Thought provoking book

I just finished reading the book “We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse” by James Hillman and Michael Ventura. It was written in the early 1990s, and if you like to challenge your thinking, it’s a good read. The main premise is that psychotherapy is making the world more narcissistic and individualistic by encouraging clients to look within themselves to solve their problems. The cure is to consider the macro influences in one’s life and look for a more relationship or community based answer.
Hillman came up with archetypal therapy, which doesn’t sound too promising to me personally, but his thoughts have been helpful to me in introducing mezzo or macro solution possibilities to my clients. I’d be interested in pursuing that conversation if anyone is interested.
Hillman specifically states that the purpose of the book is to introduce ideas and ask questions, not necessarily find answers. In that regard I liked it because it does challenge your thinking. I didn’t agree with all of the content (including some of the foul language), but for finding different ways of looking at things it is helpful.

Recovery Model

I was going through my files and came across some materials on the Recovery Model that they were trying to implement at the VA in Grand Junction.  Patricia Deegan was one of the main writers that I was first introduced to.  She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has gone on to write about her experience with the mental health system.  Her article is listed first, and then there are a couple of other articles that I found that were interesting.

http://www.brookred.org.au/Recovery%20and%20the%20Conspiracy%20of%20Hope.doc

http://www.bu.edu/cpr/repository/articles/pdf/davidson2001.pdf

http://list.cmha.ca/data/1/rec_docs/774_recovery_mental_illness.pdf

Big Questions

As mentioned previously, after graduation I read most of Yalom’s tome on group therapy. I found it very easy to read so I started looking at some of his other works. I seem to remember one of you recommending “The Gift of Therapy,” which I read next and found extremely helpful. He doesn’t delve into existentialism and dream interpretation until the end of the book, but I found the first 75% to have great, general principles to use in therapy (kind of like “A Guide to Possibilityland,” another great read).

I then read his “Love’s Executioner” that has ten accounts of therapy with ten different clients. For the most part it was an entertaining read and a good introduction to existential therapy. Just to recap, existential therapy focuses on the 4 “givens” of life – death, our aloneness in the world, lack of meaning in the world, and freedom/responsibility. As mentioned before, he does some dream interpretation and is not too far removed from psychoanalysis. Accordingly, existential therapy is not a brief therapy.

In general I am still being very eclectic in my therapeutic approach, so I have gleaned the following from what I’ve read. It fits the way I think personally because I do think a lot about existential problems. I agree that many mood disorders would be alleviated if people will work on some of these existential questions. Of course, it fits nicely with the gospel (Yalom’s take is actually antithetical to the gospel, but hey, you don’t hit a home run every time) and the idea that we change as individuals as we know our purpose on earth, who we are, where we’re going, and use our agency wisely. With that in mind, I appreciated what my co-worker gleaned from his reading of Yalom, that there are certain “givens” in life, and we do better when we accept those givens. So as for application, I’ll probably add it to my cognitive-behavioral repertoire as one more subject that I can discuss with clients when we both agree that it would be beneficial for the client to look at it.

Supervision

So how is everyone's supervision going? My supervisor/boss is a member of the church, an expressive, and loves to teach. He expects me to bring in things to talk about each time, and the only things he really points out to me are when he reviews my notes and makes recommendations on how to improve them.

I'm kind of curious what everyone else's supervision experience is like, and how we can make them better. I've tried writing down things to talk about during the week, but I don't always remember to do it. Any thoughts?

Austin

Carlbrook School, VA

Comrades!

As all of you may remember, I took a job at a therapeutic boarding school in south central Virginia. It is located between the last two capitals of the confederacy, South Boston and Danville. My family and I live about 10 minutes from the school, walking distance. We are surrounded by beautiful lush forests and fields of plenty. Due to our remote location, we have limited cell phone and internet access, so most of my correspondence will be done from work. I have been at this job for four months now and I love it. I am coming to the end of my interim period and will be expecting to get students on my case load at the end of this month. My work consists of counseling adolescents and their families, as well as working with education counselors. I am happily employed and learning a ton. I cannot wait to share it with all of you.

All the best,
Fridrik Rafn

P.S. They are continually looking to hire therapists at the school. So if you don't mind the surroundings and the clientele send your resume to gailfultz@carlbrook.org and check out their website at http://www.carlbrook.org/.

Jobs

To get things started I thought it would be helpful to know where everyone ended up job-wise. If you're still looking and want some help, let us know.

To start off, I ended up in Ely, Nevada, 4 hours north of Vegas and 4 hours west of Utah Valley. I'm working in the community mental health clinic. Since it is in a rural area, I'm doing a little bit of everything--individual, couples, children, groups.

So where are you?
Austin

Introduction

I only received a few confirmatory e-mails that people wanted to participate in this blog, but I'm hoping that more will join in. Again, the purpose of this blog is to have a forum for professional dialogue. We have Facebook for social interaction, but I was hoping for professional interaction as well. We have such a diversity and wealth of knowledge within our class that should be shared.

Of course, to make this work we'll need regular interaction. I have a few more thoughts that I'll propose in different blog posts in the upcoming weeks, to include:

- Sharing useful handouts on a file sharing website
- Book reviews
- Ethical discussions
- Helpful hints as we work towards licensure
- Business ideas

If you have ideas yourself, please post them so we can get off to a good start. Thanks for being willing to share your knowledge and resources with the rest of us.