Saturday, April 30, 2011

Wrapping up

It's time to end this portion of LaSeal Djonz's blog written as her journal for EDCO 215. Months ago I was concerned about whether I could go back to university and do postgraduate work. This course was doable, despite my fears and concerns about the research project proposal. I did spend more time than I would have liked (just about everything else was on hold) working on the project. I've learned not to be overwhelmed by the big picture, but to take one step at a time. This class has been both a good review of counseling theories and an introduction to areas of counseling.
What to do next? I need to get more involved as a volunteer in different areas of counseling, with supervision. I need to be able to work within a group discussing my fears and concerns. I have a lot to learn, but this is an area where I can use what I've learned in helping others. It's been a step forward and an interesting learning experience.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Talking with Trudi

I've known Trudi for several years and recently chatted with her about her work. Since leaving county social services, she has been a volunteer child advocate and now coordinates the Listening Post, a drop-by counseling program at San Jose State, where I volunteer once a week as a listener. She didn't choose to be a social worker; it was chosen for her. She was an English major, a new faculty wife in a Texas University town; the family needed more income, her in-laws suggested social work and urged her to take the state civil service exam. She passed, and with her husband's family influence, got a job (without any training) as a nursing home social worker. She later applied for opening in the adoption unit and was successful. She received excellent on-the-job training and supervision and found she enjoyed working with foster, adoptive and birth parents. After her divorce she moved to California, studied for a social work degree at SJSU, and continued her work in adoptions for Santa Clara county social services. She became an advocate for birth parents when she realized that no one was giving them a voice in the court system. She felt that she was making a difference working within the system, though not "for the system." She worked with school counselors and teachers and found them the best sources of information on children's welfare; a teacher the only person at the time who had an ongoing interest a child's welfare. She has found that her writing skills as an English major were an asset in compiling and documenting records for court appearances. What advice does she have for people considering a career in counseling? Volunteer in some capacity in an agency where you have an interest, so you can find out what it's like, if it's an area you'll want to pursue.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Multicultural counseling group presentation preparation

Multicultural counseling appears to be another integrative approach to counseling. The chapter on multicultural counseling in the textbook comes before the chapters on counseling theories. I now see that the textbook emphasizes developing an eclectic, individual approach; every chapter beyond chapter 6 addresses diversity issues. I'm one of a small group of three doing a presentation on the last day of class. Appropriately,in our planning meetings we're experiencing multicultural issues in communication; we come from different backgrounds, and there may some linguistic issues in understanding.
Even though the chapter repeats some information, there seems a lot to pack into an hour. We met today and worked out an outline. I'm taking the last section (not intentionally), and will probably focus on multicultural competency. Evaluating counseling theories sounds redundant -- like applying theory to theories, though I can see the connection: if we are to be grounded in counseling theories, especially one counseling theory (as suggested in the section on developing an individual approach), we need to know how to assess these for appropriateness, This chapter is also a reminder that counseling is not following a formula, but adapting knowledge and skills to help clients.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

School Counseling

I don't remember much about school counselors when I was in elementary school. (I do remember taking I.Q. tests.) From reading the historical section on Nystul's chapter on school counseling, I can understand why he summarizes the chapter beginning "School counseling is a dynamic and challenging field." There have been developments, changes, standards, models and a lot of legislative and bureaucratic issues. School counseling is changing direction in almost the same way as library work, becoming more proactive (rather than reactive) in involvement and image building activities.
I don't have any experience with school counseling and will need to do some internships or volunteer work to learn more before deciding whether to pursue this path.

Interview with Ellen S.

Ellen S. has worked as a social worker and school counselor. I asked her some questions about her experience.

What made you decide to be a counselor/social worker?
Near the end of my sophomore year of college I went to a Methodist church conference on church related vocation; during that week-end that I thought I would like to work for the church as a social worker. When I finished my BA I realized that I needed to speak Spanish to do Social Work in Calif. so I taught in Mexico for a year. After that year that I went to Florida and got my MSW.

How long did (many years) you work?

I worked 3 years in the welfare department with families with unemployed fathers. (one year before my MSW and two years after.) Three years at the regional center with families with disabled children of all ages. Nineteen years with the county office of education first as a social worker(after I got my Pupil Personnel Services Credential) with families whose children were in special education and then as a school counselor in alternative schools, in community schools and at boys ranches with junior high and high school students who had been removed from their school districts or had been in Juvenile Hall.

What was a typical day like?

One thing about social work and school counseling is that there is no typical day! The kinds of things I did were: collect intake information on each student, help make educational plans and timelines for return to the district schools, help form Individual Education plans for special ed students, work with parents, some group work with students, contacts with district personnel, daily contact with teachers about student progress etc. I made referrals to other counseling or agencies as needed by the families or students. On occasion I would do in-service trainings for staff. I had clients who died, a few needed to be referred to protective service and there were some crises on campus that brought the police.

What do you wish you'd learned in graduate school before you became a counselor? More about how to work with difficult people: clients or other professionals. Organizational theory especially related to disfunctional organizations (which is actually "by definition" in my experience.)

What was your most rewarding experience as a counselor? Group work with parents of pre-school developmentally delayed students (physical, mental and emotional delays.)I enjoyed working with the school counselors in the districts where my students would go after they left the ranch or community schools. I always liked working with other professionals like the teachers, resource specialist, psychologists and the families to plan what was best for the student. And of course having success with a student was rewarding.

What was your least rewarding experience? Working with management or principals who didn't seem to get the details of counseling or social work in a school setting. I worked at many locations part time and each principal wanted me to give my full attention to their school.

What advice do you have for someone starting out in the field and interested in counseling as a profession? Don't burn any bridges. Keep the communication open with students, families and professionals. Return phone calls promptly. Make sure that you do on-going study in your field. Be a team member, always open to improving your skills. And most important of all: take care of yourself so you can be centered and strong as needed to serve others.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Nearing the end -- Career counseling

Two weeks to go until the end of class, but one week to complete this journal. The last week my group gives presentations. We're not very organized group and I'm still trying to work out what multicultural counseling means. We'll get through with it all but I'm not quite on track with interviews and comments.

This week the subject was career counseling. As an opening exercise we got into groups according descriptions (which we learned later were based on Holland's Vocational Interest Types) and were asked to plan a party. Then each group talked about our plans to the class -- and looked at the descriptions again.

I was piqued by Super's Career Development Theory when I was reading the textbook. Ivan and I got to talk about the Maintenance Stage. All Nystul has to say about this stage is: "Super's fourth stage is the maintenance stage, which spans from 44 to 64 years of age. This is a time for the individual to enjoy the security of seniority while attempting to maintain status as a current and productive professional. The major developmental task is preservation of achieved status. "

Super's theory may be the basis for career development through life stages, but it's outdated in this part of the world. Super's assumption seems to be that full-time, long-term careers are the norm. His ladder of growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance and decline (with a dip)needs to be replaced by a series of cycles, maybe incorporated into a spiral.

It's interesting that one of the trends is to incorporate career counseling into personal counseling, seeing career counseling as "interrelated with a person's overall psychosocial functioning" (Nystul p. 338)

The presentation didn't cover computer counseling software; it's interesting that such programs are now part of the database packages marketed to libraries. Career search and job skills have been emphasized in library programs in the past years. A former business librarian was told, when she publicized the library's programs at a job fair and attempted to form partnerships with community job search organizations that "we study for two years to be qualified as career counselors" This story may be exaggerated in the telling. I wonder if this person was a graduate of the Educational Counseling program -- or does it show that job counselors themselves feel insecure?

Stress and performance -- the home stretch

Thursday I went to Stanford University to be screened to participate as a volunteer research subject in a study on the relationship between excess body fat and risk for weight-related health problems such as diabetes. The screening was a glucose tolerance test. I had to fast for twelve hours, then my blood levels were monitored before and after taking a glucose drink. In all the screening lasted four hours. They provided a box lunch and I took the bus back and went to work. I'm a blood donor and have had basic fasting tests. I hadn't realized the session would take four hours, but I took along plenty of things to read, including my textbook.

I wasn't feeling the brightest during or after the screening. It didn't help that things were disorganized at work and a message I'd left hadn't been received. A colleague who has a family history of diabetes told me that such tests often take a toll on the body and mind. Maybe I'm crazy to participate, but it seemed like an opportunity to learn my risks for diabetes and heart disease.

I also hadn't realized the extent to which the situation of the coming year's city budget is affecting morale. Last year colleagues who had ten years service were given layoff notices. I have some seniority and expect to keep my job, though may change. Whatever happens, many of my colleagues will get notices on Wednesday, there will be reorganization (I may get moved to another library), and certainly there will be salary reductions.

Too make things worse, I have plants to transplant into the garden, a messy house and possible guests coming this weekend. Keep on, Keep on going.

Group Counseling

Daisy, Ivan and Roberto did a super presentation on group counseling. The opening activity was a lot of fun; Our instructions were to make an outline of your hand on a piece of paper, cut it out and answer the following questions per finger. Favorite food, birthplace, favorite hobby, what you are in this program, something unique about yourself. Then we each got up and spoke about our choices and stuck the cutout on the blackboard. Roberto drew lines showing connections.
Group counseling was defined as "the creation, maintenance and termination of a therapeutic interaction between members for the purpose of psychological growth and integration"
The presentation covered the distinction between group counseling and family counseling and group counseling and individual counseling. Advantages and disadvantages of group counseling were discussed and the types of groups, group counseling process and stages were also covered, as well as common mistakes and effective group leader qualities.
Somewhere from the back of my memory came the "storming, norming, forming and ending" phases from a workshop or lecture I'd attended. I also thought about the dynamics of some of my book discussion groups -- A book discussion group is not exactly a therapeutic group. My work as leader of the book discussion group is mainly to keep the group on track, make sure that members have a chance to talk (or not to talk if they choose), and to keep one or two vocal members from monopolizing the conversation. The best discussion is when the leader lets the conversation flow, with little interference. I have a lot to learn.

Our closing group exercise was to practice -- I had the role of leader in a drug abuse group -- members couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't easy to keep a straight face!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Sara Grace Vann -- Guest speaker

Sara Grace Vann, a counselor at Woodside High School was the guest speaker in EDCO 215 this week. She's had experience as a counselor in elementary, middle and high schools. In her high school there are several school counselors (I didn't write down the number), every student has a guidance counselor (Sarah has a load of over 300). Her work as a counselor involves meeting with students and parents, working with teachers, working with special education students, ensuring that students meet graduation requirements, writing college references, arranging for mandatory tutorials for students receiving Fs. She also refers to students to appropriate agencies for counseling. She enjoys her work, but wishes that she had more training in special education and school budgets and grant writing. She recommends people wanting to do school counseling get experience in reading transcripts, classroom management and scheduling.
I asked her what a typical day was like. She said there wasn't a typical day, but went on to describe her counseling activities at the beginning, middle and end of the school year (getting to know the incoming freshmen, writing college references for senior students)She works with a group of counselors and interns and doesn't do yard duty!
Sara Grace stayed and participated in the Group Counseling presentation and seemed to enjoy it.
I'm finishing this a week later and wishing that I'd organized my notes better.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Danger to self: on the front line with an ER Psychiatrist/Paul R. Linde

I heard Paul Linde interviewed on Michale Krasny's Forum earlier this year. He's Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, UCSF and a good writer in the genre of medical writing.
It begins with:
"I love my job when I'm not there. I'm a doctor in the psych emergency room at SFGH. One reason I work there is that when I'm not there, I'm not there. I have a decent shot at separating out my job's trauma and drama from the rest of my life. But in my workplace there's nowhere to hide." pxiii

He describes this work as "part-memoir, part primer and part commentary" pxx, though his interest is in documenting his experiences and those of his patients.

I don't expect to ever work in a psych ER, but Linde's work chronicles his education and learning experiences in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

The chapter entitled "The Psychodynamo: Learning to listen with a professional ear" has applications for counseling. His mentor helps him generate the following list of queries and questions for a therapy evaluation:

Describe someone important in your life
Describe one of the happiest, or best, moments of your life.
Describe one of the saddest, or worst, moments of your life.
Any recurrent dreams? What do you make of them?
How would you like to be? What would it feel like to be that way? What would be good about it? What would be bad about it?
p62-23

A the end of the chapter he lists in brief Ten Pearls of psychotherapy (in no particular order)

Be present
Create a safe environment
Help the patient discover his or her own tools of self-examination
Provide an emotional container
It's not logical. It's psychological.
Reveal things about your self only if doing so will help the patient. Don't do it to meet your own needs.
Follow the affect.
Take the middle path--don't be overly gratifying and solicitous, or overly detached and aloof.
It's okay to make errors of the head, but not errors of the heart.
Go where the patient leads you.
p.87

The epilogue also has an section to ponder.

"While I cannot fail to recognize and address painful emotions in my patients and my self, it is also my task to seek energetic joy and humor in the moment, to experience the buzz of empathy. This is the reward found in the work.
...Empathy causes a rush. It's addictive. Recent advances in the neurosciences confirm that the experience of deep empathy, with its associated glow of euphoria, shares some final common neurobiological pleasure pathways with narcotics, alcohol and cigarettes. In other words, empathy is addictive and pleasurable." p234

That sounds like it's possible to be an empathy junkie, though Linde goes on to talk about being present in the moment

The final two paragraphs:
"I discovered this: My heart, and not my words, provides the first and strongest line of defense when protecting myself in my work as a psychiatrist. In a seemingly paradoxical way, my best self-protection derives from actually opening my heart and laying its contents bare.
I experienced a measure of serenity and acceptance when I finally felt free enough to admit to myself that, while my head works pretty well, my real strength as a physician comes from the heart. " p237

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Child and Adolescent Counseling

I felt we barely skimmed the surface -- there's a lot to learn here, and in this introductory class we can't learn everything. Fortunately we're not expected (yet) to submit answers to questions comparing theories or elaborate on treatment for problems such as suicide and childhood depression. Everything comes and goes too quickly and all I can say now is that I'm aware of complexity, some theories, some treatments.

Strategies with underachieving students --Guest Speaker

Charles Bowman's (this week's guest speaker) style was confrontational, belligerent and definitely off-putting, but I can see how this style might be effective in his work as a counselor for underachieving boys. Bowman made the distinction between learners and students, pointing out that learners rarely come for counseling; it's mostly (male) detached and underachieving students who are sent to counseling. Bowman's general advice to the beginning counselor is to do less, listen more. His question for the resistant student is "How much does it suck to come here?" He also had a question for the counselor to ask himself/herself: " Do I have a client?.. Does the client want to change?, pointing out that sometimes it has to get worse to get better, i.e. the client has to hit rock bottom before he/she is ready to to pull himself/herself out. Focus attention on people who want to change, check in on those who don't. Is the problem "in the room?" (What is the real problem and does the client acknowledge it.) One way to get the problem "in the room' is to involve relatives, friends, peers.
Bowman listed 5 most common errors that beginning counselors make:
5)Counselor believes student's side of the story (Counselor becomes "true believer").
4)Counselor gets emotionally invested in student's problems (personalization)
3)Counselor invests more energy in student's problems that student does, leading to dependence (Bowman's theorem: Make sure student invests more energy in their own problems.
2)Codependency (Bowman call's this the Woman's Curse since females are socialized to be helpers , to define themselves through others).
1)Counselor becomes student savior -- remember the counselor's job is not to solve problems, but to give the student skills to solve problems).
Charles Bowman went on to talk more about gender socialization and learning styles, Childhood development and adolescent relational patterns and fostering the change process. He had some good points to ponder.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Five Love Languages

Dr Beach mentioned Gary Chapman's book Five Love Languages. Library Journal sent me Love as a Way of Life to review several years ago, and I went on to read the Five Languages of Love. Chapman gives I remember taking the quiz, but couldn't find the results.
I logged on to www.5lovelanguages.com, took the assessment and got Dr, Djonz to take it too.

LaSeal
Love Language Scores:
9 Words of Affirmation
6 Quality Time
1 Receiving Gifts
4 Acts of Service
10 Physical Touch

Dr Djonz
8 Words of Affirmation
9 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
7 Acts of Service
4 Physical Touch

I have touch as the highest score; Dr. Djonz has Quality time. We both have Words of Affirmation as our second, both lowest on receiving gifts, He values acts of service more than I do. We should be ok as long as we talk to each other, but I must remember that he needs my undivided attention -- difficult for me because I multitask at home.

Marriage and family counseling

Marriage and family counseling seems out of place in this Introduction to (Educational) Counseling and Guidance class, but this is an introduction -- and couples and relationships are part of counseling and guidance.
My experience has been with counseling individuals, so group counseling is a new learning experience.
My own experience of couples counseling didn't seem helpful at the time. Looking back, I had unrealistic expectations, Dr. Djonz was reluctant, and after a few years off and on, the counselor told us to work things out ourselves -- which we have.
Recently I've been rereading "The Silicon Syndromw: How to Survive a High Tech Relationship" by Jean Hollands (1983, which a friend gave me a few years after we married. A long time ago, but some things haven't changed.

Research Paper Proposal returned

My research paper proposal was returned on Monday. I got 46/50, not bad, actually, very good. So what was the fuss about? My inner voice says it wasn't a real research project, but a proposal, an exercise in writing. Okay, I got through it, I finished it, I'm doing university graduate work. This was an project that I didn't have to get everything right. If this was to continue as my research in this course (which it may), I'd be taking two more classes with Dr. Beach and I expect that we would be examining everything in fine detail.
When I studied at Sydney University we didn't get rubrics with details on how papers and work are graded. According to the rubric that Dr. Beach provided, I got maximum points (excellent) for abstract, problem/purpose statement, intervention and research design, discussion and project evaluation, APA general(fewer than 10 errors), In-text citations, references, transitions, "I" use, 15-20 pages.
I got competent for literature review and below standard for use of theory (I'll need to discuss that last one with Dr. Beach -- she asked if she missed it and I think she did -- unless she doesn't accept the intergroup contact theory as a theoretical framework for this purpose.)

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Communication Style Assessment

I've been reading Shawn Kent Hayashi's book Conversations for Change. In her book she gives a link to her website and encourages readers to take her Talent Mastery Assessment (gives the password in her book.) I took it and found some interesting insights. For example, my ideal work environment features:
  • Little conflict between people.
  • A stable and predictable environment.
  • Needs an opportunity to deal with people with whom a long-standing relationship has been established.
  • Projects that produce tangible results.
  • An environment that allows time to change.
  • Environment where she can be a part of the team, but removed
  • from office politics.
  • Private office or work area.
  • Data to analyze.
  • Limited contact with people.
And I'm thinking of becoming a counselor!
This also shows why my volunteer (drop in and telephone) counseling work has been both challenging and rewarding.

Admittedly this page of the assessment is prefaced by;
"This section identifies the ideal work environment based on Lucille's basic style. People with limited flexibility will find themselves uncomfortable working in any job not described in this section. People with flexibility use intelligence to modify their behavior and can be comfortable in many environments. Use this section to identify specific duties and responsibilities that Lucille enjoys and also those that create frustration."

Also (from the General Characteristics section)
"Lucille usually is considerate, compassionate and accepting of others; however, on some occasions can become stubborn ... She is somewhat reserved with those she doesn't trust or know. After trust has been established, she may be open and candid. She tends to be possessive of information; that is, she doesn't voluntarily share information with others outside of her team ... Communication is accomplished best by well-defined avenues. Lucille can be outgoing at times. Basically introverted, she will "engage" in social conversation when the occasion warrants. "

Maybe there's hope!