![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThese are the content notes for "When Someone Else Believes in You."
"The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Invisibility is often portrayed as causing an inevitable slide into evil. This is wrong and harmful. Power doesn't really corrupt, it reveals -- and what it reveals is that most people are secretly assholes. Without the outside pressure to behave decently, they don't. But a person who is inwardly good will continue to be good regardless of whether anyone is watching. That's integrity.
Aversion to therapy is a common experience. Teens and men often prefer to avoid it. They can be dragged into it, but forced therapy tends to be harmful and can go as far as torture. Even for people who seek out therapy, it isn't simple. There are many reasons why it doesn't work for everyone. Boing-Boing has had some bad therapists, some mismatched techniques, people who didn't care about his feelings but only about making him quit irritating them, and so forth. Here are some ideas on how to make therapy work for teens and how to get the most out of your therapy.
Person-Centered Therapy, or Rogerian Therapy, relies on forming rapport between counselor and client to engage the client's strengths to solve their own problems. Materials for therapists teach them how to make the client central to the healing process and the skills they need to provide such services. Here's a guide to developing treatment goals within this system. This workbook helps clients think about what they want and set goals, and this one lays out a person-centered plan. Most of these things are aimed at children or at adults with developmental disabilities, but they generalize well to other folks. Terramagne-America generally favors a person-centered approach in therapy, social services, and so forth.
(These links are intense.)
It is essential to establish rapport and trust before attempting to do serious headwork in therapy. Otherwise, people who have had awful experiences in therapy learn to avoid it. The counselor must listen to the client and abandon any techniques that don't fit this individual, even if they are considered best practice in general. While many schools of therapy advise the counselor to minimize self-disclosure and personal relationships, some clients are completely unreachable without it or even actively harmed by that lack. There are ways to build rapport in person or online. Therapists can take steps to build trust and clients can work on trusting the therapist. It is especially important for adults to build trust with traumatized children. Dr. G is willing to invest however much time it takes to establish a secure connection with clients before trying to do actual therapy. This works.
"The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Invisibility is often portrayed as causing an inevitable slide into evil. This is wrong and harmful. Power doesn't really corrupt, it reveals -- and what it reveals is that most people are secretly assholes. Without the outside pressure to behave decently, they don't. But a person who is inwardly good will continue to be good regardless of whether anyone is watching. That's integrity.
Aversion to therapy is a common experience. Teens and men often prefer to avoid it. They can be dragged into it, but forced therapy tends to be harmful and can go as far as torture. Even for people who seek out therapy, it isn't simple. There are many reasons why it doesn't work for everyone. Boing-Boing has had some bad therapists, some mismatched techniques, people who didn't care about his feelings but only about making him quit irritating them, and so forth. Here are some ideas on how to make therapy work for teens and how to get the most out of your therapy.
Person-Centered Therapy, or Rogerian Therapy, relies on forming rapport between counselor and client to engage the client's strengths to solve their own problems. Materials for therapists teach them how to make the client central to the healing process and the skills they need to provide such services. Here's a guide to developing treatment goals within this system. This workbook helps clients think about what they want and set goals, and this one lays out a person-centered plan. Most of these things are aimed at children or at adults with developmental disabilities, but they generalize well to other folks. Terramagne-America generally favors a person-centered approach in therapy, social services, and so forth.
(These links are intense.)
It is essential to establish rapport and trust before attempting to do serious headwork in therapy. Otherwise, people who have had awful experiences in therapy learn to avoid it. The counselor must listen to the client and abandon any techniques that don't fit this individual, even if they are considered best practice in general. While many schools of therapy advise the counselor to minimize self-disclosure and personal relationships, some clients are completely unreachable without it or even actively harmed by that lack. There are ways to build rapport in person or online. Therapists can take steps to build trust and clients can work on trusting the therapist. It is especially important for adults to build trust with traumatized children. Dr. G is willing to invest however much time it takes to establish a secure connection with clients before trying to do actual therapy. This works.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-17 07:18 pm (UTC)One of the most common questions I get in the first couple of sessions (because I've always felt that it's rude for me to ask a ton of questions without giving the client the opportunity to ask me questions too) is why did I decide to become a therapist and.... when I get this question, I tend to upfront about the fact that it's because I've had my own struggles with mental health and a crappy childhood, I've done (and continue) to do my own work, and I thought I was in a position to maybe be able to help others. I generally won't go into detail but I think sketching the general outline of the situation is important and the more I think about it is probably necessary for fully informed consent.
Thoughts
Date: 2020-12-17 08:15 pm (UTC)There's a sweet spot between too much disclosure and too little, and that should be defined by the client, so long as it doesn't cross the therapist's own boundaries.
>> But I've also never understood why there isn't more training on how to do it in a reasonable way.<<
Because L-America is very much a commodity culture. They want people to buy goods and services, not form connections. The rules for therapists are designed to prevent connections. It's like prostitution -- money up front, no kissing on the mouth, an illusion of love but never the real thing. That's a problem, because it creates an experience that many people find unhelpful or even distasteful, while denying natural human needs. It's a key reason why so many folks try therapy but then bail out.
This also underlies the rise of peer counseling, life coaching, and other less-formal approaches. Free of the tight regulations and insurance scams, they have more freedom to meet whatever needs their clients express.
>> One of the most common questions I get in the first couple of sessions (because I've always felt that it's rude for me to ask a ton of questions without giving the client the opportunity to ask me questions too) is why did I decide to become a therapist and.... when I get this question, I tend to upfront about the fact that it's because I've had my own struggles with mental health and a crappy childhood, I've done (and continue) to do my own work, and I thought I was in a position to maybe be able to help others. I generally won't go into detail but I think sketching the general outline of the situation is important and the more I think about it is probably necessary for fully informed consent.<<
That makes sense. A therapist who has used therapy to fix their own life well enough to work in a demanding profession makes excellent evidence that therapy does work.