Final Paper value 10%
Each group will prepare a 3 – 4 page final paper with the following sections:
- The Plan
Choose the two philosophies from the course that your team believes fit best for the young person in your scenario (not including contextual approaches or relational CYC). Explain why you have chosen these philosophies, and how their inclusion will benefit the young person. Describe the ways you will apply these philosophies (what specific techniques you will utilize), and any adaptations you feel will be necessary to better fit with CYC practice.
- The Context
Choose at least one of the contextual approaches discussed in class (feminist, Africentric, and Indigenous approaches). Discuss the ways that this perspective enhances our understanding of the young person and their family, and opens up new possibilities for offering support.
The paper will be in full sentence and paragraph structure, APA format, and submitted through the appropriate link on Blackboard.
Narrative Therapy Narrative Therapy Michael White David Epston Narrative therapy is an approach to counselling and community work. It centres people as the experts in their own lives and views problems as separate from people. Narrative therapy assumes that people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments, and abilities that will assist them to reduce the influence of problems in their lives. 3 The narrative perspective is a way of working that incorporates consideration of the broader social/historical context that is affecting people’s lives, and the ethics, power dynamics, and politics of therapy. “The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.” “The heart of narrative therapy is the fierce belief in people’s possibilities for change and the profound effects of conversation, language, and stories on both therapist and client.” The word ‘narrative’ refers to the emphasis that is placed upon the stories of people’s lives and the words that are used to describe people and their problems. From the narrative perspective, the way we talk about things affects the way we think about and experience them. Reality is constructed and given meaning through language. Narrative therapy is based in postmodern or poststructuralist philosophy, and the works of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, among others. These philosophers advocated the deconstruction, or identifying and challenging, of the inherent assumptions underlying knowledge and ways of talking about experience, and of the relationships between power and language. A particular culture or society may have specific, narrow ideas about people, their roles, and the ways in which they should conduct themselves. These ideas are called social narratives (White) or dominant knowledge (Foucault). Subtle inflections of meaning in the way we talk about ourselves and others are believed to directly affect the way we conceptualize and respond to our lives. However, an individual’s experience, world view, or self-image may not fit within these descriptions. Views which deviate from the dominant belief system and are therefore marginalized and often denied expression are referred to as local or subjugated knowledge. The narrative therapist adopts the role of co-author or co-editor in relation to the person’s life story. In collaboration with the person seeking their help, the counselor explores the person’s own perception of their difficulties (the problem-saturated narrative), looks for alternative meanings and interpretations (deconstructive listening and questioning), asks about examples of times when the person overcame their problem, or when the problem was less severe (unique outcomes, sparkling moments), and constructs a new story of the problem that emphasizes the person’s strengths and resilience in the face of their difficulties (preferred narrative). Externalization is a linguistic practice used to separate the person from the problem. The problem is characterized as an external entity. Blame and shame about a problem tend to have a silencing and immobilizing effect. When people think of a problem as an integral part of their character or relationships, it is difficult to change Separating the problem from the person relieves the pressure of blame and defensiveness. No longer defined as inherently being the problem, a person can have a relationship with the externalized problem. “Please note that the problem never causes or makes the client or family do anything; it influences, invites, tells, tries to convince, uses tricks, tries to recruit, etc. This is important because this language highlights people’s choices and creates an assumption of accountability, rather than blame or determinism.” Structure of Therapy Emphasize equitable power dynamics Have the person talk about their situation Utilize deconstructive questions and alternative interpretations Listen for a unique outcome. Make sure that the unique outcome represents a preferred experience. Plot the story of that occurrence. Investigate the “landscape of action” (How did you do that?) and the “landscape of consciousness (What does this mean about you as a person?). Link past episode(s) to the present. Extend the story into the future. 14 Additional techniques: Permission questions – the therapist asks whether the person is comfortable with the direction and substance of the conversation. It ensures that the therapist is not pushing their ideas on the client, and serves to emphasize the collaborative roles and equal power dynamics of the therapy. Letters and certificates – documents to celebrate the new story, or preferred narrative. They may be shared between the co-authors, or sent to significant others in the person’s life. Audience/Witness – significant others invited to share the new narrative, either through direct attendance at the session or through the letters and certificates. Can also be used hypothetically. Narrative Therapy Clip Pt 1 Pt. 2 Rational-Emotive-Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy Rational-Emotive-Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy “What disturbs men’s minds is not events, but their view of events.” Epictetus 1 REBT and CBT practitioners view thought processes as the main cause of psychological problems, and the most effective point of intervention to bring about improvement in their clients. Thoughts dictate feelings and behaviours, and so changing a person’s thoughts will change their feelings and behaviour. 2 Rational-Emotive-Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis, is a therapy that consciously uses cognitive, emotive (feelings), and behavioural techniques to help clients.. REBT theorists stress that human beings have choices. Having little control over what happens or what actually exists, people do have choices and control over how they view the world and how they react to difficulties. 3 Ellis theorized that a belief system - what people tell themselves about an event - determines responses or feelings toward that event. People naturally and easily think “crookedly”, express emotions inappropriately, and behave in a self-defeating manner. 4 REBT is direct, didactic, confrontational, and verbally active counseling. The goal of the therapy is to teach people to think and behave in a more personally satisfying way by making them realize they have a choice between self-defeating, negative behaviour and thought and more efficient, enhancing, positive behaviour. 5 Examples of irrational thinking and more rational alternatives: “Because it would be highly preferable if I were outstandingly competent, I absolutely should and must be; it is awful when I am not, and I am therefore a worthless individual. Alternative: “It would be nice if I were outstanding in whatever I do, but if I am not, it is okay, and I will try my best anyway.” “Because it is highly desirable that others treat me considerately and fairly, they absolutely should and must, and they are rotten people who deserve to be utterly damned when they do not.” Alternative: “I would prefer people to treat me considerately. However, I realize they will not always, so I will not take it personally when they do not, and I will make it my business to be considerate.” The first objective of therapy is to show a person how irrational beliefs or attitudes create dysfunctional consequences such as anger, depression, or anxiety. The second objective is to teach the client how to dispute or crumble the irrational beliefs and replace them with more rational thoughts. 9 "A, B, C, D, and E" refer to this process: A, B, and C explore how problems develop; D and E are the treatment steps: A is the activating event. B is the belief, or the person's interpretation and reaction to the event. C represents the consequences or feelings resulting from the person's evaluation of the activating event. D represents the disputing arguments that can be used to attack the irrational self-messages included in the evaluation of the activating event. E is the effective new thoughts, or answers given to the questions raised in D. 10 Several factors help counselors detect irrational thinking. They can look for overgeneralizations, distortions, deletions, catastrophizing, absolutes, condemning and fortune-telling. Once the irrational beliefs are recognized, the counselor disputes and challenges them. Ultimately the goal is for young people to recognize their irrational beliefs, think them through and relinquish them. 11 Ellis further emphasized the following points: Anxiety, fear, depression, etc. are not irrational, but inappropriate feelings that stem from irrational ideas. Feelings should not be confused with ideas. Clients have almost full or complete responsibility for their ideas, and consequently for their feelings. Clients mainly – not early environment or conditioning or contemporary conditions – choose to create their irrational ideas and consequent feelings. They can choose to change their ideas. Do not blame, damn, denigrate, or condemn people for choosing irrational ideas, inappropriate feelings, or defeating behaviours. 12 Discourage absolutes, such as must, should, always, never, and ought, in clients’ thinking. There are absolutely no absolutes. Therapists definitely do not determine whether clients’ behaviours are rational or irrational. 13 Ellis recommends that people would do better to resist the tendency to rate themselves in favour of rating only their deeds, traits, acts, characteristics, performances, etc. Therefore, “I did poorly on the test” rather than “I am stupid.” 14 Ellis also takes issue with the idea of promoting clients’ self-esteem through the counselor’s unconditional positive regard. He argues that counselors should promote the client’s own unconditional self-acceptance, i.e., we are worthwhile individuals regardless of any ways in which we may not always perform up to our ideals. REBT Session Demonstration Pt 1 REBT Pt. 2 16 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Aaron Beck Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programs are examples of the integration of cognitive and behavioural approaches. The practice of CBT combines behaviour-change methods with thought-restructuring methods to produce behaviour and feeling change in clients. 17 The principle difference between REBT and CBT is in the quality of the counselor’s approach. While REBT is more directly confrontational, CBT practitioners typically take a more neutral, exploratory stance (Socratic dialogue, Pg. 419). Example: A socially isolated child may believe that no matter what he does, others will always dislike him, and he will never have any friends. Behavioural techniques such as role playing, modeling, shaping, reinforcement, etc., can be used to promote outgoing, prosocial behaviours. The child is then supported to generalize these new skills to real life settings, and to reflect on his experience. “What does this mean about your belief that you will never be able to make friends?” In this way, disputational evidence (the D part of the therapy) is created in a way that is more experiential and concrete, and less verbal and abstract.