Metaphor as an Instrument for Orchestrating Change in Counselor Training and the Counseling Process

The authors explore the use of metaphors as a training tool for beginning counselors for enhancing client case conceptualization, counselor‐client relationships, and intervention strategies. The history of the use of metaphors in counseling, several definitions, and a case study are presented. The authors discuss intentional use of metaphors with students in training and with clients. How to introduce the use of metaphors into counselor training and practice is also included.     

Verbal and Nonverbal Metaphor With Children in Counseling

The metaphor is typically viewed as a verbal form of expression in traditional talk therapies. However, this definition excludes nonverbal metaphors that children use when they express themselves through play. In this article, the authors examine the use of therapeutic metaphors, both verbal and nonverbal, with children. The roles of the child, counselor, and family in treatment are discussed, along with the benefits and limitations of using therapeutic metaphors with children. The use of quantitative, qualitative, and integrated methods for studying children's use of verbal and nonverbal metaphors in counseling is also examined.     

Rethinking Change in Counseling

The idea of change is one of the most fundamental concepts underlying practice in counseling and guidance. Yet the complexity of change, as it applies to people, is seldom examined in detail by the counseling practitioner. The author discusses the concept of change through its definition and looks at different forms of change, different change tempos, and the value of change for people. He concludes with a change position that attempts to identify the counselor not only as a change agent but also as a preservationist.     

Spiritual Empowerment: A Metaphor for Counseling

The metaphor of counseling as spiritual empowerment is presented, followed by an explanation of spiritual empowerment as a metaphor and spiritual empowerment as a theoretical framework for counselors. In the use of this metaphor, counselors initiate a spiritual experience with clients, and clients often experience a spiritual awakening in which they discover or rediscover their own spiritual power. Five conclusions are identified.     

Root Metaphor Theory: A Philosophical Framework for Counseling and Psychotherapy

By exploring alternative worldviews or philosophical frames of reference, counselors can look beyond their own encapsulated images of reality and examine different assumptions concerning the nature of psychological phenomena and the process of change. The present article offers an overview of the root metaphors and philosophical assumptions associated with formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism—the four worldviews described in Pepper's (1942) philosophical treatise and his presentation of root metaphor theory. Recent and historical trends of development in counseling theory and practice are examined within the context of Pepper's metaphilosophical system.     

Counseling and Comprehension of the Economics of Change

This article invites counselors to transform their personal perspectives on the processes of being economic and offers an experience of comprehension. A fundamental economic process is that of interdependently creating value. Historically, the conceived basis of value has evolved to a presently emerging conception of the provision of ideas as capital. Mastery and practice of comprehension is necessary to integrate this conception into the ideals and practice of schooling. Experiencing comprehension suggests means of using its process as the content of counseling. Consequently, the counseling goal, personally achieved comprehension through application of economic principles in guidance procedures, contributes to this creation of value.     

Client Conceptions of Change in Career Development and Career Counseling

This article illustrates the ways in which clients in career counseling think about the types of change in their career lives and about the determinants of change. It is based on an analysis of the interview data of a few adult clients. Two category systems are proposed as representative of the clients' thinking about change in these domains.     

Adolescent Readiness for Change and the Working Alliance in Counseling

The authors examined the relationship between readiness for change and the quality of the working alliance of adolescents (ages 14–18 years) and their counselors. As predicted, clients who were more ready for change had more positive alliances, particularly with respect to goal and task collaboration. There was also a trend toward the association of the maintenance or postchange stage with a weakened bond.     

The Use of Metaphor to Overcome Inmate Resistance to Mental Health Counseling

Mental health professionals who work with inmates typically encounter resistance to their services. Understanding the processes and purposes of inmate resistance is essential to establishing the rapport needed for counseling to take place. Metaphors, anecdotes, and stories can be used effectively in responding to inmate resistance. Two case examples are included to illustrate these techniques.     

Processes and Stages of Change: Counseling With the Transtheoretical Model of Change

Technical eclecticism and theoretical integration literature has typically examined how multiple approaches to counseling practice may lead to more comprehensive and functional outcomes. Few have proposed an integration of approaches from a scientist‐practitioner perspective; many others have neglected the richness found in the body of existing theory. The purpose of this synthesis is to highlight the contributions that the Transtheoretical Model of Change (J. O. Prochaska & C. C. DiClemente, 1984; J. O. Prochaska & J. C. Norcross, 1994) has for technical eclecticism and theoretical integration. The intervention implications of processes and stages of change are discussed.     

The Counselor and Change: Counseling for Cultural Transition

Cultural analysts have indicated that American culture is going through a significant transition in values. The views of three of these analysts are reviewed and implications are drawn for counselors.     

Counseling Career-Plateaued Workers During Times of Social Change

This article encourages employment counselors to help employed and unemployed career-plateaued workers regain a sense of personal investment, motivation, and productivity.     

Therapeutic Document in Group Counseling: An Active Change Agent

In this article, the authors provide a therapeutic document model using language as an active change agent. The practice of the therapeutic letter has demonstrated substantial power in narrative therapy to foster client change. No literature, however, has applied this construct in group counseling. Grounded in social constructionism, re-authoring therapy and the power of written language, this model transforms the usually time-consuming and frequently nontherapeutic client documentation into a functional intervention. As a competency-based intervention, this model provides counselors with principles and procedures to enhance clients' self-agency and expedite the change process in group counseling.     

The Use of Metaphor to Address Gender and Sexual Orientation Stereotypes in Counseling: A Feminist Perspective

The role of metaphor in psychology is reviewed, focused on gender and sexual orientation stereotypes. Feminist therapy principles are explored in relation to addressing the presence of stereotypes within a therapeutic context. Implications for working with clients presenting with disordered eating, agoraphobia, sexual violence, and sexual identity concerns are discussed.     

心理隐喻的变迁与心理治疗模式的转换

心理治疗模式的转换始终伴随着心理隐喻的变迁,每一种心理治疗模式都蕴涵着一个独特的心理隐喻,支撑着研究领域的共同理解。揭示这些治疗模式内蕴的心理隐喻,梳理心理隐喻的变迁轨迹,有助于我们更好地理解心理治疗模式的转换规律,展望心理治疗的发展前景。     

心理隐喻的变迁与心理治疗模式的转换

心理治疗模式的转换始终伴随着心理隐喻的变迁,每一种心理治疗模式都蕴涵着一个独特的心理隐喻,支撑着研究领域的共同理解.揭示这些治疗模式内蕴的心理隐喻,梳理心理隐喻的变迁轨迹,有助于我们更好地理解心理治疗模式的转换规律,展望心理治疗的发展前景.     

Making Change Visible: The Possibilities in Assessing Mental Health Counseling Outcomes

The product of mental health counseling, unlike that of most professions, remains invisible to most people, leaving counselors vulnerable in a competitive market. The author argues that clinicians should recognize the value of, understand, and begin using outcome measures in their work. Research focusing on critical problems in psychotherapy outcome instruments, advances that have been made to counter those problems, areas of consensus among outcome researchers, and practical recommendations for using outcome measures are examined.