In today's fast paced world everything is aimed at how quickly results can be achieved. Everything is fast. We want our food fast. We want our needs of every kind meet quickly. The emergence of speed dating, hook up apps, to find our lovers fast. The big emphasis on contract work or casual employment are also evidence of the fast and temporary nature of our fast growing fast moving society. Living life in the fast lane is part of modern life. Therapy is no different we want our therapy fast 6-10 weeks is the normal length of therapy these days. There is plenty of research based around the effectiveness of brief therapy. Some counsellors can achieve a lot in that one hour of counselling time. I came across an organisation that offered brief counselling. It specified that one counselling session was offered with a referral system available for those who feel they require ongoing or further counselling. In actual fact one therapy session can often be enough for some people.
It is true that some problems only need one hour of mulling over with a counsellor. An example of this could be employment or career counselling. In this case the person may have a number of options available to them and be struggling with which option to choose. It may be a matter of saying what is in their head out loud to another person. Laying things out before you often helps you see the obvious path. Brief counselling may be useful for a number of problems that are similar to this in nature. The types of therapy that work best in these cases are Motivational Interviewing, Solution Focused Therapy and Cognitive Therapies can also be brief. A number of other modalities are adapting toward streamlining their style of delivery such as Brief Psychodynamic counselling which incorporates the old style of psychodynamic counselling with a more direct approach by keeping the counselling sessions to a minimum.
Brief counselling has a lot going for it. The cost involved being one. There is more and more research that points toward the harmfulness of over analysing life events and the benefits of looking forward rather than back through our hardships. It does make sense that too much delving into past trauma could end up being harmful. The shift toward looking at strengths that we developed overcoming past hardships and applying these to a solution focused future seems to be well intentioned. The idea that we are re-traumatizing ourselves when we talk about our history has been the subject of few research papers. Particularly if the trauma is significant. The Port Arthur tragedy found that people who had counselling recovered more slowly than those who didn't. This sparked research in Australia regarding how to approach trauma counselling. We understand now that we cannot apply counselling methods that work well with clients generally to those who have suffered extreme trauma. Trauma counselling is a very specialised field these days. Lessons learned here have been applied elsewhere. This is why often counsellors won't focus too much on past trauma rather focusing on how a person is coping day to day and giving strategies for management of life now.
Solution focused therapy is the most well known counselling modalities that uses brief therapy. This type of therapy is strength based and focuses on clients resourcefulness, it tends to look toward clients natural coping skills that are healthy and build on these while diminishing the client's coping mechanisms that may not be healthy for example drinking excessively. The counsellor looks closely at aspects of the client's life that show their capabilities. Often people are not aware of their strengths or their positive attributes. Everyone has positives attributes and coping mechanisms that get them through life. It's the job of the solution focused counsellor to bring those to the attention of the client and build upon these strengths and healthy coping mechanisms. For example if a client uses smoking to calm their nerves. I might ask "what are the elements of smoking that calm your nerves" The client may say "I go outside, I take a cup of coffee with me, I sit by myself and I smoke my ciggy". There's a few positive aspects to these actions. The person in removing themselves from the stressful event, they are taking spending time in a peaceful location and they are self soothing. The only negative aspect to this scenario is that they are filling their lungs with carcinogens which will eventually kill them. The solution is to withdraw that one element. You can find out more about Solution Focused Therapy here.
Motivational Interviewing is also a type of brief therapy in which the negative aspects of an unwanted behaviour for example drug taking are looked at in equal proportions to the positive aspects. This is a collaborative form of counselling which is person focused. The aim of motivational interviewing is for the client themselves to name and identify alternatives to the negative behaviour by rationalising their action such as the above example of smoking. The Motivational Interviewer might allow the smoker to discuss all the good things about smoking and then all the bad things about smoking allow the client to weigh up the pros and cons and decide for themselves that filling their lungs with chemicals that will eventually kill you probably isn't such a great idea in the long run. This is a very powerful method of counselling as the client comes to the realisation themselves and is more likely to be motivated to change their behaviour. You can find out more about Motivational Interviewing here. This is another strength based counselling. I'm sure Carl Rogers would be very pleased with these therapy types as they come from the perspective that everyone is basically good and have the requirements to make their lives better.
If you are interested in getting some training in Motivational Interviewing or Solution Focused Therapy the links are below. The youtube lecture this week is very good I do hope that you listen to it. Next week I will be debunking the myth that to get counselling you must have a mental illness or a weakness.
http://www.briefsolutions.com.au/btis/training.html
Counsellors
http://www.counsellingathome.com/counsellors/
http://www.logancounsellingservices.com.au/
It is true that some problems only need one hour of mulling over with a counsellor. An example of this could be employment or career counselling. In this case the person may have a number of options available to them and be struggling with which option to choose. It may be a matter of saying what is in their head out loud to another person. Laying things out before you often helps you see the obvious path. Brief counselling may be useful for a number of problems that are similar to this in nature. The types of therapy that work best in these cases are Motivational Interviewing, Solution Focused Therapy and Cognitive Therapies can also be brief. A number of other modalities are adapting toward streamlining their style of delivery such as Brief Psychodynamic counselling which incorporates the old style of psychodynamic counselling with a more direct approach by keeping the counselling sessions to a minimum.
Brief counselling has a lot going for it. The cost involved being one. There is more and more research that points toward the harmfulness of over analysing life events and the benefits of looking forward rather than back through our hardships. It does make sense that too much delving into past trauma could end up being harmful. The shift toward looking at strengths that we developed overcoming past hardships and applying these to a solution focused future seems to be well intentioned. The idea that we are re-traumatizing ourselves when we talk about our history has been the subject of few research papers. Particularly if the trauma is significant. The Port Arthur tragedy found that people who had counselling recovered more slowly than those who didn't. This sparked research in Australia regarding how to approach trauma counselling. We understand now that we cannot apply counselling methods that work well with clients generally to those who have suffered extreme trauma. Trauma counselling is a very specialised field these days. Lessons learned here have been applied elsewhere. This is why often counsellors won't focus too much on past trauma rather focusing on how a person is coping day to day and giving strategies for management of life now.
Solution focused therapy is the most well known counselling modalities that uses brief therapy. This type of therapy is strength based and focuses on clients resourcefulness, it tends to look toward clients natural coping skills that are healthy and build on these while diminishing the client's coping mechanisms that may not be healthy for example drinking excessively. The counsellor looks closely at aspects of the client's life that show their capabilities. Often people are not aware of their strengths or their positive attributes. Everyone has positives attributes and coping mechanisms that get them through life. It's the job of the solution focused counsellor to bring those to the attention of the client and build upon these strengths and healthy coping mechanisms. For example if a client uses smoking to calm their nerves. I might ask "what are the elements of smoking that calm your nerves" The client may say "I go outside, I take a cup of coffee with me, I sit by myself and I smoke my ciggy". There's a few positive aspects to these actions. The person in removing themselves from the stressful event, they are taking spending time in a peaceful location and they are self soothing. The only negative aspect to this scenario is that they are filling their lungs with carcinogens which will eventually kill them. The solution is to withdraw that one element. You can find out more about Solution Focused Therapy here.
Motivational Interviewing is also a type of brief therapy in which the negative aspects of an unwanted behaviour for example drug taking are looked at in equal proportions to the positive aspects. This is a collaborative form of counselling which is person focused. The aim of motivational interviewing is for the client themselves to name and identify alternatives to the negative behaviour by rationalising their action such as the above example of smoking. The Motivational Interviewer might allow the smoker to discuss all the good things about smoking and then all the bad things about smoking allow the client to weigh up the pros and cons and decide for themselves that filling their lungs with chemicals that will eventually kill you probably isn't such a great idea in the long run. This is a very powerful method of counselling as the client comes to the realisation themselves and is more likely to be motivated to change their behaviour. You can find out more about Motivational Interviewing here. This is another strength based counselling. I'm sure Carl Rogers would be very pleased with these therapy types as they come from the perspective that everyone is basically good and have the requirements to make their lives better.If you are interested in getting some training in Motivational Interviewing or Solution Focused Therapy the links are below. The youtube lecture this week is very good I do hope that you listen to it. Next week I will be debunking the myth that to get counselling you must have a mental illness or a weakness.
Training
http://www.pacificcmc.com/online.htmlhttp://www.briefsolutions.com.au/btis/training.html
Counsellors
http://www.counsellingathome.com/counsellors/
http://www.logancounsellingservices.com.au/
References
Corey, G. (2009). Theory and Practice of
Counselling and Psychotherapy. Belmont CA: Brooks/Cole.
Fields, A. (2006). Resolving Patient Ambivalence:
A Five Session Motivational Interviewing Intervention. BookSurge.
Gerald, D., & Gerald, K. (2001). Basic
Personal Counselling. Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson Education Australia.
Ratner, H., George, E., & Iveson, C. (2012). Solution
Focused Brief Therapy 100 Key Points & Techniques. Taylor and
Francis.
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