Experiential Exercises in MFT Training: Gender, Power, and Diversity

An experiential exercise that is used to empower Marriage and Family Therapy students and systematically introduce students to feminist themes is described. Faculty in the university's theatre department recruit their students to serve as client families. Role-play exercises with theatre students based on vignettes developed by clinical faculty increases realism and includes other training benefits. This approach is consistent with a feminist model of training and supervision.     

Understanding Spirituality in Counseling Psychology: Considerations for Research,Training, and Practice

Selective understandings of spirituality among early, contemporary, and current theorists were reviewed. The purpose is to suggest the multiple implications these varied understandings of spirituality have for practicing clinicians in the field of counseling psychology. Sources of literature were primarily drawn from published literature and classical texts. The conclusions suggest that professionals within the field may need to increase objective and subjective interpretations of spirituality in the therapeutic realm. With this awareness, it is assumed that clinical sensitivity to multiculturalism, recovery movements, and dysfunctional religious systems may be achieved and, subsequently, therapeutic competence may be increased.     

Reflections on Contemporary Psychotherapy Practice, Research, and Training

We do not lack for criticism about psychotherapy practice, research, and training. Admittedly, there is much there that needs to change. But, thus far, what have we done right? What are some of the positive, affirming, constructive strides that have been made with regard to therapy practice, research, and training? In this paper, those questions are addressed. Ten broad-based themes about some aspects of psychotherapy are presented and discussed; while by no means exhaustive, each is considered to be quite robust and clearly reflective of some of the truly constructive facets now evident in the field.     

Experiential Training: Connecting School Counselors‐in‐Training,English as a Second Language (ESL) Teachers,and ESL Students

English as a second language (ESL) students present challenges to counselors who are unaccustomed to working with students who speak limited English. A field experience prepared school counselors‐in‐training to develop cultural sensitivity while working with ESL teachers and students. The counselors suggested that early experiential learning fostered multicultural sensitivity and refined counseling skills. Los estudiantes de inglés como segunda lengua (ESL) presentan desafíos para aquellos consejeros que no están acostrumbrados a trabajar con estudiantes con un nivel de inglés limitado. Una experiencia práctica de campo preparó a los consejeros escolares en formación para que desarrollaran una sensibilidad cultural mientras trabajaban con profesores y alumnos de ESL. Los consejeros indicaron que el aprendizaje experiencial en fase temprana fomentó su sensibilidad multicultural y perfeccionó sus habilidades en consejería.     

Conceptualizing Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury as a Process Addiction: Review of Research and Implications for Counselor Training and Practice

Nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) may be characterized as a process addiction for some individuals who self‐injure. The authors review findings on the addictive features of NSSI, including compulsivity, loss of control, continued use despite negative consequences, and tolerance.     

Applying a Family Resilience Framework in Training,Practice, and Research: Mastering the Art of the Possible

With growing interest in systemic views of human resilience, this article updates and clarifies our understanding of the concept of resilience as involving multilevel dynamic processes over time. Family resilience refers to the functioning of the family system in dealing with adversity: Assessment and intervention focus on the family impact of stressful life challenges and the family processes that foster positive adaptation for the family unit and all members. The application of a family resilience framework is discussed and illustrated in clinical and community‐based training and practice. Use of the author's research‐informed map of core processes in family resilience is briefly noted, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Given the inherently contextual nature of the construct of resilience, varied process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse situations over time, with a major crisis; disruptive transitions; or chronic multistress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, socio‐cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in resilience.     

The Effectiveness of Encounter Groups: Implications of Research for Counselling Practice

In the past decade, encounter groups have become a widely recognised technique of intervention for counsellors. Empirical research on encounter groups is confusing. Trends in research are obscured by a diversity of definitions, methodologies and subjects. This review considers the most significant research on the effectiveness of encounter groups, focusing on positive and negative effects, leader behaviour, group characteristics, participant characteristics, and the maintenance of change. Conclusions are drawn relating the research to practice, with some suggested guidelines for use of encounter groups in counselling interventions.     

Simulating Culture Shock in Counselor Trainees: An Experiential Exercise for Cross-Cultural Training

The authors describe a bipartite learning exercise designed to increase counselor trainees' sensitivity to cultural differences. The exercise emphasizes extending traditional, cognitive-focused multicultural training to include actual interactions with culturally diverse persons. A 2- month follow-up evaluation indicated that trainees viewed the learning exercise as valuable. Suggestions are made for infusing similar experientially based exercises into diverse counseling courses.     

Design as a Tool for Family Evolutionary Guidance

This article begins by describing the impact of systems science on the field of marriage and family therapy, discussing that systems concepts are broadly disseminated but have become diluted. The author describes the educational program at a marriage and family therapy graduate institute where students utilize social systems design in their research projects as well as their work with clients. The article outlines the specifications of the Idealized Systems Design (ISD) teaching system, its relationship with the larger institution, as well as its purposes and systemic functions. Application of ISD to the field of marriage and family therapy is emphasized, demonstrating its use in helping facilitate individual, family, and community health as a research tool as well as a set of intervention tools for the practicing therapist.     

Optimistic Fiction as a Tool for Ethical Reflection in STEM

Greater emphasis on ethical issues is needed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The fiction for specific purposes (FSP) approach, using optimistic science fiction texts, offers a way to focus on ethical reflection that capitalizes on role models rather than negative examples. This article discusses the benefits of using FSP in STEM education more broadly, and then explains how using optimistic fictions in particular encourages students to think in ethically constructive ways. Using examples of science fiction texts with hopeful perspectives, example discussion questions are given to model how to help keep students focused on the ethical issues in a text. Sample writing prompts to elicit ethical reflection are also provided as models of how to guide students to contemplate and analyze ethical issues that are important in their field of study. The article concludes that the use of optimistic fictions, framed through the lens of professional ethics guidelines and reinforced through ethical reflection, can help students to have beneficial ethical models.

     

Brief Experimental Analysis: A Decision Tool for Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice

This special issue illustrates how brief experimental analysis (BEA) is gaining recognition as a valuable tool for making treatment decisions about children who are unresponsive to regular classroom instruction. This commentary article provides evidence for why BEA has grown in popularity, briefly summarizes each of the studies included in the series, and discusses issues that are critical to conducting and interpreting data from a BEA. The articles in the issue exemplify how BEA is flexible enough to evaluate diverse intervention options, is time and cost efficient, and is uniquely suited for use in a problem-solving approach to school-based service delivery.     

Art Therapy as a Healing Tool for Sub-fertile Women

Although fertility is fundamental to spiritual health, it is often taken for granted. When a desired pregnancy fails to occur, stress and grief frequently follow. Visual expression of feelings through “art therapy” has proved a powerful healing tool for women brave enough to give it a try at the McMaster University Fertility Clinic. The objective and subjective findings of this ongoing project suggest that through simple visual self-expression, stress, anxiety and hopelessness may be reduced. This form of art therapy also provides a joyful social experience of sharing with other women, who are dealing with these issues.     

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief: Experiential Avoidance as a Mediating Mechanism

In the wake of increased interest in the specific features of suicide bereavement, the current study examines (a) the association between suicide bereavement and complicated grief and (b) the mediating effect of experiential avoidance on the association between suicide bereavement and complicated grief. The tests revealed a significant indirect effect of suicide bereavement on complicated grief through experiential avoidance. This finding suggests that traumatic characteristics of suicide bereavement may inhibit the grieving process by increasing experiential avoidance and emphasizing a cognitive approach for complicated grief of people who have lost their loved one to death by suicide.