ACA Blog

I tend to have a soapbox about therapy as a profession. You may have heard it. It goes like this: You don’t hear the words “innovate” and “therapy practice” together all that often.” ~ From my bog post Innovative Therapy, July 14, 2011. Sometimes, I’m glad to be wrong.

Let’s talk about writing. What function does it serve in our lives? Forget business proposals or academic essays, but think in a psychological sense. Why do we write?...and even more so, why don’t we write?

“The Wizard of Oz” has always been one of my favorite films. I enjoyed the story—Dorothy’s journey, the visuals, the characters and the moral underpinnings of the entire tale. I suppose you could say every character has resonated with me at some point in my life and I’ve always been very intrigued by ‘the man behind the curtain.’ After all, haven’t you wondered how long it took him to grow that impressive handlebar moustache?

Much of my interest in counseling came many years ago from reading the works of Eric Berne and Milton Erickson. The skills and writings of these geniuses and their followers presented such powerful ways of helping individuals change—no matter what the client was dealing with—and personally, they changed my life. But when I went through graduate school a few years ago, these two pioneers were hardly even mentioned. Rarely did any of my textbooks even refer to them although most of the issues we were dealing with had already been dealt with quite powerfully by them.

Several divisions of the American Psychological Association posted a letter highly critical of the DSM-5 (see http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dsm5/ ). They also posted an online petition for mental health professionals to sign in support of their letter. Since it was first posted a week ago, over 3300 mental health professionals have signed the petition.

When Steve Jobs died, I became fascinated with news about him. Almost all the news depicted a visionary, a genius, a man who was compared to the likes of Einstein and Edison - and with good reason. He was an inventor, a creative and forward thinker, and he transformed the world of computer technology, film and music. His innovations have affected billions of people around the globe, and his "user friendly" technology has made life so much easier for the average person. With his brilliance and ability to be a true visionary, he made it possible for so many of us to use technology in a way that is intuitive and easy.

Sometimes Autumn is a difficult time of year for me not because anything major happened but I have surmised it’s because things end. Summer is over, the warmth is gone out of the air and the trees become bare and almost haunting. In some parts of Michigan winter can be hard especially if you live downwind from one of the Great Lakes. Winter brings bleak skies and a time of retreat. But in Michigan when spring comes and friendly faces appear whole and not hid behind scarves people have a sense of survival an almost “Yeah we did it, we made it out of the bleak and into the light and warmth.” Here is a story you can tell your clients about survival, faithfulness and trying their best. The story is about three bears. I have mixed the versions from the Chippewa Indians and the Anishinaabek Indians. The accounts were so similar in the literature.

Years ago a frustrated Southpark aired an episode entitled something like “the Simpson’s did it” in which the makers expressed frustration over trying to make a cartoon in the shadow of the Simpsons who have been staples since many of us were kids and thus have done just about everything at one time or another. Like many folks I laughed when I saw the episode but unlike the Southpark, I had realized this years before and had used examples from the Simpsons for many years in my therapy where I thought it would help a client understand a concept, idea, situation etc..

My last blog explored the first metaphor that is used by counselors—counseling as a legal process. It is my least favorite and my hunch is that it is the least favorite of most counselors since it takes the power away from the counselor and places it in the authority that makes the rules and that disciplines those who do not follow them. Under the legal metaphor, there are only two stances: you obey or you do not—and you get no kudos for obeying.

To open up a can of worms. To kick the hornet’s nest. To open Pandora’s Box. To discuss the elephant in the room. To address the 500 pound gorilla in session. These are all expressions that to most have a negative connotation and are usually associated with impending consequences and physical or mental discomfort. The expressions alone invoke a pang of anxiety for me because the implication is that something big is about to happen. If we address the elephant, name the gorilla, release the worms and unleash the hornets within the therapy room we could have a veritable mess that needs to be processed, understood and sometimes contained. This has been my experience…but is facing reality really that bad? And isn’t it important to acknowledge a problem in order to solve it?