Happy New Year! According to Oxford Dictionaries, the word of the year for 2018 was toxic. What would it take for the word of the year in 2019 to be resilience? The Oxford Dictionaries define resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” How do we, as counselors,
Month: December 2018
Each day it seems that the world becomes smaller thanks to the advent of technology, allowing us to more easily travel, communicate, interact and learn about others. From my perspective, this means we can also learn more about diverse cultures, customs, perspectives and motivations that we may not inherently understand.
Merriam-Webster offers two definitions for resilience. One is literal and drawn from physics: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. The second definition is a symbolic mirror of the first: an ability to recover from or adjust easily
What were counselors reading in 2018? This year saw the explosion of the #MeToo movement, so it’s no surprise that a piece on supporting clients through sexual assault response was among the top five articles that received the most views at Counseling Today’s website, ct.counseling.org. Readers were also interested in
Boundary violations happen in two general ways — a momentary bad decision or a long series of bad decisions that leads to a huge error. Here are examples of each. A clinician friend attended a client’s graduation party. She had worked with this client for months as he dealt with
Mental health care availability and access vary tremendously depending on where you live in the United States. In Massachusetts, for example, there is one mental health care provider for every 180 residents. That ratio is far different in Texas and Alabama, however, where there are more than 1,000 residents for
I am now reaching the age when people assume that I have achieved a certain amount of wisdom. I admit that I usually enjoy playing the role of the sage as a professor, but at times it definitely has its downside. For example, a new faculty member once said to
Raising personal awareness of negative self-talk and replacing it with positive and more accurate messaging can be transformational for clients and for counselors.
Therapy must always be tailored to the individual; there is no one-size-fits-all model. However, certain approaches have been empirically verified for use with a variety of clientele. It is critical that all counselors, especially those working with client populations that are oppressed, have both an overview of evidence-based practices and
Professional counselors often recommend exercise to clients as a way to improve mood and overall wellness. In addition to boosting serotonin, a neurotransmitter connected to feelings of well-being, exercise offers the chance to unplug from the busyness of daily life and process one’s thoughts. A recent journal study in The