2017 ICA Creativity and Counseling Children & Adolescentsc.ymcdn.com/sites/€¦ · Creativity and Counseling Children & Adolescents: Strengths-based Experiential ... •A collection

TeresaFletcher,TannerBiwer&HannahConner,AdlerUniversity

11/10/2017

CreativityandCounselingChildren&Adolescents:Strengths-basedExperientialActivities 1

Creativity and Counseling Children & Adolescents:

Strengths-based Experiential Activities

Teresa Behrend Fletcher, PhD, LPC, ACS

Tanner Biwer, BS

Hannah Conner, BS

Adler University

Introduction

• Why do children & adolescents come to counseling?• Because someone else thinks they need to change something.

• What do children & adolescents need from the counseling experience?• They need skills to manage life circumstances

• How do children & adolescents learn best?• Experientially…by doing

• How do clinicians navigate developmental challenges and individual differences?• Develop a successful process

• What skills do counselors need to be effective in working with this population?• Analytical, Creative and Practical Intelligence

What do we do? How do we do it?

• Experiential Learning Theory

• ”Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” (Maimonides, n.d.)

• “Learning by doing, followed by reflection.” (Gass, 1993, p. 4)

• Nature vs. Nurture

• It is not nature vs. nurture as an either/or, but the recognition, validation and acceptance of what nature provides while supplementing skill development for long-term health and well-being through a nurturing environment.


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Positive Psychology

• Nature provides everyone with unique strengths and challenges

• Identify strengths (traits, characteristics, skills, interests, abilities)

• Use strengths to overcome challenges

• Develop a process to systematically identify strengths to overcome challenges

• A collection of theories, models and approaches will be useful to develop a successful process

Positive Psychology FrameworkSkill Development

• Intrapersonal Skills

• Interpersonal Skills

• Coping Skills and Solution-focused Skills• Fletcher & Hurley, 2016

Intrapersonal Skills

• Self-awareness

• Identification of thoughts & emotions

• Recognition of thoughts & feelings

• Ability to develop insight

• Recognition of own involvement in problems

• Responsibility for actions

• Acceptance of strengths and challenges

• Motivation for change

• Recognition of choice and control

• Willingness to accept feedback

• Expression of thoughts, feelings and emotions

• Managing emotions


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Interpersonal Skills

• Understanding of impact of self on others

• Expression of thoughts & feelings so others can understand

• Listening and “hearing” perspectives of others

• Ability to get along with others

• Identify healthy qualities in others

• Reading and reacting to others

• Developing empathy towards others who are different than you

• Acceptance of individual differences

• Engage with others to develop meaningful and intimate relationships

• Sharing thoughts, struggles & dreams with others

Coping & Solution-focused Skills

• Assertiveness

• Decision-making processes

• Initiate change

• Acceptance of consequences

• Caring confrontation

• Overcome adversity

• Following directions

• Prioritizing interests and values

• Conflict resolution

• Negotiation

• Reflecting and learning from past experiences

• Self-soothing and self-care

• Facing fears

• Persistence

• Independent living skills

Successful Counseling

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we acted rightly. We are

what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. (Aristotle, n.d.)


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Successful Clinicians• Analytical Intelligence

• The ability to process information to analyze, evaluate, judge, or compare and contrast (Sternberg, 1997).

• Finding the “core issue” or hypothesis

• Creative Intelligence

• The ability to identify client strengths and co-constructing meaningful interventions within sessions to take advantage of moment-to-moment experiences (Carson & Becker, 2004).

• Practical Intelligence

• The tacit knowledge that influences common sense or as a social intelligence with the ability to select, shape, and adapt to everyday environments (Sternberg, 1997).

Successful Intelligence in Counseling

Six-Step Problem-Solving Model

Counseling Process

Successful Intelligence

Recognition Presenting Problem/Assessment

Analytical

Definition Assessment/DiagnosisConceptualization

Analytical/Creative

Formulating Strategy Conceptualization/Hypothesis

Creative

Representing Information Conceptualization/Treatment Planning

Creative/Practical

Allocating Resources Treatment Strategies & Implementation

Practical

Monitoring & Evaluation Treatment/Evaluation Practical/Analytical

Analytical Intelligence in Counseling

• All theories, models, approaches & frameworks serve to inform

• Developmental Theories and Multidimensionality

• Developmentally “normal”

• Developmentally “ahead”

• Developmentally “behind”

• Issues related to development

• Nature vs. Nurture

• Identify strengths and challenges


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Creative Intelligence in Counseling

• Traits of Creative Individuals

• Creative individuals are complex, or contain contradictory poles that involve the ability to move from one extreme to the other as an occasion or situation requires (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

• Theories of Creativity

• The process in which individuals engage in thinking creatively and implement ideas and include preparation and incubation along with an idea [inspiration, insight, ideation, illumination] and evaluation [elaboration, verification, production] to solve problems and generate or produce a positive outcome (Carson & Becker, 2004; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Witmer, 1985).

Practical Intelligence in Counseling

• Practical problem-solving

• The ability to identify real-world problems to everyday experiences with no clear definition, characterized by multiple solutions and various consequences with a possible best option available rather than a single right answer (Sternberg et al., 2000).

• Practical intellectual skills

• The ability to utilize intellect to identify and implement the best solution to these practical problems (Sternberg et al., 2000).

Successful Counseling

• Analytical intelligence used to incorporate every counseling theory, model, framework and approach to understand the core issue or problem and state as a concise and comprehensive hypothesis that can be tested and confirmed.

• Creative intelligence used to identify strengths and interests to build rapport and engage even the most defiant and oppositional clients in the change process.

• Practical intelligence used to understand both resources and skills to implement realistic strategies and include the right activity with the right client for the right reason at the right time and in the right way for positive and productive long-term change.


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Clinician Conceptualization Skills

• Identify the skills that are strengths

• Identify the skill deficits

• Intrapersonal

• Interpersonal

• Solution-focused (for problems that can be solved)

• Coping (for situations that cannot be changed)

• Experiential activities designed to use strengths while learning and practicing new skills

Choosing Activities

Referrals

• Life circumstances beyond developmental capabilities

• Deficit in skills necessary to navigate life circumstances

• Psychological diagnosis requires additional skill development

• All of the above

Strengths &

Interests Resources

• School subjects that are enjoyed or can be considered strengths

• Bibliotherapy, narrative

• Science experiments

• Expressive arts

• Board or card games

• Play

• Extracurricular activites

• Sports

• Scouting

• Church or religious groups

• Physical activity

• Outdoors

• Family and group activities

Processing Experiential Activities

• Setting up the activity (macro-processing)

• Engaging in the activity in real time (micro-processing)

• Learning from the activity (debrief)

• Taking what is learned from the counseling session to apply at home and school (transferrable skills)

• Fletcher & Hinkle, 2002


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Macroprocessing• No loading• Limited instructions to allow participation in the activity to speak for itself

• Front loading• Instructions or meaning is established prior to the activity

• Back loading• Meaning is learned through reflection

• Front and back loading

• Metaphor• A statement about one experience resembles another; metaphoric emphasis is used to

transfer skills

• Paradox• Directives are established for clients to resist the counselor in order to change (Haley, 1987)

• Fletcher & Hinkle, 2002

Microprocessing

• Field Theory

• Understanding how individuals interact with their environment

• Phenomenological Inquiry

• Level 1: Awareness

• Level 2: Responsibility

• Level 3: Choice

• Level 4: Stay the same or experiment

• Level 5: Choice

• Level 6: Stay the same or transfer new learning to home or school

• Personal renewal/closure

Meaning Making Debrief & Transfer

• Meaning is created based on the information that is filtered or absorbed and allows us to understand or make sense of our experiences (Park, 2010)

• Cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal component where individuals actively construct perspectives by interpreting experiences (Kegan, 1982)

• Over time, children and adolescents organize experiences (subjective experiences) to develop expectations or meaning frameworks (schematas) (Kegan, 1994)

• When expectations are not met, inconsistent or inappropriate, there is a violation of the meaning framework (cognitive dissonance) and follows a certain pattern

• In order to cope, clients engage in compensatory behaviors (reasons for referral to counseling)


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Case Study Discussion

Documents

2017 ICA Creativity and Counseling Children & Adolescentsc.ymcdn.com/sites/€¦ · Creativity and Counseling Children & Adolescents: Strengths-based Experiential ... •A collection