A Sense of Doubt blog post #3860 - This is How I Feel - RING OF FIRE

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3860 - This is How I Feel - RING OF FIRE

Once again, I had to postpone already scheduled though not yet finished blog entries for something more pressing and timely.

Conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/10/us/charlie-kirk-shot-utah

Farron of Ring of Fire published this video today and it struck a chord. I share it and my thoughts below.

I’m taking a break from Ring of Fire

My blog hardly gets as much attention as Farron's RING OF FIRE channel. Sadly, he shared that he gets death threats to his home by Republicans.

But I have been political on this blog. I have an entire category called "State of the Hate Nation."

And though I think that the pressure to be silenced is not one to which everyone should capitulate -- and thankfully many, many are not capitulating -- like Farron and Ring of Fire, I need to avoid politics on this blog for now until I see where the wind will be blowing. If this incident begins a civil war and good ol' boys start "shooting the libs" as they have been asking to do for years, I don't want to be another target for them, even though I am very minor and much harder to find, surely not at the top of any list.

But I agree with EVERYTHING Farron says in the video above and that Lucien Greaves shares in the post below.

Do I think that Charlie Kirk espoused hateful rhetoric to which I am vehemently opposed? Absolutely.

Do I believe he should have been killed as he was for doing so? No. I do not.

Can I understand why people might want to kill him for his hateful ideas? Yes, I do.

Do I think it's the right thing to do to kill him? No.

Also, since I am studying clinical mental health counseling, I encountered an ethical dilemma being discussed in one of my classes about use of social media and the Internet for espousing personal views that may make clients feel unsafe. As such, I need to evaluate how I use my blog and what my posts contain.

I am not going to go back an delete past posts.

But I can rethink if I want to post about politics at all.

Some of my nerd friends don't post about politics at all on social media.

And maybe, for the most part, I need to stick to music, comics, space, science, science fiction, counseling, and so on.

Like Farron explains in his video, I am also taking some time to evaluate who I am online and how I want to be perceived.

Thanks for tuning in.

ALSO, THIS:

The Indefensible Use of Political Violence

On the assassination of Charlie Kirk

by Lucien Greaves

While I feel that I should begin with some mention of my own, brief, indirect encounter with Charlie Kirk, I want to make emphatically clear from the start that I in no way mention our oppositional alignments out of any concern for the fear that to do otherwise might contribute to “bad optics” in which condemning his murder makes me suspect in being a bit too agreeable to his ideas. To speak out against violence never requires such justifications. Rather, I point to our contention to directly confront a different knee-jerk predictable response to my condemnation of his killing that insists that I am simply blind to the harm that his words presumably caused, and that from a place of relative privilege I am simply incapable of grasping the threat that Kirk is believed to have presented. I have already seen mob-demented social media bloviators describe his murder as a "symmetrical attack” and a result of violence begetting violence. But if we are to agree with the overbroad categorization that accepts words as violence, we must at least agree that there is a significant difference in degree between hearing offensive ideas and taking a bullet to the fucking head, and a line here was clearly crossed. In 2022, in response to The Satanic Temple’s first SatanCon conference in Scottsdale, AZ, Kirk wrote an op-ed for Newsweek arguing that Satanists should not enjoy First Amendment protections. It was astonishingly hypocritical for the self-styled Free Speech crusader and, it must be said, impossible to reconcile with what I have seen of his typical rhetoric. My offers to debate him on the topic went unanswered, and I can not help but feel that the indefensibility of the position under scrutiny played a role in that silence. If a significant number of people feel that we can be deprived of basic fundamental civil liberties, what other deprivations might they be able to justify? Since then, we have been the target of terroristic attacks, including arson and a bombing attempt on our headquarters. Nonetheless, my first reaction upon hearing that Charlie Kirk has been murdered during a speaking event at a university in Utah is far from some delusion that the world has, in some way, been made a safer place for me and adherents to our Tenets. In fact, beyond the visceral horror and revulsion, it is clear upon any reasonable analysis that the opposite is true. We are all a bit less safe now. Nor do I blame Kirk for death threats I receive or the terrorism against us. Influencers are never these raw thought-dictating svengalis that the outrage mobs they generate— mobs which never fail to elevate the celebrity and perceived importance of those they decry — seem to think. Rather, influencers are almost always at least as influenced by their followers, their audience and subscribers, as their audiences are shaped by them. Regardless of how independent-minded Charlie Kirk may or may not have been, his popularity could only be made possible by a significant popular willingness to accept the message he was propagating. Shooting him does nothing to diminish that willingness, does nothing to make those ideas disappear, and it serves no positive function. You will notice that I am not making an argument for a metaphysical moral position regarding the sanctity of all human life, or even an absolute prohibition against all forms of political violence. Nor is this because I disagree with these positions, but it is because I do not dignify the murder of Charlie Kirk as necessitating them. Such arguments land like stale, scripted absolutes that are impervious to circumstance upon the ears of those who imagine there are benefits to this type of violence that occasionally supersede such lofty moral ideals. But there is no benefit to this barbarism, no greater ends served by unfortunate means, no clearer path forward to a more just and equitable world by Kirk’s brutal slaying. Political violence rests on a justification of liberation, the idea that a movement’s followers are ruled by fear, coercion, and threat of state violence. Tyrants are slain in hopes of breaking free those who exist under such oppression. Kirk had no such coercive force. Even if you argue that Kirk provided the philosophical framework undergirding potential or existing authoritarian oppression, he did so in the realm of debate, in the realm of persuasive influence, where his ideas are better confronted and known than suppressed or extinguished by force. We gain nothing if we silence known arguments prevalently held without challenging the ideas themselves, and the Charlie Kirks of the world allow us the opportunity to do that. The battle here is one for popular support, and shooting Kirk is more likely to make his ideas appear moderate and defensible in contrast to a thoughtless, murderous, and savage opposition. To those who would justify this act of violence, it must be asked, what is the imagined gain here? While I see social media commentary about the perceived delusion of “civil politics,” and its inability to “save us,” the implicit delusion seems to be that the MAGA movement will now cower in fear and ultimately realize its folly after witnessing this assassination. While the notion that we can progress forward by way of debate is denigrated as naive and unrealistic, the deeply unrealistic, even infantile, counter-assumption seems to be that, even in the midst of a Trump administration, this does more to diminish autocratic aspirations than to create an argument for their justification. Even if one is to argue that debate is not working, or somehow not viable, or point to Kirk’s failure to debate me after his Newsweek piece, it is impossible to accept his assassination as any type of acceptable follow-up option. As with those whose cognitive simplicity is such that they can not separate a defense of Free Speech for advocacy of the most odious expressions of opinion that the First Amendment protects, I already see backlash against those who condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk as some kind of special love for the man and his ideas. (Some asshole on BlueSky already called me Nazi because of it.) No deep analysis of Kirk’s history is needed to condemn his assassination or recognize how counterproductive it is in the fight to preserve democratic norms and advance social equity. To attempt to justify Kirk’s assassination based on commentary he made that presumably argues for political violence is almost laughably self-negating. It is thoughtless and destructive, and it should be recognized as such. Nor is this all about how you should feel about Kirk himself. The important issue is how we feel about this kind of violence, and we should never be ambiguous in our condemnation of it.

Originally published on September 11, 2025 at luciengreaves.substack.com Click here to subscribe to Lucien Greaves' Substack.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2509.12 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3725 days ago & DAD = 379 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3818 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Feminist Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3818 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Feminist Therapy


The next post in this series and the last one, for now.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Seven - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Feminist Theory

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: - Feminist - Case of Olivia

 

Presenting Problem: Olivia has been referred to counseling for failing grades in school and attendance issues. She is a 15-year-old Honduran-Irish American living with her father (Honduran) and three younger siblings. Olivia has not seen her mother in six years since she (the mother, Sinéad) left the family to work as a travel nurse and pursue a relationship with another man. Olivia’s father Luis works two jobs, filling his time seven days a week, and still struggles to make ends meet; though Sinéad makes a good income, she sends neither child nor spousal support to Luis (the father) or their family. Luis depends on Olivia to maintain the household and care for the family as he is at work most of the time; he has praised her for filling the her “future” role of a wife and mother. Olivia takes the responsibility of her family very seriously and as such has sacrificed school to help out at home. Olivia would like to be a veterinarian, but without the grades, she has little hope of fulfilling this dream. Olivia confesses to being very sad about disappointing her teachers with her repeated failures.

 

Hypothesis: Olivia’s sadness and failures at school are rooted in how her father has reinforced the patriarchal hegemony’s gender role for women as home-makers and mothers. Olivia lacks empowerment to pursue her dreams of being a veterinarian and find a way to reframe her role in caring for her siblings, her father, and her household. Further complicating Olivia’s powerlessness is the lack of a female role model, given that her mother left her father years ago. Olivia faces a difficult problem; however, the counselor can use Feminist Theory to best address it. According to Herlihy and Cruz (2022), “the client is an equal participant” in choosing goals for change (pg. 327). Feminist theory can help Olivia to be empowered to change her circumstances.

 

Goals: Through the lens of Feminist theory, the primary goal for Olivia is empowerment to reframe traditional gender roles and discover that she can be a home-maker, a mother, and a veterinarian. Herlihy and Cruz (2022) define empowerment as a way for clients to have “control over themselves” and recognize that “powerlessness is a learned behavior” (pg. 318). Olivia can be aided to see how her powerlessness is learned behavior because of cultural hegemony and not a fixed role or a biological destiny. Integral to Olivia’s discovery of empowerment will be finding strong female role models. Despite the family abandonment, her mother’s independence and breaking of cultural gender roles could be reframed in a positive light. Through empowerment and role models, feminist counseling can help Olivia find motivation and success at school, alleviate her feelings of failure, and yet affirm her choice to continue to shoulder the necessary responsibility of caring for her family.

 

 

Interventions:

 

Reframing: The counselor will guide Olivia to reframe her perceived failures at school and her gender role in her family unit. Herlihy and Cruz (2022) illustrate this intervention as changing the “frame of reference” in regards to the cultural and sociopolitical constructs of Olivia’s situation (pg. 320) about the expected future gender role as a “wife and mother” asher father Luis described it. In seeing the ways in which the hegemonic patriarchal culture prescribes confining gender roles for women as a biological destiny of motherhood and housework, Olivia can be helped to dispense with negative labeling causing her to feel like a “disappointment” to her teachers and relabeling her chosen responsibility to help her father and family as “a positive coping strategy” in her current situation (Herlihy & Cruz, 2022, pg.320). This intervention should help Olivia to pursue her dreams of having a career as a veterinarian and continue to fill a vital role in caring for her family.

 

Bibliotherapy and Self-Disclosure: The counselor’s self-disclosure about using bibliotherapy as an intervention for change can influence Olivia to invest in the same process for her own change. Given that Olivia has explained that she likes to read (though mostly about animals and veterinary science), the counselor could use carefully chosen literature to further empower Olivia to reframe her situation and find a new way of living that will allow her to succeed at school and at home. The counselor’s own self-disclosure of following a similar path and of the readings that had the most influence may inspire Olivia to pursue a similar path. As Herlihy and Cruz (2022) describe in sidebar 14.4 a counselor’s self-disclosure can “illuminate the commonalities among women and decrease the client’s feelings of isolation” (pg. 320), which given Olivia’s situation is a much needed benefit to help her through a process of change.

 

Though the counselor may make connections through self-disclosure, given Olivia’s multi-cultural heritage (Honduran father and Irish-American mother), feminist scholars of color with similar cultural backgrounds could provide role models that Olivia lacks in her life. Many Feminist writers could be influential to Olivia, such as bell hooks (lower case intentional as was her way of writing her name and oddly missing from the Herlihy & Cruz chapter), Excilia Saldaña, and Gloria E. Anzaldúa as well as primarily fiction writers such as Julia Alvarez and Carmen Maria Machado: Machado’s memoir – In the Dream House – could prove particularly influential for Olivia as it focuses on how culture may affect psychological abuse (Machado, 2019).

 

Expected Outcome: Because of the difficulties of gender norms and patriarchal hegemony towards all women – women of color in particular – Feminist therapists work to change those inequities and roles with individual clients (Lopez, 2017, 0:52) as well as inspiring women to work for social justice and advocacy for social change as well as their own personal change (Herlihy & Cruz, 2022, pg.309). Through an emphasis on the “central place of relationship and connections ... in women’s lives” (Meniru, 2024) and through reframing and bibliotherapy/counselor-disclosure, Olivia will find empowerment and strong role models to achieve her career dreams while still caring for her family, which will provide her with focus and motivation in school and alleviate her sadness and feelings of exhaustion and failure.

 

References

 

Herlihy, D., & Cruz, T. (2022). Feminist theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 309-334). American Counseling Association.

 

Lopez, Nastassia. (2017). An Overview of Feminist Therapy. YouTube. https://youtu.be/H3Bx6cWXZBY?si=Ttea7ta4ur0C_qsJ

 

Machado, Carmen Maria (2019). In the Dream House. Greywolf Press.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2508.01 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3683 days ago & DAD = 337 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post ##3817 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post ##3817 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Another of my assignments and that's all.

I am buried in work.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Six - Main Discussion - COUN6722 -

Cognitive Behavioral or Rational Emotive Behavioral

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: - Cognitive Behavioral - Case of Mike

 

Presenting Problem: A fourteen-year-old Asian American male, Mike has been referred for counseling by his math teacher due to low grades. Mike is withdrawn and shows signs of anxiety and depression. Mike reports that his father verbally abuses him for his grades and a “lazy American teenage attitude.” Mike has agreed to counseling to help his family and find a way to live up to his father’s expectations. Mike is also bullied at school and has no close friendships at school. Mike enjoys working on cars with his one friend, a seventeen-year-old high-school dropout, with whom he might like to open an auto shop, something of which his father disapproves. Mike feels inadequate and isolated because he does not want to be an engineer like his father, and he feels responsible for the tension in his household.

 

Hypothesis: Mike has internalized his father’s harsh criticism for his low math grades causing his feelings of isolation and inadequacy. He sees his interest in auto work as a failure of his father’s expectations for him to be an engineer further perpetuating his feelings of inadequacy. The cycle of verbal abuse from his father and Mike’s isolation has become a “conditioned response” resulting in “cognitive distortions” and negative core beliefs (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.195-199).

 

Goals: The primary goals for Mike are to learn to cope with or even eliminate negative core beliefs internalized from his father’s verbal abuse. Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mike will be able to identify and challenge his negative thoughts and learn coping skills that will reduce his anxiety and self-perception of inadequacy. If successful, Mike will have greater social interest and better self-image. These dysfunctional behaviors or irrational beliefs could be changed or disrupted by changing Mike’s cognition. Through “functional behavioral assessment,” Mike can be taught to track the ABCs of his situation – “antecedents, behaviors, and consequences” – to understand what is “sustaining the behavior” and change these “maladaptive patterns” (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.201).

 

Interventions:

 

Cognitive Defusion: To address Mike’s negative thoughts about himself, the counselor will guide Mike through the “leaves on a stream” technique, a third-wave technique in acceptance and commitment therapy, that falls within the broad category of CBT (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.204). The counselor will encourage Mike to practice the activity outside of the session. The counselor will debrief with Mike after each use of the technique in session to emphasize how he will train his mind to “not get caught up in negative thinking” but to observe negative thoughts and continue to live with the positive values of the present moment (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.204). Through use of debriefing with Socratic questioning, the counselor will help Mike to feel more comfortable experiencing negative thoughts and yet decrease their believability and frequency. For instance, by asking Mike “What is the worst thing that could happen,” Mike may feel that this is his father following through in his threat to kick him out of the house. With continued questioning, the counselor can lead Mike to identify the underlying negative core belief – perhaps “I will have nowhere to go and be homeless” (unlikely as Mike is a minor) – and then helping Mike to adapt and focus on positive outcomes (Rosenthal, 2017, pg. 655) to cope with fears about this worst case scenario.

 

Self-Monitoring Thought Record: The counselor will teach Mike to increase his awareness of how his automatic thoughts have emotional/behavioral consequences. This activity will be another homework assignment for Mike to focus on adaptive responses when experiencing triggers by increasing his awareness of his negative thoughts and helping him intervene before they perpetuate his feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and anxiety. As Shaw & Green (2022) explained citing J.S. Beck (2021) client’s language, such as “I feel that I am a failure” – something Mike may say – reflect thoughts and not feelings. By “detailed use of the thought record” (pg. 203), Mike can identify these thoughts to develop adaptive responses for positive outcomes. For instance, if “feeling like a failure” results in the emotion of insecurity (feeling inadequate), the adaptive response can be focusing Mike on parts of his life that are not failures, such as working on cars with his one friend.

 

Expected Outcome: If Mike is successful with the interventions in coping with his negative thoughts, his anxiety and isolation should diminish, he will feel better about himself, and he will be able to resist internalizing his father’s negativity. Mike should feel less isolated and better able to navigate abusive situations both with his father and the bullies at school. As John Krumboltz explained in the “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” video from Psychotherapy.net, he said “we [CBT counselors] are results-oriented. We want to help people improve, and we want to do it as quickly and easily as possible. And we want to keep learning to do it better and better (1:30:45-59). These interventions should help Mike achieve the therapeutic goals as quickly and easily as Kromboltz suggests.

 

 

References

Psychotherapy.net. (Producer). (1997a). Cognitive behavioral therapy with John Krumboltz. [Video file]. Mill Valley, CA: Author.

Rosenthal, H. (2017). Encyclopedia of counseling: Master review and tutorial for the National Counselor Examination, state counseling exams, and the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (4th ed.). Routledge.

Shaw, S. & Green, J. (2022). Cognitive-Behavioral theories. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 193-216). American Counseling Association.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.31 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3682 days ago & DAD = 336 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3811 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Gestalt Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3811 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Gestalt Therapy

I was writing a huge research project on this day, Friday, but now it's Monday the 28th, and I am done.

Catching up.

Last, for now, in this series from my theories class.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Four - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Humanistic Theories: Existential or Gestalt

Chris Tower

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: Gestalt - Case of Deidre

 

Presenting Problem: Deidre’s medical doctor referred her due to symptoms of anxiety and with no physical cause discernible for her chronic headaches. Deidre is a 21-year-old college sophomore of African American and Latinx heritage. She has no siblings. She works part-time as a barista and lives in a dormitory in upstate New York. Deidre’s parents divorced when she was 11; she has described her mother as “emotionally unpredictable,” which is a source of ongoing conflict between them. Deidre feels that her mother drove away her father with her [the mother’s] negativity and moods. Her father died suddenly six years ago. Deidre remembers ways in which her father coped with her mother’s moods, and she misses the calm household she visited in the summers between the divorce and his death. Known for being quiet and reserved in high school, Deidre maintained a few close friendships, but now, in college, she reports not having many friends, missing her father, and confused about what career path to choose. Three years ago, she became pregnant during a party at a friend’s house, and not knowing who the father was, she chose to have an abortion. She often has dreams about this decision and wonders how different her life might have been if she had become a mother. Deidre feels lost and alone and worries that she has no hope for having a good life.

 

Hypothesis: Deidre has withdrawn from her community and culture due to unhealthy confluence, having introjected and internalized her mother’s negativity, the emotional unpredictability that she believes drove her father away; she fears becoming like her mother, which has her closing off from healthy confluence (deep connections with loved ones) because of fear of how others see her due to how she sees her mother and herself – guilt over the abortion (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 171). In examining Frederick Fritz Perls’ six factors that lead to psychological distress in Gestalt Theory, Deidre’s situation fits all six: a lack of contact (no social support), unhealthy confluence, inability to gain closure due to unfinished business, fragmented and/or denial of self, conflict between values and expectations (winner/loser), and inability to see gray areas (polarity) (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 166). Without relationships in which she can place her trust, regrets about the abortion, continued grief over losing her father, Deidre has a negative view of her self and the world around her and limited self-awareness that may be manifesting in her symptoms of anxiety and chronic headaches.

 

Goals: Because the only goal of Gestalt therapy is awareness (Taylor, 2020), the primary goal for Deidre as described by Haley et al. (2022) “is autonomy and growth... through increased awareness” (pp. 184). Through Gestalt theory’s methods, the counselor will form a “genuine, trusting relationship” with Deidre. Feeling “safe and supported,” Deidre can explore her emotions and the pain she carries within; thus, she will be able to “grow in a positive direction” and develop a positive sense of self, which may reduce her anxiety, sense of feeling lost, and chronic headaches (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 185). Through this greater awareness, Deidre can form new relationships with classmates or co-workers, cope better with the relationship with her mother and loss of her father, and find career direction in her studies.

 

Interventions: Gestalt therapy is often used to help people cope with the grief following death of a loved one. It can help people to enhance self-awareness in regards to thoughts and feelings about death and help people learn to express themselves in more positive ways while coping with trauma (Alexander & Harman, 1988, pp.283).

 

Empty-Chair Technique: With Deidre’s approval, the counselor will have Deidre sit across from an empty chair and speak both parts (herself and the imagined other) to “express repressed and avoided feelings” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). Deidre can choose who sits in the other chair, but likely candidates are her mother, her father, whomever got her pregnant, the mother she would be if she had the baby, or even the baby that she aborted. Several of these choices will move Deidre out of her “safety zone” as she imagines what any of these candidates for the other chair would say in response to her, “referring to her feelings in the past and bring her emotions into the present” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). Continuing to maintain a safe and supported environment, the counselor can help Deidre to grow in a positive direction. Because “Gestalt is inherently creative” (Taylor, 2020), the counselor and Deidre will dynamically and imaginatively explore and unpack this two-chair experience.

 

Unfinished Business: The empty chair intervention will also allow Deidre to complete her unfinished business with as many people or feelings as she wants to confront. Like Haley et al. (2022) explain about this intervention: “it’s a powerful experiment and should prove useful in alleviating [Deidre’s] symptoms of depression, [anxiety], and diminishing her bad dreams” (pp. 186). Deidre needs to establish closure with her “incomplete gestalts” and help her to move past “stuck points.” Much like the Clarita case that Haley et al. describe, Deidre needs to live in the present rather than being stuck in the past. In so doing, she can create a “more positive future for herself” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). In the exploration of unfinished business through the two-chair technique and other verbal games, the therapist will pay attention to the non-verbal level of the client’s expression

for the “relevant gestalt to emerge” as the non-verbal is less subject to “self-deception than [the] verbal, pseudo self-expression” (Creative Caption & Video, n.d., 3:41-4:02). In Gestalt, “personality may, in one sense, be defined as a structure of speech habits” and personal growth and self-awareness to cope and adjust to situations will emerge through speech habits, largely in HOW a story is told as opposed to WHAT is told (Alban & Groman, 1976, pp. 393).

 

Expected Outcome: A central tenet of Gestalt theory is that “individuals can cope with their life problems” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 169) because when people are born they inherently possess all that they need to thrive and have fulfilling relationships, but sometimes that natural process becomes blocked (Taylor, 2020). As such, through the counseling sessions and interventions, Deidre can be re-directed for increased self-awareness and oriented in a positive direction. The goals will be achieved holisitically according to Stevenson (2016) “through the confluence of mind, body, past, present, inner and outer worlds, and the co-constructed understanding of being in those worlds” (as cited in Haley et al., 2022, pp. 169). Gestalt theory mandates that an individual be understood in a social and historical context and not in isolation. Exploring Deidre’s current issues through cultural and familial context offers the best opportunity for self-awareness and positive growth and is most likely to alleviate her headaches, nightmares, withdrawal, and anxiety.

 

References

 

Alban, L.S. & Groman W.D. (1976). Neurotic Anxiety, Pronoun Usage, and Stress. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 32(1). 393-399. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(197604)32:2<393::AID-JCLP2270320240>3.0.CO;2-W.

 

Alexander, J. A. C., & Harman, R. L. (1988). One Counselor’s Intervention in the Aftermath of a Middle School Student’s Suicide: A Case Study. Journal of Counseling & Development, 66(6), 283. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1988.tb00869.

 

Creative Caption & Video (n.d.) Fritz Perls and Gloria-counseling 1965 full session-Gestalt therapy-captioned [Video].

 

Haley, M., Riley, P. G., & Greenan, G. (2022). Gestalt theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 165-192). American Counseling Association. 

 

Taylor, Tanis. (2020). What is Gestalt Therapy? Welldoing Psychotherapy & Counseling. YouTube. https://youtu.be/i4AZYpLe9GU?si=3_pnQ0f6XwLSrfnq.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.25 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3676 days ago & DAD = 330 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3810 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Rogerian - Person-Centered Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3810 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Rogerian - Person-Centered Therapy

Next theory in this series, and possibly my favorite, though I am not sure if I will practice it without modification.

I doubt that there are any counselors who do not adhere to the idea of "unconditional positive regard."

I happen to really love that idea. We're all human beings with vulnerabilities and flaws.  Treating other people as people may seem like a no brainer, but it is amazing how often people DO NOT treat other human beings as human beings. Or rather, back again to the Golden Rule, they do not treat others as they themselves would like to be treated with love, compassion, and respect.

Here's my essay on applying Rogerian, Person-Centered Therapy to the same case as I detailed yesterday.

Thanks for tuning in/.

Week Three - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Rogerian Person-Centered Case

Chris Tower

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: Person-Centered Counseling - Case of Jason

Presenting Problem: Jason is a 38-year-old Jewish Caucasian male; his family lives on the east coast where he grew up. He works 60-80 hours a week in his law practice; he considers these long hours as his main coping mechanism. Jason finds social support in the Jewish community, attending weekly services. Jason has sought counseling for severe depression and feels like he has lost meaning and purpose in his life. Jason exhibits pale complexion, sweatiness, and agitated muscle movements. He is engaged in a romantic relationship with Kevin, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and keeps their relationship secret. Jason fears the "devastating effect" the truth of his relationship with Kevin would have on his support system and even his profession. Jason has described what he sees as a betrayal from Kevin's "online affairs," involving pornography consumption and explicit sex chats. Jason views his relationship with Kevin as giving his life meaning, and he asked his counselor to "take the pain away."

 

Hypothesis: Jason’s anxiety and depression originate from his fears about his secret relationship with Kevin being disclosed and his incongruence between his family, religious, and professional communities – his perceived world – and his romantic relationships, his natural world. Jason perceives that there are “strings attached” to the respect, fellowship, and love that he receives from others. These “conditions of worth” have Jason distrusting his own confidence in running his own life and making the best choices for himself (Hazler, 2022), which has forced him into being secretive about his romantic partner. But Jason falls even deeper into incongruence, when his partner’s actions feel like a “betrayal.”

 

Goals: The primary goal for Jason is a move from his current state of incongruence to congruence to perceive his own positive nature for himself and the world around him. According to Hazler (2022, p.148) by accepting his strengths and weaknesses, Jason will reduce “distortions in [his] view of the world” finding the congruence between how he sees himself and his interactions with the people in his communities and relationships. By providing the “essential growth conditions,” Jason can realize his unfulfilled potential for “self-acceptance, self-growth, self-satisfaction, and self-actualization” (Hazler, 2022, p.148).

 

Interventions: All interventions with Jason will be conducted through the Rogerian lens of unconditional positive regard that is central to person-centered therapy.

 

Reflection of Content and Feeling: To help him move to congruence with his two separate worlds and onward to self-actualization, Jason’s words and feelings will be mirrored by the counselor via empathy exploration. The goal of this interaction will be seeing the underlying feelings the client may be unaware of expressing. Given that Jason’s worldview is one of pain over a secret relationship and a betrayal within that relationship, the reflection process will unify the complex elements of the client’s world as a whole as opposed to distinctly separate relationships and secrecies. In so doing, Jason may see a way to “revise and expand perceptions of [himself] based on counselor reflections” (Hazler, 2022, p.151). In demonstrating unconditional positive regard, the counselor will show real caring, love, and deep respect for the client affirming that he has a “capacity for self-direction” (Psychotherapy.net, 2008, 16:23). The need for positive regard is universal in all human beings and develops as the awareness of self emerges (Rogers, 1959, Chapter 17, p. 245). The reflection process and unconditional positive regard can only be achieved through “active listening,” a demonstration of empathy integral to person-centered counseling and all its interventions.

 

Immediacy: In addition to reflection, the counselor will look to address directly the “immediate situation” with Jason, another use of the mirror in empathy exploration. Though reflection provides a larger view of the client’s worldview in sum total from days or weeks all together, employing immediacy enables a “here-and-now approach to the relationship in general and to feelings in particular” (Hazler, 2022, p.151) by addressing what comes out in the therapy session as it happens. The counselor may question the contradiction between Jason’s words and his pale complexion, sweatiness, and agitated muscle movements. The counselor may also share direct observation of the statements Jason makes in the moment to better explore them immediately, such as the justifications and reasoning he may make for the secret he is keeping from everyone in his life (the relationship), including Kevin (the feeling of betrayal). In so doing, the counselor becomes “a vibrant part of the client’s experience” (Hazler, 2022, p.151). This intervention will rely on the counselor’s capacity for intuition, especially as Natalie Rogers (daughter of Carl Rogers) claimed “we're all much more intuitive than we dare admit” (Psychotherapy.net, 2008, 147:40).

This intuition can be seen in action in a YouTube video as Carl Rogers draws conclusions in counseling a client about his anger: “people don’t realize how much you hurt me” (Hill, 2017, 31:30), he says, reflecting the client’s feeling immediately, in the moment. In my own therapeutic experiences with someone using the Rogerian method, the immediate reflections provided by my counselor have allowed me to think of a situation in a new way, such as when he questioned my fears about returning to graduate school.

 

Expected Outcome: The interventions of reflection and immediacy engaged with unconditional positive regard and active listening will convey confidence that Jason is competent and reinforce trust in himself. Jason will be encouraged to believe that he “can accomplish great things on the journey to improve” (Hazler, 2022, p.143) because he has the inner resources to grow in a positive direction, regardless of how he may define that direction. Whether Jason continues to live with secrets and lies are his choices, but through person-centered counseling he may begin to see “creative ideas and actions” (Hazler, 2022, p.143) allowing him to grow in whatever new directions he sets for himself.

 

References

 

Hazler, R. (2022). Person-centered theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 139-164). American Counseling Association.

 

Hill, A. (2017). Carl Rogers counsels an individual on anger. You Tube. https://youtu.be/uRCD3anKsa0?si=P4cuF9ffue0f8iNh.

 

Psychotherapy.net (Producer). (2008). Person-centered expressive arts therapy [Video file]. Author. https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/person-centered-expressive-arts-therapy.

 

Rogers, Carl. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In H. Kirshenbaum & V.L. Henderson (Eds.) The Carl Rogers Reader. (pp. 236-257). Houghton Mifflin Company.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2407.24 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3675 days ago & DAD = 329 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3809 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Adlerian Theory

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3809 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Adlerian Theory

As I announced yesterday, I am posting work from my grad school studies. These THEORIES essays were written last year.

I had to ask for extra time to post this essay as it was due not long after my Dad passed away. I was trying to read about Adlerian theory sitting at his death bed.

This work may not be of interest to everyone, but that is true of all of my posts. I have done a lot of writing in the last year in grad school, so I figure posting that work is appropriate.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Two - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Adlerian Case

Chris Tower

Case Conceptualization

Theory: Adlerian Theory-Case of Jason

Presenting Problem: Jason is a 38-year-old Jewish Caucasian male from the east coast, where his entire family still lives. He owns a successful law practice, specializing in commercial real estate property law and works 60-80 hours a week; he considers these long hours as his main coping mechanism. Jason finds social support in the Jewish community, attending weekly services. Jason has sought counseling for severe depression and feels like he has lost meaning and purpose in his life. Shortly after starting counseling sessions, he began a romantic relationship with Kevin, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and kept their relationship secret from his family and his extended personal, professional, and religious community. The secret is causing Jason a great deal of anxiety as evidenced by his behaviors, such as agitated muscle movement and sweatiness. Jason fears the "devastating effect" the truth of his relationship with Kevin would have on his support system and even his profession. In a later session, Jason described what he sees as a betrayal from Kevin's "online affairs," involving pornography consumption and explicit sex chats. Jason views his relationship with Kevin as giving his life meaning, and he asked his counselor to "take the pain away." He has nightmares of Kevin being unfaithful and of the anti-gay persecution that he fears he will experience if his relationship with Kevin becomes public knowledge.

Hypothesis: Jason’s anxiety derives from his secret relationship with Kevin, which manifests as two betrayals of his Jewish identity: a relationship with a man and not a woman and a relationship with someone outside his own religious faith, especially Kevin’s faith that is so opposed to same-sex relationships. Though they were both aligned in needing to keep their relationship a secret from their faith communities and families, Jason views Kevin’s online sexual activity as a betrayal of fidelity, a reflection of his own betrayal of the ideals of his Jewish faith. It appears that Jason has always felt as if his same-sex relationships betrayed his religion and family, and so he avoided confronting this reality by throwing himself into his work ‘to stay sane.” Jason can be categorized as the avoidant social interest type (Dufrene and Clark, 2022). Though Jason was very socially connected through his profession and religion, his social activity is a passive means of protecting himself from feeling inferior about his same-sex relationship. According to Gibbons and Maybell (2020, as cited in Dufrene and Clark, 2022) Adler’s idea of organ inferiority describes how “a person responds to organic inferiorities by reaching for success, making up for deficiency in some way with another physical attribute” (p.101). Clearly, Jason’s sexuality is his weak part, much like an “organ,” the inferiority, and his long work hours and religious support system make up for this perceived deficiency.

Goal: The primary goal for Jason is to alleviate his anxiety and depression and renew his feeling of meaning and purpose in life. Focusing on Jason’s belief for why he must keep his relationship with Kevin a secret and even his expectations for the behavior of a romantic partner will allow for growth from avoidance and inferiority to usefulness and a single lifestyle that fully meets Jason’s social needs (Dufrene and Clark, 2022,).

Interventions:

Challenge Faulty Beliefs: Perceptions of Social and Cultural World: An Adlerian counselor would encourage the client to challenge what might be faulty beliefs that are often more prevalent in difficult times. Jon Carlson Psy.D, Ed.d spoke of how “Adlerians don't believe that you're determined. Adlerians really believe that you have choices. If it appears as though you're headed in a … certain direction, it's because you learned some beliefs, and you had some beliefs about life. When people have difficulties in life, they have some faulty beliefs... so what we would need to do is help…to challenge those beliefs and to rewrite…[the] future" (Adlerian Therapy, 2009, 1:26:40 - 1:28:13). Faulty beliefs about religion, professional community, and sexual activity/interests in relationships may be the root cause of Jason’s avoidance and inferiority. By encouraging him to move from the avoidant personality type to what Adler described as the useful type: “an individual who cooperates, contributes, and is useful and active in society” (Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 101), he can grow and heal. In so doing, the counselor will meet an Adlerian goal of encouraging the client to engage in a lifestyle that meets their social needs as Jason’s current lifestyle choices appear to be in conflict. The challenge of what Jason will define as his faulty beliefs will occur within the arena of social exclusion in which he is operating, as he feels it necessary to hide his relationship with Kevin (Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 109).

Confrontation and Reorientation: Challenge of possibly faulty beliefs may also involve confrontation, an important part of encouragement according to Adler. The counselor can hold “mistaken beliefs” up to a client “as with a mirror,” which presents an opportunity… to make immediate change in beliefs, behaviors, or mood (p.145)” (Milliren et al., 2007, as cited in Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 106). To reorient the client, the Adlerian counselor would focus on a client’s strengths, which in Jason’s case are his work ethic, his success, and his religious faith and community. Adler believed the main goal in counseling is to “develop the client’s sense of belonging and empower the client to change behaviors and beliefs by increasing the client’s self- awareness and modifying goals to accomplish the change” (Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 106). Jason will benefit from designing and implementing his own change to achieve the lifestyle that will alleviate all or in some increment his anxiety and depression.

Socratic Questioning: Challenging beliefs through encouragement, confrontation, and reorientation will all be facilitated best via the Adlerian strategy of Socratic questioning “to lead clients into insight and cognitive change through a series of questions” (Stein, 2013, as cited in Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 108). The counselor will use leading questions to uncover the client’s “private logic.” The counselor and client will review the results of this questioning process as the client, Jason, takes responsibility for his own change and new direction (p.108).

Expected Outcome: By designing his own change through challenge, encouragement, confrontation, and reorientation, Jason’s anxiety and depression should decrease or be alleviated entirely. Helping Jason to identify and rely on his strengths “will contribute to developing courage to act toward change” (Dufrene and Clark, 2022, p. 113).

References

(2009). Adlerian Therapy [Video file]. Psychotherapy.net. Retrieved September 5, 2024, from Kanopy.

Dufrene, R. L. & Clark, L. B. (2022). Adlerian theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 95-116). American Counseling Association.

 

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.23 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3674 days ago & DAD = 328 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.

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.