Building your foundation as a helper ----Understanding yourself and interpersonal patterns

Does Psychotherapy Work? Empirically Supported Treatment (EST) Division 12 Clinical Psychology Empirically Supported Relationship (ESR) Division 29 Psychotherapy

The Effective Counselor The most important instrument you have is YOU Your life experience, who you are, and how you struggle to live up to your potential, are powerful tools Be authentic Serve as models for our clients Your own genuineness can touch your clients Be a therapeutic person and be clear about who you are Be willing to grow, to risk, to care, and to be involved

Effective counselors Warm, accepting, caring Know who they are Open to change Sincere, honest, & authentic Invested, willing to take risks Good boundaries Live in the present Sensitive to culture…………..more

Interpersonal patterns (see handout) Intimacy needs Need for approval from others Importance of relationships in life Preoccupation with relationships Need for relationships Level of trust Level of trustworthiness in relationships Level of confidence in relationships Dependency Needs Self-versus-other orientation in relationships Comfort with asking for help Importance given to feedback from others

Interpersonal patterns (see handout) Level of self-versus-other absorption Approach-avoidance behaviors Level of value granted to relationships Social skills Comfort in new relationships Center of attention Self-disclosure in relationship Emotional expressiveness in relationships Identification with others Conflict with authority figures Stance toward equality in relationships Source: Basic Skills in Psychotherapy and Counseling, by C. Brems (3 rd ), 2001

Interpersonal Patterns Circle your interpersonal patterns from each theme. Highlight the top two significant patterns. Discuss how the above interpersonal patterns could impact the helping process. Examples? Sharing?

Counseling for the Counselor Being a client, you can: Think about our motivation for wanting to be a counselor Understand the feelings of being a client Find support as we struggle to be a professional Deal with personal issues, increase your self-awareness, and know the impacts for being a counselor Be aware of and be assisted in managing the counter- transferences Therapists can help their client no further than they have been willing to go in their own life.

The Counselor’s Values Be aware of how your values influence your interventions Recognize that you are not value-neutral Your job is to assist clients in finding answers that are most congruent with their own values Find ways to manage value conflicts between you and your clients Begin therapy by exploring the client’s goals

Multicultural Counseling Become aware of your biases and values Attempt to understand the world from your client’s standpoint Gain a knowledge of the dynamics of oppression, racism, discrimination, and stereotyping Study the historical background, traditions, and values of your client Be open to learning from your client

Multicultural counseling Competence Awareness of one’s own assumptions, values, and biases (awareness of self) Understanding the worldview of culturally diverse clients (understand others) Developing appropriate intervention strategies and techniques (appropriate Skills) *Adapted from Sue, D. R., & Sue, D. (2004).Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (4 th Edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Defensive Racial Dynamics Freud (1926, 1989) believed that people use defenses to protect themselves when they feel threatened. Clark (1991) defines a defense mechanism as an “unconscious distortion of reality that reduces painful affect and conflict through automatic and habitual responses.” (see handout) Source: Ridley, C. R. (1995). Overcoming unintentional racism in counseling and therapy: A practitioner’s guide to intentional intervention. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Defensive Racial Dynamics There are four important characteristics common to all defenses mechanisms. Unconscious motivation. Distortion or denial of reality. Reduction of emotional pain. Automatic and habitual responsiveness.

Eight Racial Related Defenses Color Blindness Color Consciousness Cultural Transference (client) Cultural Counter transference (counselor) Cultural Ambivalence Pseudo-transference Over-identification (minority therapist) Identification with the Oppressor (minority therapist) (see handout)

Issues Faced by Beginning Therapists Common concerns: Anxiety and self-doubts Skills vs. being ourselves Carry clients issues in our daily life Unrealistic beliefs: no rooms for mistakes (perfectionism) Unselfishly giving (please others) Worry no answers or solutions (need in control) Every client should get better (personalizing) Be effective all the times (need to be valued)