In Touch With People,not Paper: An Interview With Doug Sotheren

Doug Sotheren has been conducting well‐regarded training courses in relationship counseling for over 25 years, outside a university setting. In conversation with his former trainee Cathy Zervos, he presents his personal philosophy of counsellor training, emphasising the need for trainees to be ‘in touch with people’ rather than with theory. His whole course is experiential and based on the concept that training (including the way the co‐trainers handle their own relationship in front of the group) should model the counselling process itself. He talks about his way of selecting students, and his views on counselling students out of the course where necessary. A long‐serving member of the AAMFC and former editor of their newsletter, Sotheren praises the AAMFC for requiring demonstrated competence in its members.     

The city-wide peer counselling program

Considerable attention has been focused on involving students as peer counsellors in the delivery of counselling services. The City-Wide Peer Project was designed to integrate the peer counselling training resources of three school districts and two independent schools in the Greater Victoria region of Southern Vancouver Island (a major urban area in British Columbia, Canada). The roles and activities of the students who were trained and supervised as peer counsellors are described. A comprehensive evaluation design is detailed and the interim results of the two-year project are presented along with a number of cautions.     

Family Court Mediation: New Zealand Practices and Perspectives

Family separation is increasingly being dealt with by counsellors trained in the skills of mediation, along with skills of counselling and therapy. Other professionals also offer mediation services. In New Zealand, special provisions exist in the Family Court system to minimise the trauma for families by using mediation services, with the special opportunity for a couple to enter a Mediation Conference chaired by a Family Court Judge. It is argued that mediation is different from counselling and therapy, but that mediation requires many of the skills of counselling. This has particular consequences for training and for multidisciplinary teamwork.     

小学生课外辅导误区透析

当前课外辅导基本上是学校课堂教学的一种复制,并没有对学校教育的局限性和缺憾性起到有效补充作用。文中从教育基本理论、复杂理论等视角来剖析这一现象,认为我们应当树立尊重生命本真,发挥个人潜力;拓宽阅读视野,积极融入生活;谨慎作为,不作为也是一种培养的大教育观,以期能引起关注,走出当前课外辅导热的误区。     

Embedded counselling in advisory work with clients in debt

This article addresses the potential for embedded counselling in social work with clients in debt. It is based on experiences from Sweden where budget and debt advisors employed by the municipalities give assistance to clients in financial difficulties. A distinction is made between advice and guidance on the one hand and counselling on the other. As the financial problems often have been long lasting, it is not enough with one-time advice that the client hopefully then follows. The purpose of the article, thus, is to explore the possibilities of incorporating counselling in the role of the advisor.     

Personenzentrierte M?nnerberatung

Androcentric culture underestimates men??s emotional restrictions which, however, are both a burden to men and an obstacle to counselling. Dynamic psychology explains them from the male gender role conflict which also became a psychometric concept (O??Neil 2008). To address male alexithymia in counselling some cognitive and psycho-analytically oriented viewpoints are discussed in the light of the person-centred perspective, in particular of the conditions of successful counselling established by Carl Rogers (1959a): psychological contact, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and the counsellor??s congruence in the relationship.     

Wirkprinzipien handlungsorientierter Beratungs- und Trainingsmethoden

The article suggests effect principles of action-oriented methods for organizational counselling and training. It is shown that action-oriented methods use “surplus reality” (a concept developed by J. L. Moreno) as a constitutive medium in which they duplicate organizational reality by means of scenic embodiment. The authors show how action-oriented methods derive their specific potential for the depiction and reflection of work-related problems in organizational counselling, training, supervision and coaching from this surplus reality.     

Förderung sozialer Ressourcen — eine gemeindepsychologische Perspektive

The subject of ?resources‘ has become a much discussed topic, even a buzzword, in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy in recent years. A problem-oriented approach is called for with equal perspectives which emphasize the positive sides of a person in terms of strengths and empowerment. Community psychology expands on this view of counselling and therapeutic work by focussing on context-related resources and how they balance with the individual potential of a person. Special attention has been placed on social resources which have been formed through the social network. In recent years, there have been a number of tested methods supporting networking. They indicate a suitable, resource-oriented approach complementing clinical psychological counselling.     

Feminism and gendered impact of COVID‐19: Perspective of a counselling psychologist

When women, girls and gender‐diverse people — who have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak since the public health crisis has also become a crisis for feminism — will identify and acknowledge their organismic phenomenological self, wholeness and growth will be fully functioning. Psychological aspects for the public health emergency operated through counselling psychologists to manage mental health, emotional, psychological, cognitive, behavioural, relational and social impacts are fundamental. And the role of counselling psychologists in maintaining personal mental health and their clients is a crucial indicator of collective wellbeing. This perspective is embedded in the gendered approach and feminist framework which attempts to explore and offer the embodied intersectional and divergent impact on living during the COVID‐19 pandemic lockdown.     

From service to social control: Implications of welfare reform for professional practice in the United States

In response to the explosive growth and the changing demographic composition of public welfare recipients, this program has undergone four major reforms over the last three decades: the 1962 'Service' amendments, the 1967 Work Incentive program (WIN), the Family Support Act of 1988, and the 1996 program of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). These reforms have had a profound impact not only on the scope and purpose of public assistance to needy families, but also on the nature of professional social work practice in this area of public social service. An analysis of the major welfare reforms over the last 35 years reveals how the national entitlement to income maintenance and social services has receded, local responsibility and private delivery of service have increased, and emphases on service functions have shifted from rehabilitative social casework/counselling to work-oriented training, job search activities, and local employment. The provision of public assistance has been transformed from a federal entitlement based on needs to a budget-driven-time-limited benefit enveloped by incentives and sanctions, with welfare clients increasingly subject to mandatory participation in work-related activities. This movement from welfare to workfare has infused the professional role of social workers with a steadily expanding function of social control, which is unlikely to encourage professional participation in the public social services.     

INSIDE–OUT: RESOCIALISATION FROM PRISON AS A BIOGRAPHICAL PROCESS. A LONGITUDINAL APPROACH TO THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF IMPRISONMENT1

The social and economic regeneration of inner-city housing estates has been a common feature of successive UK government policies for a number of years. However, their focus has primarily been on the physical regeneration of communities to the exclusion of individuals' emotional and personal problems. Community-based counselling projects are still a rarity in regeneration projects. This article describes the establishment and subsequent history of a counselling project based on an inner-city housing estate in East London, which was undergoing extensive regeneration. It discusses how the service originated from the ongoing work of a participatory action research project and how it challenged stereotypical images of counselling. It demonstrated that free, accessible and locally based counselling services are needed in the regeneration of communities; that extensive planning is necessary both within the organisation and in relation to funding before the project begins; and that on-going core funding is essential to sustaining such innovative and much-needed projects.     

In favour of online counselling?

Abstract

A ‘surf on the net’ reveals that internationally, many organisations are providing a range of counselling services online including counselling via email, interactive ‘chat rooms’ and teleconferencing. Online counselling appears to be offered primarily as a ‘fee for service’ and many online practitioners work in the area of mental health. In Australia, KIDS Help Line offers ‘free’ counselling for young people using both email and chat rooms. Meanwhile, other organisations/professional groups are struggling to come to terms with this new form of service delivery. This paper begins with a brief explanation of where Relationships Australia (Queensland) is placed in terms of online counselling followed by some of the advantages and disadvantages of online counselling based on a literature search. Concluding statements lean towards favouring online counselling as it offers a new form of intervention that may suit many clients and organisations. The term ‘online’ counselling refers herein to e.counselling or email counselling     

The readiness is all. Planning and training for post-disaster support work

Having acknowledged the world-wide impact of the terrorist attacks in New York on 11 September 2001 attention is drawn to the number of recent peace-time disasters that have happened in Great Britain. Local authority social services departments have been suggested as being best placed to be the lead agency in co-ordinating responses to such disasters. This paper describes how Buckinghamshire social services is working in partnership with its local voluntary counselling agencies to establish and maintain a trained team able to respond to disasters if needed. Contemporary theory relating to post-traumatic stress disorder, the imprint of death, psychic numbing and survivor guilt is cited and illustrated. The team has not yet been involved in a major disaster but examples are given showing its responses to various smaller scale, local disasters. It is acknowledged that counselling and de-briefing after disasters are not necessarily beneficial and therefore some critics of its provision are quoted. Lessons distilled from practice wisdom are provided. Responses to disasters are more likely to be effective, and least damaging to those involved, if potential helpers are trained as a team and are fully aware of the likely impact of such events.     

Family Therapy and the Family Doctor − 1

The author shows that the family doctor's burden of responsibility in the area of psychological dysfunction in the community is immense. Traditionally he has little training, limited knowledge, and a paucity of skills, in the areas of counselling and psychotherapy. The author argues that structural and strategic family therapy skills may be applicable to family practice and of benefit to the family doctor. A brief introductory course and subsequent feedback are described.     

An Evaluation of Caller Satisfaction with Solution-Focused Telephone Counselling

Abstract

‘Practice Forum’ is intended to provide a forum for social work practitioners to share their practice with others; to describe what they are doing and assess its effectiveness.

We extend an invitation to all social work practitioners to submit articles for ‘Practice Forum’ and we look forward to receiving your contribution.

The telephone is a potentially valuable intervention tool in family counselling. The Child, Adolescent & Family Health Service has been experimenting with a response which combines the traditional advantages of telephone counselling with aspects of Steve deShazer's solution-focused approach (deShazer 1985). In 1990 a study was conducted to evaluate caller satisfaction with this approach. Results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the counselling. At a time of increasing funding cuts and lengthening waiting lists, it is important that as many options as possible remain available to our clients. An expansion in effective telephone counselling services may well be one way of achieving this.     

Child protection training for primary health care teams: making a difference?

The role of health professionals in child protection is central to effective interagency working, yet there has been in the past criticism of their contribution to the process and recognized difficulty in engaging some health professionals in relevant training. In 2001 the author, working as Child Protection Adviser for an NHS Trust in Scotland, obtained funding to deliver child protection training to 23 primary health care teams across the region. Participants included those seen as having a key role in child protection and those often overlooked such as clerical and reception staff. Learning outcomes were established in response to the identified needs of the target group, national recommendations and the requirements of the funding body. A number of methods of evaluation, both planned and opportunistic, were used during the 1‐year project. All evaluations indicated that, in the short term, the training had been effective and the learning outcomes had been achieved. Results of an internal audit suggested that the training had resulted in a significant increase in awareness and knowledge. Further audit and evaluation will, however, be required to establish the extent of any lasting changes in practice. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Focusing on Empowerment: facilitating self-help in young people with arthritis through a disability organisation

Young people with arthritis face a number of disabling barriers when negotiating their way through contemporary society. A national disability organisation, Young Arthritis Care YAC , has established a Contact network, whereby young people with arthritis provide support to similar others in the community. To improve the service, YAC initiated Contact Training Courses in the fields of advocacy and counselling. An appropriate research methodology was required that enabled the efficacy of this training to be examined in a disability framework. Focus group technique was selected as a research methodology set within an emancipatory paradigm that can in itself be an empowering experience for participants. Results illustrated that focus group technique enabled young people with arthritis to freely articulate their views concerning the efficacy of training set within the framework of self-help.     

Kooperation bei Großschadensereignissen

In cases of major emergencies a whole range of organizations has to cooperate quickly and efficiently. This situation poses a challenge to cooperation and communication. The article sketches some problem areas typical for the cooperation in disaster situations which have been identified in interviews with representatives of the organizations involved, by participatory observation and in a survey of the relevant literature. These problem areas are analyzed against the background of systems-theoretical considerations on cooperation in organizational networks. On this basis the authors develop a multi-level counselling model for improving the cooperation in major emergencies.     

Concepts of Mental Retardation in Pakistan: Toward Cross-cultural and Historical Perspectives

This paper reviews concepts of mental retardation in Pakistan against an historical Asian and Islamic background, and discusses some hazards of Western cultural hegemony in this field. Evidence is presented from official documents, attitude surveys, a service development project and experiences in teacher training and family counselling. Families presenting their 'different' child usually offer comments on appearance, behaviour, capacity to learn, developmental progress and etiology. Since most family relationships and structures in Pakistan differ substantially from norms in Western countries, Western notions of 'independent living' and 'self-advocacy' are of questionable relevance. The socio-cultural construction of mental retardation is considered in the light of Pakistan's high national rate of non-literacy.