Ryan Thomas Neace

(This blog is a response to the blog, “SHOULD I EVER PRAY WITH MY CLIENT?” by Ray McKinnis. You may read that blog here – http://my.counseling.org/2011/05/31/should-i-ever-pray-with-my-client/) Recently, Ray McKinnis blogged about prayer with clients, stating that the practice is categorically unethical and worthy of abstinence. I respectfully disagree.

“Bob” and I had some trouble keeping our sessions to an hour. His desire to unpack some historically traumatic events, combined with his clinically significant anxiety and ADD left a pretty tight squeeze. What’s more, Bob agreed that his cannabis use immediately before sessions didn’t give him a full-range of emotional expression, but he was even more scattered without it.

90-Days to Change is a comprehensive, Total Life Approach to treating adolescents and young adults, offered by my practice, The Change Group, Central Virginia’s only Total Life counseling agency. Rather than offer an exclusive focus on psychological interventions, it seeks to impact functioning across multiple spheres, including Biological, Psychological, Social, and Spiritual. Interventions in each sphere include (but are not limited to): • Biological: Nutritional Awareness and Diet Coaching, Exercise Training, Yoga • Psychological: Individual and Group Therapy • Social: Group Therapy, Vocational Coaching, Social Cue Coaching, Characterological Development • Spiritual: Yoga, Meditation/Mindfulness, Virtue Coaching, Child/Family-Specific Religious Support

It isn’t hard to see how I ended up picking the counseling path. I lived among a bunch of analytical types. My father is a technical project manager, my eldest brother an electrical engineer, and my middle brother a senior computer analyst. My mother works in banking. Granted, the focus of their analyses was more technical or financial than psychological, but the basic tendencies are there. Once I discovered an innate tendency toward introspection, and one that was quite a bit more intense than those around me, a career in “people” seemed to just make sense.

I’m connected to a lot of counselors in training via the counseling courses I help teach and the peripheral contact that accompanies them. I’m also part of a Facebook group for counseling students in our program, and occasionally comment-worthy notes catch my eye. Recently, I saw a student who posted a particularly grim comment about a recent experience he’d had at his internship site. Some counseling giant (please note heavy sarcasm) asked this poor chap how many counseling modalities his program required him to master (my word) by the time he graduated. He felt so torn apart by the resultant gaps he now perceived in his learning, it left him wondering whether he’d made the right decision about his school and his vocation from the start. I felt badly for him. So, Facebook friend, this blog’s for you.