All Wrapped Up

Bob — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:50:57 +0000

Gary injured his back working in the yard, which resulted in a long and difficult bout of sciatica, bad enough that he used a cane when walking. Sitting, standing, and lying down were all difficult to different degrees for reasons he could not figure out. He was also under a lot of personal stress. His elderly father was in and out of the hospital; each time Gary wondered if his father would live. And it was a busy time of year at the accounting firm where he worked.

Talking about his troubles wasn’t difficult for Gary: At this point he’d talk to anyone who’d listen. He felt scared and isolated in the pain he was experiencing. In counseling he wondered if what was happening was some kind of wake-up call. Were the forces in his life converging to give him a message about something deeper and important about how he was living his life?

As we explored current and past struggles, Gary was articulate and had given a great deal of thought to his history, strengths and challenges, important relationships, and concluded that he tried a little too hard to please others—he was a little too selfless, to his own detriment. Although his dad needed him, Gary was burning himself out and not sharing enough of the responsibility with his sisters. He didn’t want them to be burdened, knowing how much they were grieving about their father, and was usually too quick to say, “Oh, I can do that.”

Recognizing that Gary is strong interpersonally and kinesthetically, I asked him if there was a feeling or image that captured what he was experiencing in his pain and struggle. He closed his eyes and described what he called “a World War II guy who got shot up pretty badly.” The figure (him) was in a wheelchair and wrapped in white bandages from head to toe with only his right eye showing to the world. The image was less important to him than the feeling it conveyed about his experience being in the situation he was in.

As we continued to explore Gary’s struggles, we did it in the context of the bandaged figure. It guided his exploration and let him know when he was on the right track. For example, when he was talking about not burdening his sisters, the bandages stayed in place and were unchanged. When he focused on setting more appropriate boundaries for himself, however, there were fewer bandages and they were looser; he felt more present and connected in his life.

By connecting to this representation of himself, Gary was guided by something deeper and more trustworthy than just his words. He could fool himself, that is, talk himself into believing he was doing the right thing; but he couldn’t fool his inner kinesthetic experience.

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Communication Styles in Counseling

Bob — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:30:31 +0000

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My early experience in counseling was primarily with children. Working with children requires flexibility and creativity, and through studying the work of Clark Moustakas and Virginia Axline, I learned that communication in play takes many forms—words, behavior, symbols, and feelings. And, of course, there is the primacy of the working relationship. This nuanced and textured experience taught me to listen with my whole body and set the stage for further exploration into the world of individual communication styles.

Through this exploration, I incorporated learning style theory and the theory of multiple intelligences into my counseling approach. Counseling is a form of learning—learning about one’s self, relationships, and life itself. My focus on learning encouraged me to pay attention to the details of how others expressed themselves and absorbed information. Learning styles and multiple intelligences gave me a way to work with these details and explore different ways of connecting to others and listening to their stories.

Related to this exploration were questions about how counselors view human behavior and what choices we make in trying to be helpful (questions, comments, interventions). So, I began questioning observations I was taught to make and the conclusions drawn from them. If someone has difficulty reflecting on their feelings, for example, does it mean they are avoiding something or does it mean they are more intrapersonally oriented and need time and space to reflect before achieving clarity? If an individual has difficult putting words to their experience, is it because of mental confusion or do they think primarily in pictures and find words inadequate to express the richness of their fluid, visual-spatial world?

This led to other questions. Were those who are successful using gestalt techniques rich in imagination and kinesthetic intelligence? How helpful is it for someone more linguistically oriented to engage in this type of therapy? Is cognitive-behavioral therapy best suited to those who are strongly logical and linguistic? Does hypnotherapy work best for those who have strong visual-spatial skills? These questions are absent from the discussion on evidence based practice. In that discussion, a one size fits all model is implied.

I don’t have solid answers for these questions based in traditional scientific methodology. I have, however, used my experience (intuition and educated trial and error) to guide me in exploring these issues with clients. Through this process I’ve learned to be more flexible in my approach and make fewer assumptions, while I explore how to better connect with and use the natural language of those I’m trying to help. This approach provides natural validation to clients, encourages collaboration, decreases pathologizing, and encourages mutual creativity.

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All Wrapped Up

Communication Styles in Counseling