Theoretical Approaches, Part 5

Question 1: Describe the integrative nature of spiritual/holistic counseling.

Answer 1: Spiritual/holistic counseling gives careful attention to the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. More than any other form of counseling, this approach sees these three aspects of a person as seamlessly interconnected. Spiritual and holistic approaches to counseling are highly varied and do not represent a unified theory. Instead, it is a loose category of counseling describing many counselors, all attempting to help people with a more integrative understanding of the client. In many ways, spiritual/holistic counseling parallels and borrows from the increasingly popular alternative medicine and nutritional approaches to physical problems. For example, a holistic counselor might use essential oils of aromatherapy to aid emotional release, recommend vitamin supplementation and exercise for depression, recommend herbs for anxiety, or regularly refer clients to a massage therapist as part of an integrative treatment plan. In essence, this approach attempts to integrate holistically the treatment of the body and spirit with the traditional triad of counseling: thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

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Question 2: Describe the primary techniques of solution-focused therapy.

Answer 2: In general, solution-focused counselors use questions as the basis for assessment and therapeutic intervention. Three of the most basic types of questions in solution-focused therapy are: 1) exception-finding questions; 2) scaling questions; and 3) the miracle question.Exception-finding questions: These questions are designed to find out when the “problem” did not exist or occur, that is, the exceptional times when things were going right.Scaling questions: These questions attempt to create awareness of partial change in “the right direction.” These questions are typically quantified, such as, “On a scale of one to ten, with one being the most depressed, how depressed were you last week and how depressed you are now?”The miracle question: This question is useful for determining client goals and guiding therapeutic direction. While phrasing may vary, the question is essentially this: “If you woke up tomorrow and by some miracle your problem was gone, how would you know?

Question 3: Explain how the decatastrophizing technique works.

Answer 3: A common cognitive distortion is catastrophizing: greatly or absurdly exaggerating a problem situation to the point of perceiving an impending catastrophe. One of the ways of addressing this thinking error is the use of the cognitive therapy technique of decatastrophizing. This technique uses “what if”-type questions to help the client gain perspective. Essentially, the therapist invites the client to consider what would really happen if the problem situation occurred, hopefully allowing her to begin seeing the exaggerated nature of her thinking. For example, a distressed teenage girl says, “Bobby must ask me to the prom or I’ll die!” A counselor might respond by asking, “Let’s suppose Bobby doesn’t ask you to the prom. What will likely happen then?”zza4zz

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