Understanding World Views for Effective Counseling

1. What is World View? (Sue & Sue, 1990) • we can define a world view as how a person perceives his/her relationship to the world (nature, institutions, other people, etc.). • World views are highly correlated with a person's cultural upbringing and life experiences

2. Ivey, Ivey, and Simek-Downing (1987) refer to world views as "one's conceptual framework," or "how you think the world works." Ibrahim (1985) refers to it as "our philosophy of life," or our "experience within social, cultural, environmental, philosophical, and psychological dimensions." • Put in a much more practical way, world views are not only composed of our attitudes, values, opinions, and concepts, but also they may affect how we think, make decisions, behave, and define events.

3. What is the importance of understanding world view? • Counselors who hold a world view different from that of their clients and are unaware of the basis for this difference are most likely to impute negative traits to clients. • Constructs used to judge "normality" and "healthy" or "abnormality" and "unhealthy" may be inadvertently applied to clients. • In most cases, culturally different clients have a greater possibility of holding world views different from those of counselors.

4. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck model (1961) of World View • Time: Is the orientation based on the past, present, or the future? • Human relations: Are individuals, collateral relationships, or lineal relationships valued most? • Human activity: Is the focus on doing, being, or becoming? • Human nature: At birth, are people considered basically good, bad, neutral, or mixed? • Supernatural: Is the relationship with the supernatural one of control,subordination, or harmony?

5. Human Activity • In the dominant European American culture culture, "doing" is valued over "being" or even "being-in-becoming. • There is a strong belief that one's own worth is measured by task accomplishments. • In the European culture, statements like "do something" indicate the positive value placed on action. • In counseling and therapy, the perceived "inaction" of a client who may adhere to a "being" orientation is usually associated with some form of personal inadequacy.

6. Relationship with others • some cultures, relationships tend to be more lineal, authoritarian, and hierarchical (traditional Asian cultures) in which the father is the absolute ruler of the family. • Some cultures may emphasize a horizontal, equal, and collateral relationship • in the U. S. the dominant value is individual autonomy. • A counseling relationship that tends to be more equal and individualistic may prove uncomfortable for clients who may adhere to a much more formal hierarchical relationship.

7. Nature of People • cultures, societies, and groups may socialize people into a trusting or suspicious mode. • Third World groups, by virtue of their minority status in the United States, may develop a healthy suspiciousness toward institutions and people. • Unfortunately, because many mental health professionals may operate from a different value orientation (man is basically neutral or good), they may see the minority clients as evidencing "paranoid" traits.

8. Relation of People to Nature • Cultures vary in their assumptions regarding to nature. • Many indigenous populations in North America perceive themselves as in harmony with nature. • Other groups perceive themselves as governed by nature • The dominant American culture perceives humans as having mastery of nature

10. Introduction To Individualism/Collectivism • This dimension describes the extent to which persons see themselves as individuals whose identity is separate from any work or social group, or as individuals whose identify is derived primarily from affiliation with multiple work and social groups. • Individualism is one of the strongest US values

11. Americans learn to think from the underlying assumption that the individual is directly related to the society without need for an intervening group - although involvement with family, community, team, and employer is highly desirable. • Not all Americans are highly individualistic in behavior or belief, but most native-born Americans share a core set of values which maintain that it is good to be an individual and to express one's self as that individual.

12. Collectivism • In countries on the collective side of this dimension, the "seamless" integration of the individual into the group is considered a principal goal of the society.

13. Childhood Socialization • In individualistic cultures are socialized into developing an independent and personal sense of duty and responsibility to society, not through the group, but as an independent person who voluntarily subordinates self to the good of the group, team, community, nation etc. • Children are socialized to create a sense of personal morality that ensures, to some degree, social order.

14. Collectivist cultural socialization • In highly Collectivist cultures the individual has little or no relationship with society EXCEPT through the groups in their life • This may include the person’s family, gender-based associations, perhaps their clan or ethnic group, their workgroup, and perhaps their community.

15. Children socialized into the various groups in their lives, and it is largely from within those groups that they relate to the world for life. • What is needed, therefore, in a Collectivist culture are ethical guidelines which can be enforced by social groups, rather than moral guidelines designed to be incorporated by individuals.

16. Collectivist vs. Individual Morality • In a collective culture, social groups exercise primary social control over the individual • in an individualist culture, only individual morality (and good police work) create social control over the individuals, who have been taught by their culture that they are not answerable to anyone except themselves.

17. INDIVIDUALISM / COLLECTIVISM CONTRAST STATEMENTS

18. In a High Individualism culture, the following tendencies are very strong: • Individual achievement is the basis for social standing • There are strong social/legal concepts involving individual rights • People are expected to act on their own behalf Individuals can hold and express unpopular opinions • Individualized decision making is preferred to consensus decision making

19. Social philosophies focus on universal principles not on social particulars • Loyalty to the company is not expected; pay for performance is expected • People seek variety and interest in work

20. In a High Collectivism culture, the following tendencies are very strong: • Attributes such as birth, ethnicity, and gender are the basis for social standing • Legal structures protect group and community interests • People are expected to defer to the interests of the group and powerful others • Individuals cannot express unpopular opinions without risk of sanction

21. Consensus decision making is preferred; individualism is seen as dangerous • Social philosophies focus on privileges and prerogatives, not on universal principles • Loyalty to the company is expected; performance is secondary

22. Techniques of Counseling • counseling can be conceptualized as breaking down into the therapeutic relationship and techniques.

23. Tactics/techniques of counseling: • "A defined tool or method that is employed by the counselor in order to facilitate effective counseling or positive behavior change in the client"

24. What do we mean by therapeutic relationship? • Definition of Therapeutic Relationship: The relationship in counseling and psychotherapy is defined as the feelings and attitudes that counseling participants have toward one another and the manner in which these are expressed (Gelso & Carter, 1985) • Assumes a reciprocal role for both the counselor and client to define the relationship

25. Emphasizes that there are two factors in counseling: • Relationship factors and Technical factors. • Technical Factors: refers to the therapist’s particular theoretical orientation and the specific counseling methods used to bring change within the client • The distinction is often very difficult to observe, as the counselor’s theory and techniques both influence and are influenced by relationship factors

26. Why is the therapeutic relationship important? • Historically: The counseling relationship has been consistently noted to be essential for counseling success. • Freud and other psychodynamic theorists: the role of transference and countertransference as essential for the understanding of childhood conflicts.

27. Freud • Transference: a repetition of feelings, behaviors, and attitudes toward the counselor, but are more accurately belonging to the client’s significant others from the past. • Countertransference: the counselor’s transference to the events that occur during therapy

28. Rogers • Carl Rogers would emphasize that the therapeutic relationship was both necessary and sufficient for helping in counseling and that other techniques would only prohibit progress in counseling.

29. The Common Factors Research • Efforts to reconcile behavior theory and psychodynamic therapy resulted in efforts to find the common factors in counseling and psychotherapy. • After a review of all psychotherapy theories, as well as historical and anthropological descriptions of the methods and principles of healing, Jerome Frank would eventually define psychotherapy as consisting of four components. • The first component is the therapeutic relationship in which the therapist and patient have clearly defined roles and expectations.

30. Common Factors Research, cont. • Research in the effectiveness of psychotherapy had noted that most therapies are essentially equal in their success rates, despite apparent differences in their theoretical formulations and techniques. • Studies that examined the elements of therapy to determine what aspects of different counseling methods found that counseling relationship factors were more cited than particular techniques in explaining client satisfaction.

31. What comprises the therapeutic relationship? • According to Gelso & Carter (1985), the components are: • The Working Alliance • Transference & Countertransference • The Real Relationship

32. Working Alliance: • the alignment or joining together of the client’s reasonable and observing side with the counselor’s working or “therapizing” side for the purpose of facilitating the work of counseling.

33. Transference & Countertransference: • Transference is always an error. This means that not all emotional issues in therapy are examples transference. Specifically, it means that only displaced emotions coming from past relationships reflect transference. • Transference can either be positive or negative. • Transference is facilitated by the therapist’s neutrality and ambiguity. • Transference is not conscious. • Transference is most likely to come in one’s most unresolved past issues.

34. The Real Relationship: two components. • Genuineness: the degree to which the counselor is able to be open and honest within the counseling relationship • Realistic Perceptions: the accurate perceptions by both the counselor and client, unclouded by transference and countertransference.

35. Rogers’ Facilitative Conditions: • Empathic Understanding: accurate understanding • Unconditional Positive Regard: refers to complete acceptance of the client as a person of worth • Congruence: the ability of the counselor to be freely himself or herself

36. Counseling Techniques: Highlen and Hill’s (1984) Classification Scheme of Techniques. • Level 1. Nonverbal Behavior • Level 2. Verbal Behavior • Level 3. Covert Behavior. • Level 4. Interpersonal manner.

37. Level 1. Nonverbal Behavior. • Contain the most specific and clearly observable levels of counselor response. They are not theoretically-driven. They include:

38. Paralanguage pertains to how things are said rather than what is said. voice tone, spacing of words, emphasis, inflection (loudness, and pitch), pauses, various nonlanguage sounds, and nonwords • Facial expression • Kinesics pertains to body movements other than facial expression and eye movements.

39. Looking and gaze aversion. The extent to which interactants look at each other and how they look at each other during their interaction. Eye contact is very culturally determined. • Proxemics refers to the area of nonverbal behavior dealing with the structure and use of space in human interaction. • Touch. Hugging, handshaking, handholding. When, if, or how to use touch is clearly not known and very controversial.

40. Level 2. Verbal Behavior. • Levels 2-5 contain more abstract and general variables that must be inferred. • Unlike nonverbal behavior, they are often derived from a theory of counseling. • It is at this point that we recognize that counseling remains as much an art as it is a science.

41. Level 2: Response Modes Approach: • in analyzing what the counselor says, the grammar is focused more than the content. They include: • Minimal Responses • Directives

42. 1. Minimal Responses. • In Hill's system of categorization the first two response modes are called minimal encouragers and silence.

43. 2. Directives. • The category of directives involves directing the client to do something by conveying approval, providing information, or giving directions, suggestions or advice • Counseling Texts emphasize that it is important for counselors to avoid being too directive so that the client does not "own" the process. • Advice-giving depends upon the theoretical perspective of the counselor.

44. 3. Information Seeking. • Closed questions and open questions to obtain information. • Open questions seek client exploration or clarification whereas closed questions are answered with a yes/no.

45. The other types are called Complex Counselor Responses • Complex Counselor Responses refer to the process of counseling as part of the analysis. • 4. Paraphrase: in the text, paraphrases are broken down into restatements, reflections, nonverbal referents, and summaries. • Indicate to the client that the therapist is listening and attending to the client and they enable the client to continue exploration. • Paraphrases also let therapists check out their understanding of what clients are saying.

46. 5. Interpretation: usually offers new meaning and points to the causes underlying the client's actions and feelings. The text points out that this is the most complex in terms of skill required. They emphasized five types:

47. establishing connections between seemingly isolated statements, problems, or events, • points out themes or patterns in the client’s behavior or feelings, (3) interpretation of defenses, resistance, or transference, • relates present events, experiences, or feelings to the past, and • giving a new framework to feelings, behaviors, or problems.

48. Most of these interpretations are clearly theory-driven. The counselor’s perspective will determine what will be focused upon and how, if, and when a particular interpretation will be used • The text emphasized that the depth and timing of the interpretation are crucial in their effectiveness.

49. 6. Confrontation: • points to some discrepancy or contradiction in the client's behavior, thoughts, or feelings. • Confrontation is definitely a technique which varies among counselors

50. 7. Self-Disclosure: • the revealing of personal information by the counselor to the client. The favoring of self-disclosure will be heavily influenced by the theoretical orientation of the counselor. • For example, humanistic approaches believe that self-disclosure is very helpful, whereas psychodynamic approaches believe that self-disclosure of the therapist will distract the client from self-understanding.