One Life at a Time

Helping Skills and Interventions

Leah Brew, Jeffery A. Kottler, Jeffrey A. Kottler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135157302
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Refreshing, highly practical, and student-centred, this dynamic text covers all the basic skills and core interventions helpers-in-training need to know in order to begin seeing clients. Kottler and Brew use a broad model of helping to acquaint students with a myriad of clinical styles in a variety of settings. Case examples, first-person accounts, homework assignments, and a series of reflective exercises illustrate how to apply these skills to the helper's own life and in working with others ... One Life at a Time.
Important features of this text include:
* Approaches to assessment and diagnosis of client problems
* Attention to needs of individuals within diverse social, ethnic, and cultural contexts
* Vital background information of the major conceptual frameworks
* Useful self-monitoring techniques
* Numerous aspects of building and maintaining relationships
* Practical ways to maintain progress and evaluate results

Part I

Chapter 1
The Process Revealed

Before we talk about skills and interventions that are part of what therapists and counselors do, it is helpful to begin our journey by looking at the overall process involved. In this opening chapter we introduce you to the subject by covering the main ingredients that are part of most systems currently in use. We begin with a personal look at the magic of this profession through the experiences of the authors. As we will mention consistently, it is important to see the larger landscape that is involved in helping people, even when you are focused on the individual skills and interventions that are part of this complex process.

Reading Minds and other Superpowers

When I [Jeffrey] was twelve years old I spent a significant part of my life reading comic books—Richie Rich, Archie, but mostly superheroes like Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, and most of all, Superboy.

I used to pretend to be Superboy when I was a bit younger, launching myself off tables and couches with a towel tied around my neck as a cape. I really believed that if only I tried harder (like Peter Pan), somehow I could fly. Bruised and battered, my parents always scolding me for scuffing the dining room table during my progressively longer take-offs, I abandoned my attempts to leap tall buildings in a single bound but not my search for superpowers.

I next set my sights on x-ray vision, a skill I determined would be far more useful to an adolescent boy who’d never seen a naked female body, except in pictures. My prayers were finally answered one day, and of all places, in the very comic books to which I was so devoted. There, on the back page, was an advertisement for special x-ray glasses that would permit the owner to duplicate Superboy’s feat of seeing through dense objects. I may have clouded memory about this, but I swear there was even an image of a girl whose outline could be seen through transparent clothing.

Five bucks, or whatever the glasses cost at that time, was still out of reach for a kid whose only outside income was shoveling snow for neighbors (this was July). Nevertheless, I begged and borrowed the money from various relatives until I finally had enough for this magical instrument that would reveal all the secrets previously shrouded from me.

Needless to say, the glasses hardly delivered what was promised and they were far too goofy looking to even wear as sunshades. Still, I refused to give up my search for superpowers.

It wasn’t until years later, during my training as a therapist, that I finally realized I was developing powers that would allow me to read minds and persuade others to do my bidding. Indeed with lots of instruction, supervision, practice, and experience, I mastered the art and science of picking up cues invisible to others. I learned powerful ways to get other people to do things they really didn’t want to do. I learned some tricks of the trade as well, relatively foolproof methods for diffusing anger, confronting others nondefensively, and helping people to feel heard and understood.

When I started teaching others how to do therapy—school counselors, family therapists, psychiatrists, social workers, mental health specialists—I found a whole new realm of secret powers open to me as well. I had to develop ways to keep a group spellbound, to encourage people to take risks and reveal very private things in public settings. I learned to motivate people, as well as to help them overcome fears of failure. As I began writing textbooks for beginners in the field, I figured out ways to introduce very complex ideas in ways that could be adapted to a number of practical situations and settings. Then I began doing research interviewing other therapists and counselors to find out about their own secret powers and favorite strategies.

My Psychic Powers

When I [Leah] was an adolescent, I struggled to search for meaning in life while coping with personal problems. I felt terribly unhappy and read texts from different religions, New Age books, self-help books, and anything that would help me understand why pain and suffering were part of life. On the journey of this exploration, I stumbled on several books on psychic ability. I was drawn to this possibility, and many of the books said that I had psychic powers. Some books simply stated that everyone had the ability but that it was underdeveloped. Other books stated that only certain people had the ability, but since my astrological sign was/is Pisces, I should have it. I was convinced I was psychic. I bought books and started practicing. I visited psychics to understand my ability better, and they frequently told me I had “the gift.” I devoted several years to developing this ability.

I imagined that with my newfound psychic ability, I could see the future. I could avoid disasters in my life and in the lives of my friends and family to avoid pain. I could make decisions more easily since I would be able to see the outcomes to avoid making mistakes. I could know people’s thoughts and use them to my advantage. I could understand what’s beneath what people present on the surface to respond to them better. I could amaze and astound my friends and family. I would be noticed. I would be special. In retrospect, I now realize that I just wanted to be special, to feel important. Although I am still attracted to understanding the internal experience of others, I certainly don’t want to read minds… I don’t want to know if someone thinks I dress funny or sound stupid or know anything negative without asking first, and I don’t want the responsibility of seeing the future… too much responsibility!

I never developed my psychic abilities in the way that I had hoped, although at times I convinced myself I had a gift. However, what is most remarkable to me now is that after years of working on the skills required to become a good counselor, and working on my own issues, I have developed some abilities that amaze my friends and family; I appear to be psychic to them. I have learned to get my thoughts and my issues out of the way (well, almost out of the way) to see the other person’s point of view as much as possible. I have learned how to listen, how to really listen beneath what is being said. I’ve learned to pay attention to the smallest details in how a person communicates: the body language, the nuances in verbal language, and the voice inflections. Most importantly, I have learned to reflect what I see and hear from the other person in a way that seems psychic. All of these skills have helped me to be a better friend, a better teacher, and a better person in all my relationships. I have learned a way to connect with others that is natural to me now. These skills have changed me and saturated every aspect of my life. Now I finally feel special.

None of the skills taught in the first clinical course were natural to me, although some skills may be natural to some of you. I knew that I wanted to help people, and I thought that therapy was about hearing the problem and then giving advice to fix the problem. I was good at that. Was I wrong! Therapy is about building relationships, which is best done by really listening and being there for the client.

I had to learn all the skills slowly, with lots and lots of practice. In addition to my university training, I participated in an external training group. I also chose the hardest supervisors during my field experiences and internships to develop as much as possible. I would practice my skills with friends, family, teachers, coworkers, grocery-store clerks, the person next to me in the airplane, with any and all hum an contact. And now, here I am still developing skills, but they are strong enough to wow my friends, my family members, my students, and even total strangers (if I feel inclined to impress them).

So now I’m writing what I’ve read before. You, too, can become psychic. No, you won’t be able to read the future. However, with a strong conviction, commitment, and tons of practice, you will appear to read minds. Amaze your friends and family. Tell them what’s on their mind. You’ll be surprised of how much you can know.

Secrets Revealed

“How’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You know. That thing where you… “

Her voice trailed off at the end, as if she couldn’t quite capture what she was really trying to ask. This was a woman who was used to being in control. It bothered her already that she had been forced to ask for help about a personal matter, but it was even more frustrating to her that she couldn’t figure out what therapy was all about and how it worked. It was as if she was trying to penetrate the smoke and mirrors of an elaborate hoax, or at least a magic show.

“Nothing up my sleeves,” the therapist teased her, showing her forearms. She felt very much like the Wizard of Oz who was about to step from behind the curtain of the control room. The therapist didn’t like to play games or hide what she was doing with clients. She wanted them to understand exactly what they were doing together so that if a time came in the future when clients need help again, rather than running back to someone like her, they could apply what they learned previously.

We don’t mean to imply that magic and deception don’t play important parts in counseling and therapy, because they assuredly do. It is a curious phenomenon that almost nobody pays much attention to us when we are not working under a cloak of expertise. In order to have some degree of influence, it is often necessary to function in a particular setting and context. You may have noticed, for example, that the offices of professional therapists and counselors are specifically designed in such a way as to display symbols of power—diplomas on the wall and impressive books on the shelves.

Therapists and counselors happen to arrange things in such a way that they increase their sense of power and status in the eyes of their clients. We appear to be magicians and wizards because we seem to know things that are beyond mortal beings. We can not only read people’s minds, but we can predict the future and get people to reveal things that they would prefer to keep to themselves. We know just the right pressure to apply when someone proves reluctant, and when to back off when such efforts are fruitless. We have creative solutions to problems, many of which would never occur to others. We listen extremely well and hear nuances that are beyond awareness. We are able to persuade people to do difficult, risky things they prefer to avoid. We can confront them with a kind of sensitivity and diplomacy such that they don’t take offense. And when we mess up or make mistakes, we are highly skilled at recovery.

We do all these things not for personal gain but because we know that the more stature we have in others’ eyes, the more likely it is that they will listen to what we have to say and do what we encourage them to do. We might use a few props or special effects to appear far wiser than we really are, but it is all for a good cause.

So, when the therapist in the beginning of this section faced her client’s persistent inquiries about how she managed to get through to her in a way that nobody else had before, the therapist wanted her to understand the process, but not to the point where it lost the magic. Once clients see behind the smoke and mirrors, the trick can be ruined. Magic only works when the illusions are maintained.

Think About It

Either in your journal, or talking to classmates, discuss the extent to which you believe the impact of counseling is mediated by what is currently known through scientific inquiry versus what appears to be magical because the factors are not thoroughly known and understood. As an example that might guide your exploration, consider a time recently in which you experienced some sort of personal change. Try to account for all the reasons and influences that may have contributed to that transformation. Now, consider your level of confidence in those explanations: How certain are you that the changes you experienced did, in fact, result from those causes and not from other things that may be beyond your awareness and understanding?

Of course, counseling is a discipline that is firmly lodged in science. Almost all of our theories, and the skills you are learning, have been developed as a result of empirically based studies that were designed to test their effectiveness and usefulness under various conditions and circumstances. Counselors do not fly by the seat of their pants, or operate by intuition alone. Every intervention you choose, and every skill you employ, should be supported by a clear rationale. You will constantly consult the literature to determine whether your current practices are consistent with the latest research. And you will conduct your own studies to measure the impact of what you do. So, although there is an element to what we do that might appear magical, there is a much larger component that is supported by scientific principles.

Like most professionals, therapists and counselors consider themselves part of an elite guild. We have our secret handshakes, our special codes, and our unique rituals. Like wizards and magicians, in order for us to create illusions that lead to change we must keep our methods private. The trust and confidence we inspire is based primarily on others’ beliefs that we really do know things, that we have The Answer, and that we have access to A Cure. We convey these impressions partly through the highly trained skills we use to foster confidence and inspire trust, but also through a number of strategies that are far less obvious.

How Therapists Enhance their Magic

I [Jeffrey] have spent some time doing resear...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Answers to “A Check on What You Learned”
• References
• Index