Models and Approaches of School Counseling, Study notes of Career Counseling

Download Models and Approaches of School Counseling and more Study notes Career Counseling in PDF only on Docsity! 183 6 CHAPTER Models and Approaches of School Counseling By reading and studying this chapter you should acquire the competency to: • Organize a plan for counseling with students experiencing different types of problems in a school setting • Explain and describe Alfred Adler’s principles of counseling as applied in schools with a preadolescent population • Explain the principles of behaviorism as they are applied in school settings • Explain and describe the principles of counseling as developed by Carl Rogers • Describe the approach and explain a school application for rational emotive behavioral therapy • Explain and describe cognitive and behavioral counseling in the schools • Compare two models for cognitive behavioral therapy used in schools today • Explain choice theory and describe William Glasser’s model for reality therapy in the schools • Describe the dynamics of groups and explain the principles of group therapy • Describe the methods of solution-focused brief counseling and goal setting in the schools • Describe the methods of strengths-based counseling in the schools • Explain the use of technology in the delivery of virtual school counseling • Develop a personal model for the delivery of school counseling services O B J E C T I V E S • • • The fool tells me his reasons; the wise man persuades me with my own. Aristotle  INTRODUCTION AND THEMES Standard 4: The professional school counselor provides responsive services through the effective use of individual and small-group counseling, consult- ing, and referral skills. (American School Counselor Association [ASCA]/ Hatch & Bowers, 2005, p. 63) There are three major theories that have shaped how counselors provide therapeutic interventions in schools. The first of these is based on the theoret- ical foundation provided by psychoanalysis, first defined and elaborated by Sigmund Freud. These approaches include those that can be described as neo- Freudian and those that contain elements first identified in Freud’s writings. Eric H. Erikson, Alfred Adler, and Otto Rank have built models for practice based on these approaches and theories. The early behaviorists provided the second theory that guided approaches to therapeutic interventions. Behaviorism was first defined in psychological labo- ratories with carefully controlled experiments to look into how individuals learn and respond to their environments. These approaches to therapy include William Glasser’s reality therapy and choice theory. Related theories describe goal setting and brief solutions-focused counseling, strengths-based counseling, cognitive therapy, behavioral counseling, and cognitive behavioral techniques. Each of these methods is based on helping clients learn new ways of thinking, processing information, and responding to their environments. The third major theoretical basis in counseling is a uniquely American approach devised by Carl R. Rogers. His person- or child-centered (in this chapter also called “student-centered”) approach is one that does away with the notion that a coun- selor is going to fix a problem the student is having. The approach is one that helps the student better understand his or her own thinking and find a resolution within. School counselors have also adopted an abbreviated approach for providing student-focused interventions that are time efficient and highly effective. Central to these solutions-focused methods are strength-based school counseling and narrative therapies (Tafoya-Barraza, 2008). The emergence of strength-based school counseling has provided school counselors with a highly effective tool for providing successful interventions in school settings. While not always appropriate for every problem, strength-based school counseling is both efficient and effective. 184 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING “ “ may be distorted and very wrong. This is made worse in authoritarian homes in which the child never develops the ability to express independence and competence. Elementary school students can overcome insecurities developed earlier in their childhoods by learning to work in cooperation with others. This work is most successful if directed toward self-improvement leading to self-fulfillment. The most benefit comes to the child whose efforts add to the common good for the community (e.g., classroom). Thus, Adlerian counseling is aimed at gaining an insight into self by learning to live effectively in school and in other social settings (Daniels, 1998). Background Alfred Adler (shown in Photo 6.1) was a Viennese physician in general practice and psychoanalyst who was a close associate of Sigmund Freud. Adler broke with Freud in 1911 and relocated to Long Island, New York, in 1926. His debate with Freud had to do with core assumptions of psychoanalysis, includ- ing the sexual feelings of young children. Adler saw the concept of infantile sex- uality more metaphorically than did Freud. Another disagreement with classical psycho- analysis was Adler’s belief in the role of moti- vation and the child’s need to move toward his or her own future. Freud’s model was backward looking, attempting to learn causes of current problems through an analy- sis of past experiences. While Freud explored the unconscious mind for early memories, Adler tried to identify the source of the child’s motivation to respond in a particular way. During World War I, Alfred Adler was a member of the Austrian Army Medical Corp and served in a hospital for children. After the war he opened a clinic and also worked to train teachers in his psychological meth- ods (Boeree, 2006). Today we count Alfred Adler as the first of a series of neo-Freudians that includes, among others, Erik Erikson, Abraham Maslow, and Otto Rank. 187Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling PHOTO 6.1 Alfred Adler SOURCE:  Bettmann/CORBIS. Adlerian Concepts Among the firsts that Adler’s writings presented was the first psychological study of feminism and the power dynamics between males and females. Adler argued against the cultural norm that holds boys in higher esteem than girls and where boys are encouraged to be aggressive and avoid all weakness, while girls are encouraged to be demure and shy (Rigby-Weinberg, 1986). Adler used a term masculine protest to describe the need of parents to raise boys to be “real men” who are brave, powerful, and stoic. The difficulty of reaching this masculine ideal can leave a little boy craving to reach it but failing and retreating into a world of power fantasies. As a young adult this can lead to vengeance, resentment, overwhelming avarice, and ambition (Daniels, 1998). Later Adler changed the term masculine protest to one that was more attuned to his American experience: striving for superiority. This became his term to describe male assertiveness and the training that boys receive to behave in “male-appropriate ways.” A second unique feature of the theory developed by Adler is that of the crit- ical role played by feelings of inferiority (Adler, 1956a). Adlerian therapists believe that each infant has inborn feelings of inferiority. This inborn set of feel- ings is the dynamic that motivates us all to strive to overcome these feelings. All children work to become more powerful and have an increasingly superior role in their lives and to be seen by others as successful and capable. This may be the simple act of insisting on putting on one’s own clothes at the age of 2 or the need to control when one goes to bed, irrespective of parental wishes. This striving for superiority is an essential theme in all our lives. By going to graduate school and working to become school counselors, we are overcoming feelings of inferiority and striving for superiority and professional success as we overcome those negative feelings. If we fail in our attempts, and our striving is thwarted, there is a good likelihood that our feelings of inferiority will become overwhelming, and we will exhibit what Adler termed an inferiority complex. An inferiority complex includes an overwhelming sense of being incapable and less deserving than others. It is the essence of hopelessness and results in depres- sion and a total loss of motivation. A 5-year-old child will suffer any fall, and work for hours on end without complaint to develop the skill needed to ride a bicycle independently (see Photo 6.2). Adler believed this motivation was one to avoid being inferior and to establish control over that aspect of one’s life. The third major theoretical perspective provided by Adler is the important role of birth order in the lives of children. Many of his observations are part of the conventional wisdom of parents today. These include the likelihood that 188 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING an only child will be pampered and pro- tected by parents who are nervous about their only child. Firstborn children have the experience of being only children and then are sud- denly deprived of the spotlight and must battle to regain the attention and affection of the parents and others in the extended family. Firstborn children may become dis- obedient, regress to less age-appropriate behavior patterns, or become sullen and withdrawn. On the positive side, firstborn children will have experienced a richer lin- guistic milieu, with two parents and other adults talking and paying attention to them (Thurstone & Jenkins, 1931). Subsequent children in the family will not have that experience. Thus, firstborn children may appear precocious and assume a teacher- like role within the family. As other children enter the family, each will see one or more of the other children as being a competitor for the affection and love of the parents. Each will accept a role within the family that provides him or her with a distinctive temperament and style of interaction. The gender of each child and the length of the time period between births become part of the Adlerian calculus of the impact of birth order (Zajonic, 1976). Methods of Adlerian Counseling in Schools Many of the methods employed by Adlerian school counselors are designed for use with preadolescent students. The central Adlerian belief is that children mis- behave because they are acting out from faulty logic about how the world works. This misinterpretation occurs over time as the natural striving attempts by the child to overcome weaknesses are thwarted at every turn. The type of problem behaviors normally addressed using Adlerian approaches can be divided into four groups: attention seeking, power struggles with adults, revenge, and inadequacy (Fallon, 2004). 189Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling PHOTO 6.2 Striving to Be the One Who Can Ride a Bicycle SOURCE:  Istockphoto.com /Rch1. The use of economic rewards in education is quotidian and spreading (Wallace, 2009). From the perspective of school-aged children, the true payoffs for doing well in school are in the distant future. Students have been paid for attending after-school tutoring, scoring well on advanced placement (AP) tests, and attending Saturday and summer tutoring sessions. All of these efforts are examples of applied behaviorism in a school setting (Guernsey, 2009). A negative reinforcer can also change behavior. These involve the removal of an annoying condition following the desired behavior. For example, when a parent nags a child to put away all the toys and clean up his or her room, the child may find the nagging annoying. When the child does as asked, the negative stops (no more nagging till the next time), and being left alone for a while rewards the child. The problem for counselors and other educators using a reward system to control and change the behavior of students is knowing what is rewarding to the student. A child may crave attention and being noticed by his or her peers. This can result in the student being a constant problem for teachers. The result is that the teacher continually reprimands the student. These reprimands are a form of attention, and all the others in the room are certain to notice and respond to the student’s acting out or other inappropriate behavior. Behaviors that are never rewarded will diminish in frequency and eventually be extinguished. Ignoring inappropriate behavior is not an easy concept for responsi- ble teachers or parents to understand or employ. If a child demands that he or she be given a desirable object and the responsible adult refuses, the child is likely to ratchet up the demand and become truly pestiferous. At this point the adult may make the error of giving in to the child. This adult abdication reinforces a pattern of behavior of demanding and pestering by the child. Adults who try to extinguish an inappropriate behavior, only to later cave in and give the child his or her way, produce the most resistant patterns of behavior. If a child does not know when he or she will win the contest of wills with the adult but does know that eventually the adult will give in, he or she has no reason to stop misbehaving. The frequency, intensity, and persistence of these inappropriate behaviors will increase.  ROGERS’S PERSON- (CHILD)-CENTERED SCHOOL COUNSELING One of the most satisfying experiences I know is just fully to appreciate an individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. When I look at a sunset . . . I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color. . . .” I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.3 Carl Rogers 192 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING Carl Rogers described the birth of the new form of psychological therapy occurring on December 11, 1940, during a paper presentation he made at the University of Minnesota to a meeting of the Psi Chi honor society in psychol- ogy (Kramer, 1995). Rogers followed a complex path in reaching his profes- sional identity and developing what became known as the third force in therapy. Background Rogers was raised in a strict home with highly committed Christian parents (Rogers, 1961). His choice for higher education was the Agriculture School of the University of Wisconsin. Later he decided to do graduate work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. That also proved to be a false start, and Carl Rogers entered Teachers College of Columbia University, where he studied child development and guidance with Leta Hollingworth4 (Thompson & Henderson, 2007). While working as a therapist in a child guidance clinic in Rochester, New York, he met many social workers who had been educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where they were taught by Otto Rank, an immigrant from Vienna. Otto Rank was a former acolyte of Sigmund Freud and member of Freud’s close circle. In 1923 Rank broke with Freud and the traditional model of psychoanalysis and developed a different approach to therapy. Otto Rank studied the personal struggle each person has in balancing indi- vidual will with the conventions and culture of society. He uses the word will to replace the concept of ego as developed by Erikson. To Rank, the will is a more energized form of ego that strives to provide us with independence and dominion. The best human resolution to the struggles of the human will involve acceptance of one’s self and the creation of a personal ideal to endeavor always to achieve (Rank, 1978/1936). The term client entered the writings of Otto Rank to replace the medical concept of a patient. The medical concept of fixing what was wrong with a patient was replaced by the concept of helping the client own and understand what heretofore were unexplored and unac- knowledged parts of the client’s own inner life. Otto Rank named this thera- peutic approach relationship therapy. Rogers invited Rank to conduct a two-day seminar in Rochester. During those meetings Rogers refined and modified his conceptual basis for work- ing as a therapist and began developing the new approach to individual therapy. Rogers described the significance of the impact of the Otto Rank seminars by saying, “I became infected with Rankian ideas” (Kramer, 1995). Rogers described this new approach as client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1980). Otto Rank’s relationship therapy model was incorporated into the 193Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling early work on child psychology and therapy by Rogers, but it was refined through Rogers’s experience base of 12 years spent as a therapist working with troubled children and their families (Rogers, 1939). The new Rogerian client-centered5 counseling model was the first truly American approach to psychological therapy. Nondirective Counseling Unlike psychoanalysis, the Rogerian approach does not dig into the uncon- scious mind or repressed memories. The focus is on the immediate world of the child and how the child views and understands what he or she is experiencing. This approach is described as being phenomenological in that it is less con- cerned with the scientific reality of the moment but rather is focused on how the child sees it. The key to all counseling is being an active listener: one who is totally focused on what the child is revealing and describing from his or her pri- vate phenomenological perspective (Rogers, 1977). This requires the counselor to do anything that would help him or her enter the world of the child’s subjective experiences and understandings. Included in this is the requirement that the counselor avoid interpreting what the child means, asking questions, or giving the child advice. Congruence The goal of counseling is to assist the child to reach a point described by Rogers as congruence. To reach this point of congruence, the child will need to experi- ence a psychotherapeutic change in his or her personality structure (Rogers, 1992). The congruence that is needed is between the child’s knowledge of him- or herself as a person and the ideal image he or she wishes could be achieved. This difference is incongruence, and it represents a source of anxiety, frustra- tion, and maladaptive behaviors (Rogers, 1942). Rogerian Manifesto In his textbook on client-centered therapy, Carl Rogers laid out 19 propositions as to what a client- (child)-centered counseling intervention should assume (Rogers, 1951, pp. 483–522). The principles have been modified to fit the con- text of American students in the 21st century. These principles include: 194 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING is replacing the present value system. This is especially true when values are based extensively on introjections that have been distorted and inap- propriately symbolized. The goal is to reach a point when the experi- ences of life fit within the child’s evolving valuing process. Methods of Rogerian Counseling in Schools Counselors employing the child-centered approach of Carl Rogers believe that children all have dignity and value and deserve respect. All children are able to make constructive change in their lives and strive to be fully actualized. Change can best occur when children are self-directed and provided opportunities to make wise choices and decisions. Children being counseled move toward improvement when the counselor is nonauthoritarian, warm and authentic, congruent, and an excellent listener; provides unconditional acceptance of the client; and views the child as competent (O’Hara, 1995). To operationalize these principles, Rogers proposed the following requirements for a counseling rela- tionship (Rogers, 1992): The counselor and child both recognize that they are together in a thera- peutic relationship. The child is experiencing internalized discrepancies and is psychologically incongruent. The counselor is congruent and an integrated person. The counselor does not present a façade but is a genuine person there to provide support and assistance for the child. The counselor provides young clients with unconditional positive regard. There is no point when it is appropriate for the counselor to chastise or point out mistakes the child has made. The key tool of the counselor is empathy. This type of empathy requires the counselor to sense the child’s private world and be able to feel as if the coun- selor were the child. By entering the student’s world, the counselor can sense the individual’s angers, fears, and confusion. Counselors employ open-ended questions to help the child-clients enter into a dialogue. Open-ended prompts like “Tell me what is going on in your life this week” prevent the child from giving a one-word answer and encourage a narra- tive from the student. This and similar openings can begin a therapeutic dialogue. 197Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling A child-centered therapeutic dialogue involves active listening, whereby the full attention of the counselor is focused on the child and what is being expressed. The counselor must be able to recognize exactly what the child is expressing and have the ability to reflect those feelings so the child knows the counselor is “tuned in.” When the counselor is reflecting the understanding he or she has developed, the counselor should use ownership statements for those reflective comments. Ownership is shown when the counselor starts a sentence with the word I. Comments such as, “I hear you saying that you feel lonely here in school,” or “I think you are saying that you are angry at the limits your mom set for you.” Through these reflective statements a school counselor can also clarify the student’s feelings and bring a focus to what is confusing or in conflict. Any chal- lenge to the student’s contradictions must be gentle and approached as if for clarification. The response by the counselor must always fit right into the student’s mood and the content of his or her thoughts. Even the tone of the counselor’s voice conveys his or her ability to sense the student’s inner feelings and thoughts. The student who is being helped by the counselor comes to recognize and accept the counselor’s empathy. The school counselor is able to understand and sense the student’s subjective world and still maintain a professional role apart from that of the student being helped. Problems With Rogerian Methods in Schools The problems for a school counselor using the child-centered approach of Carl Rogers can be divided into three areas. First is the problem of working in a school instead of a private office or clinic. On entering into a counseling relationship, students typically test the boundaries of that relationship. This may involve mak- ing vicious remarks about teachers or others in the school community. If the coun- selor makes a nonjudgmental reply, the student may take the counselor’s empathy to imply agreement. Despite any ground rules, this supposed agreement may be reported throughout the school and cause many hard feelings. Working in a school also implies that the counselor must be careful when making an appoint- ment to meet a student. Students must not be taken away from tests or laboratory exercises. The fact that Rogerian counseling may take many sessions and occur over several months can present a tricky scheduling problem for a school counselor. Teachers who see the same student miss time from class to meet the counselor may come to resent both the student and the counselor. The second problem area is in documenting the value of this method. Terms used to describe the counseling process are vague and not well defined. Rogers was educated in an empirical science and made great efforts to provide operational descriptions for his work, but his model is beguiling in its apparent simplicity 198 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING (Pescitelli, 1996; Rogers, 1985). This makes it possible for poor practitioners to think they are providing child-centered therapy when they are not. The final concern is that the model does not address developmental differ- ences between children at different age levels. It also does not address the prob- lem of when to use Rogerian methods with young children, children with disabilities, and those with significant mental illnesses. ELLIS’S RATIONAL EMOTIVE  BEHAVIOR THERAPY IN SCHOOL COUNSELING Everything hangs on one’s thinking. A man is as unhappy as he has con- vinced himself he is. Seneca Albert Ellis began his career as a clinical psychologist in the 1940s and soon found the standard course of psychoanalysis to be too inefficient and languid. 199Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling CARTOON 6.1 Finding the Time SOURCE: Merv Magus. Methods in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy The first phase in REBT involves assessing the problem that is affecting the child. Getting adolescents to express their feelings and describe what they are thinking can involve Rogerian methods. Younger children who lack the ability to explain how they feel or what their thoughts are may require the counselor to employ indirect or fantasy-based methods for therapeutic communication, for example, a puppet play or storytelling (Eppler, Olsen, & Hidano, 2009). In this assessment the counselor is listening for irrational thinking that may be highlighted by the use of language patterns described previously. Once the problem has been identified, the next task for the counselor is to find its parameters. This includes the intensity of the distress the child is experiencing, how long it has been going on, and how frequently it occurs. The issue of fre- quency can provide the counselor insight into what triggers the child’s distress. ABCDEs of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy The two linked goals of REBT are first to have the child recognize how his or her thinking is not rational and the conclusions being reached are wrong. The second is to reeducate the child in new thinking patterns and a more rational way of seeing the world around him. To do this, Ellis proposed a series of steps for the counselor to follow in helping the child (Ellis & Bernard, 1983). These steps involve: A. Identifying the activating event B. Identifying irrational beliefs or cognitions about step A C. Identifying the consequences for the irrational beliefs (emotions and feelings) D. Disputing the irrational beliefs E. Employing effective, new, more rational thinking about the original acti- vating incident The following scenario is based on a problem that can happen when a student romance breaks up. A. Girl receives a rejection from the first boy for whom she feels romantic love. He wants to date others; she thought they were “going steady.” B. Student is crushed by the “break-up” and feels it is all her fault. 202 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING C. Student feels anger at the boy and has feelings of self-loathing and depression. D. Counselor disputes her analysis showing that no one is at fault, and she is a worthy person who is liked by others. E. Girl replaces irrational thinking in B with a realization that she is a com- petent and likeable person who can make and keep friends and that other boys are available. Strengths of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Perhaps the greatest advantage to using REBT in public school counseling pro- grams is the fact that it can be carried out in a short time frame. The approach is one that is easy for children to latch onto and to employ when other prob- lems arise in their futures. Thus, REBT not only helps a child experiencing a problem, but also provides a method for self-help in the future. BECK’S COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL  THERAPY IN SCHOOL COUNSELING Aaron Beck, a pioneer in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), has modified the REBTmodel of Alfred Ellis bymaking it less confrontational and providing a strong basis in science for its techniques (Beck, 1979; Sussman, 2006). Beck has labeled the irrational thoughts described by Ellis as automatic thoughts. His approach to therapy is assisting the client in setting goals for interacting in the world and then reaching them by changing the distortions in cognition or automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts occur and run parallel to the person’s ongoing interac- tions in the world. For example, a child sees several other children laughing and has automatic thoughts of being the butt of their humor, a person so unworthy as to be laughed at. These thoughts lead to negative emotions, loss of self- esteem, and self-defeating behaviors such as avoidance of others. The coun- selor’s task is to teach new ways of thinking (Goode, 2000). Methods of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy As is true of all counseling, interventions using CBT begin with a trusting rela- tionship between counselor and student. The first CBT counseling session is a time for the counselor to work collaboratively with the student to set goals for the counseling. Questions such as, “At the end of counseling, how would you 203Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling like to be different than you are now?” These goals are then prioritized and an agenda is developed (Sussman, 2006). Counselors begin sessions by reviewing the agenda and identifying goals for the session. It is also common to ask open-ended questions or prompts such as, “What happened this week?” or “Describe everything you do on a typical non-school day from getting up until bedtime,” or “Describe what mood state you are in now.” The core of the counseling is teaching the student-client to challenge inaccu- rate beliefs. One technique is to teach students in therapy how to think like sci- entists. For example, with the case of the student who believed he or she was being laughed at, the counselor would ask the student how he or she knew that was true. “What are the chances they were laughing at a joke, or at something else?” By learning new ways of thinking through situations, the student learns a new, more positive way of approaching problems. This learned way of think- ing must then be practiced between counseling sessions. This is where coun- selors assign homework. The child should write down all the incidents that came up in the time between sessions and when he or she challenged old auto- matic thinking with a more scientific way of understanding what happened. This may be recorded in e-mail entries that are forwarded to the school coun- selor between sessions. During the next counseling session, review of the home- work provides information for further counseling using CBT. Advantage of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Schools The CBT approach of Aaron Beck is less labor-intensive for the counselor. The total number of sessions needed for most problems is about 10. These can occur every week at first, then become more and more separated in time as the student improves. Another advantage is the approach has been proven to work and pro- vide an efficacious approach to counseling. The system has elaborated approaches for many different problems (depression, anxiety, personality prob- lems, etc.) that counselors may encounter that have been tested and demon- strated to be effective (Beck, Freeman, & Davis, 2004).  GLASSER’S REALITY THERAPY SUPPORTED BY CHOICE THEORY IN SCHOOL COUNSELING The therapeutic model developed by William Glasser is one based on choices we make in our relationships with others. Glasser (1998) believes that inap- propriate behaviors that lead a student to the counselor’s office are the 204 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING 5. Make a commitment to try selected alternatives. Ask questions such as, “Which alternative approach will you try?” 6. At a later time, examine the effectiveness of the commitment—no punishment and no excuses. Ask questions such as, “When will you do this?” or “Do you have a planned time when you will do this?” 7. Accept the logical and natural consequences of the behavior. Do not become discouraged; persevere with the student. Giving up on the student is not an option. GROUP COUNSELING  School administrators often burden school counselors with large caseloads and many expectations for expert assistance. The ability to employ group counsel- ing methods can greatly improve the efficiency of the counselor and make it possible to assist many more children. Group Theory Each of the major theorists in counseling has endorsed the use of groups, start- ing with Alfred Adler (Drinkmeyer, Pew, & Drinkmeyer, 1979). The psy- chotherapy model of Adler assumed that there was a social need within us all that longed for acceptance and approval from others. Students with emotional problems have generally been unable to interact with others in successful ways. Psychoeducational groups guided by the school counselor can teach students social skills and give them their first opportunities to be successful (Papanek, 1970). Carl Rogers (1970) wrote positively about instituting what he described as encounter groups in schools and other educational institutions (p. 155). Alfred Ellis supported group approaches to REBT, believing that groups can give students accurate feedback about irrational thoughts and help them try dif- ferent roles and approaches to problem solving (Ellis, 1982). Methods of Group Counseling Counseling in the schools must match the developmental levels and needs of students (DeLucia-Waack, 2006). Before fifth grade, students have limited attention spans and are bound by a form of linear logic that emphasizes 207Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling deductive reasoning and makes insight impossible (Gray, 2006; Piaget, 1953/1936, 1970). Group counseling with students at this developmental level should be focused on concrete issues that are easy to grasp and discuss. Primary-level groups should be limited to four members or fewer. Eight is the maximum for middle and high school students in a counseling group that a counselor should lead. There are three major psychoeducational group types that a school coun- selor may make part of the school’s counseling program (Goodnough & Lee, 2004). These are groups that encourage growth, improve school climate, and reformative groups. Groups to Encourage Growth There are a number of ongoing concerns students will experience as they grow and move through the grades. These groups can be focused on normal transi- tions that occur such as middle school to high school to college. Another focus may be on personal development, such as improving studying habits, taking 208 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING PHOTO 6.3 Group Counseling With Teenagers SOURCE:  Istockphoto.com/JeanellNorvell. 209Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling better class notes, improving grades by using time productively, or learning to set goals and prioritizing. Groups to Improve School Climate These groups are established with the goal of making life better for all in a school community. The groups may be part of a program to control bullying or hazing behaviors, improve student morale, improve interracial understanding, promote tolerance, or establish support programs related to service learning experiences. (See Chapter 8 for more on counseling with diverse populations.) Reformative Groups These groups are established to assist students in learning to cope with difficult personal problems. Groups can address issues of individual identity, family problems (divorce, separation, grieving and bereavement), addictions, abusive families, anger management, sibling rivalry, and the host of other issues children and adolescents face growing up. These groups are also important tools for helping a school community overcome a common tragedy. Deadly violence in schools is lower today than in the 1990s, but students continue to be killed in car crashes and in other devastating accidents. Group counseling can provide immediate help for young people feeling confusion and pain. Group Process The use of groups by the school counselor is the most effective intervention available for most problems among adolescents (Shallcross, 2010). The key to a good psychoeducational group is a well-trained counselor who possesses ster- ling leadership skills. Prior to the first group session, it is best if the counselor meets individually with each student who will participate. This meeting can help the counselor and student by identifying and clarifying the student’s goals in becoming part of the group. The counselor can also review rules for the group: (1) all meetings are confidential, (2) no one ever gets laughed at or teased in or outside the group, (3) each member listens very carefully to what each other member is saying, and (4) meetings start and end on time. After ground rules are set, the first session with a new group usually needs a group activity designed to be an icebreaker and way to allow group members to get to know and trust one another. These students will know of each other as “kids” in the same school but will not know them the way members of a psy- choeducational group eventually will. “Effective study skills,” “Coping with grief and bereavement,” “Getting into and paying for college,” or “Quitting smoking.” The survey should ask students for other ideas for needed groups. Planning counseling programs based on empirical data also meets a mandate of the national framework (ASCA/Hatch & Bowers, 2005, pp. 53–54). Careful administrative support, including school policies making it a require- ment that teachers let students scheduled for counseling attend the session with- out penalty, is the bottom line (Ripley & Goodnough, 2001). This requires that the counselors agree to insist that no student can wander the halls and must report to the counseling suite on time. Another concession is to make it possible for outside professional counselors to be used as co-therapists in the school counseling groups. Outside counselors can bring important expertise to groups in areas such as the integration of juve- nile offenders, drug and alcohol addictions, family relationships, living with a sexually transmitted disease (STD), or financial management and planning, and nutritional counselors can consult on healthy living choices.  SOLUTION-FOCUSED BRIEF COUNSELING Time constraints on school counselors make approaches to service delivery involving only a few sessions very appealing. This need for more counsel- ing in less time may explain the rapid expansion in the use of solution- focused brief counseling (SFBC) in schools (Lewis & Sieber, 1997). Some counselors have found that even single-session counseling can produce sig- nificant improvement for students receiving counseling (Littrell, Malia, Nichols, Olson, Nesselhuf, & Crandell, 1992). The whole approach is predicated on five assumptions: 1. Concentrate on success [that which works] and change in needed areas will occur. 2. Every problem has a time when it is not present or doesn’t happen. Use those times to formulate a solution. 3. Small changes in how the student behaves have a large ripple effect on others in his or her environment. 4. Students being counseled have what is needed to resolve their problems. Counselors must concentrate on those strengths and successes. 5. Always work toward positive goals. (Sklare, 2005) 212 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING Methods of Solution-Focused Brief Counseling In using SFBC, the first session is a time for establishing good rapport and devel- oping clear positive outcome goals between the student-client and counselor. To assist in this, the counselor may ask positive outcome questions. One of these is, “If a magic wand was waved over your head and solved your problem, what would be different?” The counselor asks follow-up questions such as, “If you were getting along better with other kids, what would you notice that you were doing differently?” The student’s answer to these questions can help clarify the answer into a positive goal statement. Goals The best goals are behavioral and easily demonstrated and operationalized (Parsons, 2009; Paslay, 1995). Positive goals state what the student will be doing as opposed to vague goal statements such as “I want to do better on tests.” The goal could provide behavioral change and be developed by the student by the counselor asking, “If you were on the road to better test grades, what would you be doing that would show that?” Goals must never be negative, taking the form of either “wanting to stop doing something” or “wanting others to stop doing something.” To turn these into positive goals, counselors would reply, “If you were not doing ___ (describe what the student should not be doing), then what would you be doing instead/differently/or what would you start doing?”(Sklare, 2005, p. 25). Harmful goals involving rule breaking, illegal activities, or harming one’s self or others must be avoided. Turning these into positive goal statements requires the counselor to help reframe the student’s goal in a positive way to meet his or her needs. A question that can help reframe a harmful goal idea is, “What’s the reason you want (don’t want) to . . . ?” Students making “I don’t know” or “I have no idea” their first goal statement are expressing resistance to the process. This can be recast in positive terms by asking, “If you did know, what . . . ?” or “If you did have an idea, what . . . ?” In setting goals, identify exceptions. When a student uses non-absolute terms, for example, sometimes, almost always, usually, or generally, they are indicat- ing moments when they are successful. Focus on those positive moments and help the student clarify what is working for him or her. Also, use mind mapping to assist the student in identifying what he or she was doing differently when success of the identified exception was experienced. Counselors should be cheer- leaders for the student by verbally rewarding these successes with praise. The final concern in goal setting is making its success measurable. This scaling task involves asking the student to give a numerical level to the degree he or she 213Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling experiences the problem (1, lowest, to 10, highest). With each subsequent visit, the student is asked about the level of this problem. Any positive movement seen should spark praise for progress and questions of what is being done differently. By having specific, measurable, behavioral goals and focusing on what is improving, the counselor may not need to see the student more than five or seven times after the initial session. The student is doing all the “heavy lifting.” The counselor should ask the student to do a vague sort of homework between sessions. This involves writing down incidents that occurred where he or she tried out the new behavior and what happened. As with other approaches, this can be facilitated by instant communication or standard e-mail entries open to the counselor. These reports then become a focus of the subsequent sessions. Relaxation Therapy One brief therapeutic method that school counselors can employ with students in a group or workshop session is mind-body relaxation to reduce stress. This therapy can be effective at all grade levels, and there is anecdotal evidence that the techniques can improve scores on high-stakes tests (E. Ramirez, 2009). One relaxation method involves daily yoga exercise for 10 minutes each day in homeroom. This is done in more than 40 of the schools around the city of Chicago. Another approach is the use of deep muscle relaxation and breathing exercises. This approach is being successfully employed in the Boston area. Both approaches need to be designed by experts in the field. Yoga instructors are certified by a national organization and must complete a 700-hour training sequence focused on anatomy, philosophy, sequencing, and alignment (see http://yoga.about.com/od/yogaenthusiast/a/teachertraining.htm). Relaxation training is part of the education of most clinical psychologists. The school’s psy- chologist may be able to teach this program to counselors, who can then lead sessions. What does not kill me makes me stronger. Friedrich Nietzsche  STRENGTHS-BASED COUNSELING IN THE SCHOOLS Strengths-based school counseling (SBSC) is a recent approach to meeting the support needs for all students, but especially those who are at risk for psy- chological and educational problems (Smith, 2006a). (See Case in Point 6.2.) 214 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING Methods of Strengths-Based Counseling As in all counseling, the first step in strengths-based school counseling is the development of a healthy therapeutic relationship with the student. Beyond the normal counseling skills, this requires a significant reservoir of optimism and a belief in the student’s ability to improve (Morris & Usher, 2010). While developing a good counseling relationship, the school counselor’s sec- ond step is to begin to identify the student’s strengths and special factors that make him or her resilient. This can start with having the student relate his or her life story. The third step in SBSC is for the counselor to help the student clarify the nature of the problem that the therapy counseling intervention will address. A few simple questions can facilitate this step, including, “If there is one question you were hoping I would ask you, what would it be?” Another is, “Tell me your take on the problem. What is your theory about what is going on?” Once the problem is understood and clarified, the counselor initiates thera- peutic dialogues designed to instill feelings of hope and provide encouragement for the student. In this phase, praise is to be avoided, as it is a component of a contingency system that places the counselor in a judgmental role. Rather, help- ing the child see the possibilities for success provides encouragement. This can involve having the student retell his life story, casting himself as a survivor whose cunning and daring made it possible to survive. Next, the school counselor works with the student to identify solutions to his or her problem. The conversation avoids discussing the problem and addresses solutions. Having ideas about solutions is a hopeful and optimistic mind-set. Finding solutions is done in much the same way as solutions-focused counselors have students explore exceptions or times when their problems do not occur. This makes it possible to identify functional answers in the search for effective strategies the student can employ. When appropriate strategies are identified, the school counselor can work to enhance the student’s strengths and resilience factors. Elsie Smith (2006a) has proposed that discussing the student’s ability to forgive others can reduce the anger and resentment that he or she may feel. The various strengths that the counselor identified in the student can now be discussed. Therapy can focus on ways those strengths can be used to improve the student’s competence, problem-solving ability, and resilience. By emphasiz- ing strengths, the counselor provides the student with a sense of his or her abil- ity to take charge of his or her own life and not be victimized. By being a survivor (one who overcomes problems) and having a survivor’s mentality, the 217Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling young person can feel very good about him- or herself and experience improve- ment in self-esteem and self-efficacy. Through strengths-based school counsel- ing, a student can learn a new way to cope with life and be empowered as his or her own agent of change.  VIRTUAL COUNSELING The whole nature of schools and the role of school counselors are about to be changed in a dramatic way. The cause of this phenomenal educational meta- morphosis is the sudden growth of technology-based distance education and the growth of virtual schools. Yet, most school counselor organizations have not realized what the future holds (Dahir, 2009). The strength of this technology movement can be seen in its impact on other areas. Up until 2002, there was a clear trend toward continuing growth in homeschooling in the United States (Vaughn, 2003). That trend has been reversed by the growth in enrollment in virtual schools (“Home-school enroll- ment falters,” 2005). The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has been following the growth of virtual education and charted the rapid expansion taking place with both virtual elementary and secondary schools (Zanderberg, Lewis, & Greene, 2008). The federal report demonstrated that by 2005, 37% of all school districts had students attending virtual schools. The growth rate was about 60% in a 2-year span of time. Virtual schools have been able to grow this quickly by using the regulations of charter schools in many states. As a case in point, in Pennsylvania there are 11 licensed virtual charter schools enrolling nearly 20,000 students (Kurutz, 2009). In a fully staffed public school system, 40 or more school counselors would serve that number of students. Yet, in these virtual schools, there is only one school counselor providing direct service to the students. One large school system in Broward County, Florida, has created positions of virtual school counselors to assist students attending virtual classes from home (see www.bved.net/guidance.html). The Commonwealth of Virginia created a counsel- ing program open to students attending virtual schools from Virginia. The Virginia Handbook for this virtual counseling system is available at www .virtualvirginia.org/educators/downloads/Counselor_Handbook_2008.pdf; the counseling program can be accessed from www.virtualvirginia.org/about/ counselors.shtml. The reasons that these virtual schools are growing so rapidly are related to several deep-seated parental concerns. For one, parents are concerned about the “bad influences” their children will meet in public schools. Related to this is a 218 INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL COUNSELING parallel concern about bullies, the presence of drugs and alcohol on campus, and a felt need to control all aspects of their child’s life (Vaughn & Wright, 2004). Another large subgroup of parents feel that public schools are far too secular and fail to teach and reinforce the religious values they teach at home. Other parents appreciate the fact that students can learn at their own pace and schedule (Slater, 2009). Methods of Virtual Counseling The use of online systems to provide individual and group counseling is amenable to several theoretical approaches, including solution-based counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, and Rogerian and Adlerian counseling. The use of private chat rooms can facilitate group counseling (Anthony & Nagel, 2010). Implications of Virtual Counseling The implications for this trend are obvious. Counselors should become proac- tive and have state education departments require that counselors for virtual schools be licensed in their states. The technology for this is available, includ- ing video cameras on computers for individual counseling and the ability to use conference technology to conduct virtual psychoeducational counseling sessions. Cyber-based virtual schools have the potential for being dangerous for students. Enrollment in a virtual school is typically done online. This can pro- vide a back door into a seemingly child-safe environment for dangerous indi- viduals who wish to harm young people. Students in virtual schools can contact each other either through the school’s system or through social networking. The use of Facebook and other social networking can also be a problem for students, counselors, and teachers (Manning, 2010). Close monitoring is clearly needed in virtual education programs, but it is rarely provided. Many virtual schools are for-profit and work from a business model. The fol- lowing is an excerpt from a 2009 online advertisement for a counselor or advi- sor for a virtual charter school: We are creating a high-tech approach to educational support and expect our counselor to have superior customer service skills and a commitment and desire to provide the best experience possible for students and families. 219Chapter 6  Models and Approaches of School Counseling