A Sense of Doubt blog post #3808 - THEORIES CLASS - My Strengths for Building a Strong Therapeutic Alliance

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3808 - THEORIES CLASS - My Strengths for Building a Strong Therapeutic Alliance

I have two short research essays to write this week as well as a BIG final research project to finish plus grading and class maintenance and so on.

And so, the rest of this week will be a series of my writing from my THEORIES class to keep the blog a low impact and easy task to accomplish.

I wrote this one last year, and it was posted that day after my Dad died.

Here's the first assignment of my Strengths for Building a Strong Therapeutic Alliance.

Thanks for tuning in!

Week One - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Reflection on Core Conditions of the Therapeutic Relationship

Chris Tower

 

My Strengths for Building a Strong Therapeutic Alliance

 

I feel like I have a counseling head start after working with students from all walks of life for years as a college professor and having been in bi-weekly therapy myself since 2010. Though I have my theoretical preferences in Jungian Analytical Psychology and Rogerian Person-Centered Therapy, the idea of integrating a bespoke approach based on the client’s needs in developing a helping relationship really called out to me as congruent with what I currently practice as an instructor to support each of my students as individuals. According to Capuzzi et al. (2022) in Sidebar 1.1, “the helping relationship must be established in a way that encourages client self-disclosure and motivation to establish and work toward the attainment of goals” (p.5). In my therapy sessions, I have observed and discussed with my therapist the various ways that he promotes self-disclosure and how his approach might vary with a client less talkative and analytical than I. Similarly, as an instructor, through patience, empathy, and openness (which I hope seems genuine), I discovered that I already practice several of the elements of Dr. Seligman’s GETCOP acronym (genuineness, empathy) that I hope also lead to trustworthiness and optimism among other elements (Laureate Education, 2012d). My experiences provide me many strengths for building a strong therapeutic alliance with clients, and I see many ways to grow and learn more in this course and others as I prepare to practice as a therapist.

 

Characteristics that Might Challenge Me

 

Though teaching and therapy have filled my toolbox with experiences that have allowed students to open up to me even about their most privates traumas or identities, my own struggle with Imposter Syndrome will prove to be a constant struggle for me as I strive to develop the best approach especially for clients with very different lived experiences than mine. Given my fears of coping with the challenges that I will face, strategies for developing strong helping relationships will prove to be vital to my work. I am excited for the skills that I will hone through my courses here at Walden providing me with the tools “to obtain specific results and to move the helping relationship from problem identification to problem resolution” (Capuzzi et al., 2022, p.13). Additionally, though not in the same exact words, while enumerating ideas for the role of counselor education programs, Gysbers, N. C. (n.d.) referenced “Imposter Syndrome” as the “I can’t do this” feeling and suggested employing Alfred Adler’s “as if” technique to counteract it (p.4). These strategies embolden me to overcome the challenges that I know I will face.

 

How These Will Help as I Become a Counselor/Social Change Agent

 

My strengths as well as the means I will use to overcome challenges will help me to be an agent for social change in the counseling profession much as I have been in the teaching profession. In illuminating Relational-cultural theory, Duffey, T., & Haberstroh, S. (2022) describe the work that has been a constant throughout my teaching career to “acknowledge the very real covert and overt experiences of disenfranchisement, racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism that people experience acutely and chronically” (p.31). Seligman’s GETCOP acronym tool set (Laureate Education, 2012d) and the strategies for developing productive helping relationships (Capuzzi et al., 2022) will help me in working to subsume these techniques for social justice progress, especially in making overt the covert inequities so as to dismiss or at least mitigate them. I am excited to find all the intersectional ways my life’s work until now will integrate with my new life’s work and passion in counseling.

 

References

Capuzzi, D., Stauffer, M. D., & Payne, R. D. (2022). Helping relationships and theoretical foundations for counseling and psychotherapy. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 3-28). American Counseling Association.

Duffey, T., & Haberstroh, S. (2022). Multicultural and social justice counseling through relational-cultural theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 29–52). American Counseling Association.

Gysbers, N. C. (n.d.). Some important core qualities of counseling professionals: A personal perspective. VISTAS Online. Retrieved August 31, 2018, from https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/article_02.pdf?sfvrsn=8

Walden University, LLC. (2012). The therapeutic alliance [Video]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.22 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3673 days ago & DAD = 327 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.