Therapy's Best (By Howard Rosenthal) - Part III

* Jon Carlson - The truth is that CLs are a lot like us when we go to a doctor. We want to get in and get out and get our help and get on with our life.
- Advice: Be patient with yourself. Becoming a good therapist takes time. Practice. Get supervision. Read books. Learn different ways to work with people, as you will encounter many different types of people.
- Loss is so very different for different people. It is important to understand how one formulates the loss and whether or not he or she is really having a difficult time.

* Raymond J. Corsini - Six Therapists and One Client;

* Albert Ellis on REBT - Unconditional self-acceptance (USA). Unconditional other-acceptance (UOA), Unconditional life-acceptance (ULA)

* Robert & Lisa Firestone on Voice Therapy - Separation theory; express self-attacks in the second person in a dialogue format and react emotionally. (1) verbalizing the self-critical inner voices and releasing the accompanying feelings; (2) developing insights regarding their sources; (3) formulating corrective suggestions for important changes in life.
deep-feeling release therapy - primal therapy

* Samuel T. Gladding on Creativity

* William Glasser on Choice Theory, the new Reality Therapy - controlling ourselves; Counseling with Choice Theory: The New Reality Therapy, I get rid of criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, and briding. Fibromyalgia: Hope from a Completely New Direction

* Les Greenberg on Emotion Focused Therapy - www.emotionfocusedtherapy.org; core emotions need to be brought into awareness to change them. Both the therapeutic relationship and the specific change processes are seen as important in promoting change. warm, supportive, empathic, validating; access and transform affects; dyadic regulation of affect; access adaptive emotions to promote change, resilience, and strength; Empathic attunement to affect and differential intervention to promote emotional processing. Intervening at the level of the moment-by-moment processes or by asking someone to pay attention to what's going on inside his or her body which is making a specific moment-by-moment intervention. Or suggesting a larger task such as asking someone to imagine a significant other in an empty chair and engage in the a dialogue with the imagined other in order to facilitate a particular kind of processing found to be most helpful for that type of problem state. Emotion is needed to change emotion. Know which emotions to change and which to be changed by. Increase emotional awareness and help people with their affect regulation with reflecting on emotions to make sense of them and on transforming emotion with emotion. Change in meaning; create meaning by dialectically synthesizing influences from biology and culture;
1) bonding and awareness (empathic attunement & CL's emotional awareness); 2) evoking and exploring (evocation is not used until regulation is achieved); 3) constructing alternatives (making sense & generating new adaptive emotions); 4) Consolidating new meaning.
Acceptance of emotion -- Learning to tolerate and regulate unpleasant emotions - evaluate our own emotions

* Muriel James on Transactional Analysis & Gestalt --> redecision therapy - Good therapy is educational and good education is therapeutic. In transactional analysis theory, typical responses from the Child ego state to criticism, advice, or encouragement, are compliance, rebellion, or withdrawal.
Spiritual dimension of life; self-reparenting/self-remodeling your inner parent; Breaking Free & It's Never Too Late to Be Happy
"I wonder if by any chance it could be true, or partly true, what I and/or my client is saying?"
"What do you want that will enhance your life?"
"What do YOU need to do to get what you want?"
"What are you WILLING to do?"
For positive change, contracts to think of options, and organize a plan of action using the Adult ego state, are often useful.