ACA MEMBER BLOGS

Take a moment to consider some of the influential names in counseling. People who have guided our field through creating theories, techniques, and approaches. I would imagine that you of course considered Carl Rogers, maybe Ellis, Glasser, or Bandura and perhaps some figures from psychology such as Erikson, Jung, or Freud. However, it is unlikely that the names of Heraclitus, Plato, Nietzsche, Sartre, or Kierkegaard arose for you.

To age is a privilege, if for no other reason than to be able to look back on where we've been. How we've grown. To connect the dots, and see how the lines between them create a coherent picture.

Take a moment to consider the individuals in your life. Perhaps the coworkers you collaborate with from day to day, the friends you reach out to every week, or the loved ones who hold a special place in your heart have flashed by in your mind.

With social media constantly reiterating the news over and over again, we are all in danger of becoming desensitized. The news and social media plays on our emotions and thoughts by using attention grabbing headlines to increase clicks for their articles.

During my time in grad school, I was fortunate enough to engineer my program time so that it allowed me to work as a ‘Field Instructor’ a summer in wilderness therapy. Wilderness therapy is a subset of a rather large umbrella term “Adventure Therapy”.

Around the fall we often begin to reflect on our year, and how quickly it has gone by. We approach Thanksgiving and are prompted to recall our blessings, and this grows throughout the holiday season. In my practice, gratitude is not seasonal, but an intentional way of maintaining your mental health.

I had long entertained the prospect of becoming a therapist before entering graduate school. I had many of the same concerns that many recently graduated students with Bachelor’s degrees do: Am I competitive enough? Will I be able to handle the work? Is this really what I want to do? What if I try and I’m wrong? What if I don’t try and I was right? What if I’m too much of a ‘case’ myself to be a good therapist?

In our day and time it appears that many kids are being taught the importance of being seen and collecting followers rather than finding ways to help others. Our popular culture is ruled by narcissists who are addicted to social media, selfies, and slap dash one-upmanship.

I just returned from the Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clastkine, Oregon, a community of lay and ordained people who gather to practice Zen Budhism in the Soto/Rinzai lineage, with sprinkles of Tibetan and Theravada traditions. The monastery has a Jizo Garden, a memorial garden to the dead and a shrine of vows, a place where one can leave tokens of our deepest aspirations.

The term ‘boundaries’ play a very important role in the field of counseling and psychology. We spend hours examining, whether directly or indirectly, our clients’ boundaries with themselves and others.