic disorder patients
Trauma patients
• Client Examples
– Max takes meds for depression
– Max has a family history of alcoholism
© Reeder 2006
Body
• My Assumptions:
– Less psychiatric medication is best IF personal
resources can be mobilized.
– An agitated mind can not exist in a relaxed body.
© Reeder 2006
Spirit
• Skills & Techniques I Often Use:
– Spiritual Assessment
• Spiritual autobiographies, spiritual roots exercise
• Highfield & Cason’s four spiritual needs (meaning &
purpose, give love, receive love, hope & creativity)
– Goal-Setting:
• Based on Highfield & Cason, & getting back to roots
– Meditation & Awareness
© Reeder 2006
Spirit
• Who Benefits Most:
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Depressed patients
Addicted patients
Spiritually or religiously inclined patients
Clients searching for meaning
• Client Examples
– Max: SHI & INSPIRIT
• Spirituality as boost to AA efforts
– Drug Relapse group: Definitions & roots exercise
© Reeder 2006
Spirit
• My Assumptions:
– Existential Underpinnings: Finding meaning
through understanding.
– Transcending yourself is healthy
© Reeder 2006
Integration
• Skills & Techniques I Often Use:
– Integrating fragments of self:
• Gestalt - empty chair, feed you a line, exaggeration, etc.
• Adlerian -- Acting As If
• Meditation – Finding the center
– Balance:
• Integration of techniques from all five areas
• Mindfulness
– Recognizing, understanding, and releasing emotions &
thoughts
© Reeder 2006
Integration
• Who Benefits Most:
– PTSD and DiD clients
– Trauma clients in general
– Patients harboring body memories
– Anyone experiencing depersonalization,
derealization, and dissociation
© Reeder 2006
Integration
• Client Examples
– Max: Trauma Symptoms?
• Reports losing time, trouble following conversations due to
memories intruding, and feeling numb emotionally.
• Alludes vaguely to earlier trauma
• My Assumptions:
– People have multiple, sometimes paradoxical,
separate selves/parts
– Meaning can help integrate self and life
© Reeder 2006
Conclusion
• Counseling requires a balanced approach:
– Body, cognition, affect, spirit, integration
• Existential influences underlie the model.
– Especially meaning
– Especially isolation (transcendence &
centering)
© Reeder 2006