putting action back into action planning: experiences of career clients

This study used the critical incident technique to investigate what helped and hindered unemployed and career‐changing people in implementing the action plans they developed while participating in career or employment counseling. Information from interviews with 23 women and 16 men generated 9 categories of helping incidents and 9 categories of hindering incidents. These categories increase understanding of the nature of action planning and reveal implications for preparing clients to engage in action planning activities.     

Counsellors' experiences of working with suicidal clients: An exploratory study

Counselling is increasingly available in a wide variety of contexts, including mental health and psychiatric services. As a consequence, counsellors increasingly work with clients who present with suicidal ideation, expressing either suicidal thought and/or intent in the counselling session. This paper describes an exploratory study that examined the experience of counsellors when working with suicidal clients. The paper considers counsellors' behavioural, cognitive and emotional responses to such suicidal expression, both on a personal and professional level. The research employed semi‐structured interviews. A constant comparative method was used in analysing the transcribed interview text. Results suggest that counsellors experience a range of responses when their clients express suicidal thought, including fear, anxiety, anger and professional impotence. The interviewees also expressed self‐doubts about their professional competence. In addition, they identified the threat of litigation for negligent practice and the lack of confidence in appropriate risk assessment approaches as significant causes for concern. The implications for further research, and practice, are discussed.     

Prospective and retrospective evaluations of experiences: how you evaluate an experience depends on when you evaluate it

Prior research (cf. Soman & Shi, 2001 ) has shown that obstacles and periods of low progress in an experience reduce the evaluation of that experience. In this research, we propose that the temporal distance between the obstacle and the time of making the evaluation moderates the effect of the obstacle. Consequently, an early (late) obstacle reduces prospective (retrospective) evaluation more significantly than a late (early) obstacle. In two experiments, we find support for this temporal proximity hypothesis. Further, differences between prospective and retrospective evaluations disappeared when the data were analyzed in terms of temporal distance, suggesting that the judgment policies underlying prospective and retrospective evaluations were the same. We also show that it is possible to create pairs of paths such that one of the two paths would be preferred when viewed in prospect, but the other path might be preferred in retrospect. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ministers evaluate their training in marriage counseling

Summary The results of the study described above have certain implications for planning future training programs. Teaching in this particular field must be primarily learner centered, rather than subject centered. This is borne out by the choices of the respondents that indicate the importance of understanding of the self, and own attitudes, biases, and feelings as they affect the counselor's capacity within the helping relationship; and the emphasis placed upon the strongly teacher-learner-centered method—supervision—as of primary importance. Thus, supervision, which offers support and understanding to the trainee as he struggles to integrate new knowledge and to develop increased sensitivity to others, greater flexibility, and skill, assumes a tremendously important part of the total training experience. This has implications for the training center in relation to the quality and quantity of supervision available to the training person.The question of insufficient time may have psychological as well as practical implications. The importance of a realistic schedule is ovious. The other aspect of this question may have to do with integration and need for time in assimilating a learning experience that requires change and necessarily involves strongly charged affective components. This raises the question of how to maintain a balance between the inevitable anxiety aroused in a new situation, which motivates learning, and excessive anxiety, which may impede progress if the individual becomes more involved in coping with himself than in learning.The need for more training in family-life education is also indicated.     

Taiwanese speech–language therapists’ awareness and experiences of service provision to transgender clients

Background: One of the most influential factors that affect the quality of life of transgender individuals is whether they can be perceived by others to “pass” in their felt gender. Voice and communication style are two important identifying dimensions of gender and many transgender individuals wish to acquire a voice that matches their gender. Evidence shows that few transgender individuals access voice therapy, and that this is caused by their concerns about stigmatization or negative past experiences within healthcare services. In order to address the negative experiences faced by transgender populations we need a better understanding of healthcare services’ current levels of knowledge and LGBT awareness. Some studies of Speech–Language Therapists’ (SLTs’) experience and confidence working with transgender individuals have recently been undertaken in the United States (US). However, little research has been carried out in Asia.

Aims: To investigate Taiwanese SLTs’ knowledge, attitudes and experiences of providing transgender individuals with relevant therapy.

Method: A cross-sectional self-administered web-based survey hosted on the Qualtrics platform was delivered to 140 Taiwanese SLTs.

Results: Taiwanese SLTs were, (i) more familiar with the terminology used to address “lesbian, gay, and bisexual groups” than with “transgender” terminology, (ii) generally positive in their attitudes toward transgender individuals, and (iii) comfortable about providing clinical services to transgender clients. However, the majority of participants did not feel that they were sufficiently skilled in working with transgender individuals, even though most believed that providing them with voice and communication services fell within the SLT scope of practice.

Conclusion: It is important for clinicians to both be skilled in transgender voice and communication therapy and to be culturally competent when providing services to transgender individuals. This study recommends that cultural competence relating to gender and sexual minority groups should be addressed in SLTs’ university education as well as in their continuing educational programs.     

The experiences of person-centred counsellors working with suicidal clients online through the medium of text

ABSTRACT

In this study, we attempt to provide an understanding of the experiences of four UK-based person-centred counsellors working with suicidal clients online using text-based therapies and the impact of their clients’ suicidal ideation upon their “way of being”. The counsellors were selected purposively; each was working as a person-centred counsellor online, was encountering suicidal ideation in their clients, and was a member of a professional organisation. A narrative approach was taken, using unstructured interviews and a stanza format of representation. We found that participants had developed a way of being online that may be distinct from their in-person practice. Challenges included being more directive, lacking physical presence, lacking confidence in assessing risk and questions about empathic understanding. Working online with risk raises specific challenges for person-centred practitioners in line with what is indicated in the little relevant research currently already available.     

Interventions in everyday lives: How clients use psychotherapy outside their sessions

The purpose of psychotherapy is to help clients address and overcome problems troubling them in their everyday lives. Therapy can therefore only work if clients include it in their ongoing lives to deal with their problems. Detailed, systematic research is needed on how clients do so in their everyday lives outside their sessions. A design of exploratory case studies on this topic is presented in this article. The main outcomes of such a case study on family therapy are then laid out in general terms. They highlight how treatment practices and clients’ ordinary everyday practices interact when clients change their everyday lives to overcome their troubles. They also highlight what it involves for clients to accomplish this. It is concluded that we need more research on how to understand intervention; on the interaction between interventions and clients’ conduct of their everyday life; on sessions as a particular, secluded part of clients’ ongoing everyday lives, and on how to consider therapists’ procedures and conduct of sessions accordingly.     

Nonsexual relationships between psychotherapists and their former clients: obligations of psychologists

This article examines the issue of nonsexual relationships between psychologists and their former therapy clients. What little research is available concerning nonsexual relationships with former clients suggests that psychologists have clear reservations about some of these relationships, especially personal ones and intentional social interactions. Relationships immediately following termination are seen as particularly suspect. Drawing on the literature dealing with multiple relationships in general, and sexual relationships with former clients in particular, a number of arguments are made outlining why psychologists should avoid significant nonsexual relationships with former clients for at least some period of time following termination.     

Person‐centred counsellors' experiences of working with clients in crisis: A qualitative interview study

Aims: This study aims to explore and understand person‐centred therapists’ experiences and work with clients at the pivotal point of crisis. Specifically: how do person‐centred therapists experience working with clients in crisis? Do they identify differences in crisis intervention compared to non‐crisis work? What do they perceive as helpful to crisis clients? How relevant are therapists' own experiences of crisis? Method: Participants were all experienced person‐centred therapists. Qualitative, semi‐structured interviews were conducted and the data were analysed qualitatively using person‐centred/phenomenological methodology. Results: Respondents identified differences in their experiences. Typically, therapists described polarity in their experience of danger and opportunity, also heightened energy levels within themselves, perceived higher levels of engagement, faster pace of work, experiences of reaching ‘relational depth’ earlier, and the importance of assisting symbolisation of clients' experience in awareness. Clients were experienced as vulnerable, unable to access previous coping mechanisms, in a state of breakdown and disintegration, but also as wide open, having dropped their usual defences, and more available to engage in therapy and enter the process of change and potential post‐crisis growth. Discussion: The findings are discussed in relation to prevailing models of crisis intervention, person‐centred theory and theoretical developments in post‐traumatic growth in the aftermath of crisis.     

The relation between subjects and their conscious experiences

Philosophical Studies - One of the most poorly understood features of consciousness is the relation between an experience and the subject of the experience. In this paper, I develop an ontology of...