The Group Counseling Programs - Report Example

of Supervisor of Special Needs Report (Psychology) Counseling Program The group counseling Programs are being designed primarily in response to meet the various needs of the group. The emphasis is on emotional expressiveness and spontaneity, and the leader acts so as to reward such responses rather than more intellectual, more conventional responses. Group counselors are apt to be concerned less with a specific task than with establishing and maintaining an atmosphere conducive to relaxation and full discussion with a minimum of defensiveness. Here the interaction among group members is the primary vehicle for helping young children to effect changes in their behavior. Solution-focused counseling involves a clear set of beliefs about students and an identifiable set of questioning techniques. The central belief is that it is more productive and effective to focus on students' skills, abilities and resources rather than on their weaknesses or what is going wrong and why. Other important beliefs include the following (Gass and Gillis, 1995): Students and teachers already possess the abilities and skills to resolve problems that occur in the school. It is easier for students to repeat successful behaviors than it is for them to stop negative behaviors. Problems can be thought of as non-productive patterns of interactions with others rather than individual weaknesses or deficits. Effective counseling builds on behaviors and thoughts that are already being used with success: 'If it is working, do more of it!' 'If things are not working, do something different!' Students are not forced to accept help, nor are they given specific labels. Various Phases of the Program The main skill in solution-focused counseling is the use of effective questioning. Presented below are several types of questions that are illustrative of how a positive focus on solutions, rather than problems, can be achieved with students and others who are 'stuck' (based on Manthei, 1997). It is not unusual for students to begin experiencing positive changes in their difficulties in between the problem being identified and the time when they talk to the teacher about it. These 'pre-counseling improvements' often signal ways in which the student has begun successfully dealing with the problem, even if unwittingly so. If such change has occurred, teachers should explore the reasons for those improvements and identify the helpful factors over which the student has control. The three approaches presented so far, the problem-solving and solution-focused approaches and the application of listening skills in counseling on the run, are ones which teachers can use effectively to deal with the majority of situations in schools, which require counseling. They are also ones which teachers can learn relatively quickly, for example, after reading this book and attending a one-day workshop. However, there are a wide range of other counseling techniques or intervention strategies which can be very useful in the school setting, given the right circumstances. These strategies are more specialized ones, which require more extensive information than can be presented here and so require further reading. Teachers have successfully implemented many of these strategies with little or no additional training. However, ideally, they should obtain training on the strategies from qualified counselors and then only use them in settings in which ongoing guidance from colleagues with experience of using the strategies are available. Brief outlines of a selection of such strategies, with suggestions for further reading, are presented below. More information on each of the strategies and a variety of other strategies which can be used in schools can be found in Thompson and Rudolph (2000) and Vernon (1993). Cognitive therapy This is an approach which is based on the view that the feelings and behavior of students are influenced by their thoughts or beliefs (Hughes, 1988). Therefore, changing their beliefs will bring about behavioral and emotional change. The most widely used version is Rational Emotive Therapy (Ellis, 1994) which posits that dysfunctional feelings and behavior are due to irrational, or non-productive, beliefs, such as, 'my unhappiness is caused by events or by other people' and 'I should be thoroughly competent in everything I do.' The focus of the therapy is to help students to identify these irrational beliefs and then, through 'disputing' the beliefs, to help students to change those to more rational and productive beliefs. There are three main phases to this approach (Cowie and Pecherek, 1994): 1. Help students to recognize that it is their beliefs about events, not the events themselves that are causing their problems, and help them to identify the specific irrational beliefs, which are causing their problems. 2. Dispute these irrational beliefs to enable students to stop thinking on this basis and adopt new, more helpful beliefs. 3. Encourage students to act on the basis of their new beliefs even though it may feel awkward at first. Drawing Drawing can be used to help children access and work through feelings. The simplest example is the 'squiggle' where a random mark or wavy line is drawn on paper and the child is asked to finish the picture. The child is then asked to tell a story about the picture. The child projects feelings into the drawing which then stimulates the child to express these feelings. Topics often used with children are their family, a house, a tree and a person, or they can be asked directly to draw their feelings. Focusing Focusing techniques are used to help students, colleagues or parents to focus on troublesome feelings, bring them into awareness and make them dissipate or integrate them with their thoughts. This enables them to link feelings and thoughts to action. It is a powerful technique, which when learned, can be used alone when needed in the future (Gendlin, 1978). Play therapy Since play is the child's natural medium for self-expression, play therapy provides opportunities for younger children to play out their feelings and problems in the same way that older children might talk them out. A variety of play media are employed but sand play is the most widely used as it is very attractive to children. Materials used consist of a tray full of sand and a variety of miniature toys and objects which children can choose from, such as people, animals and buildings (Allan, 1988). Children are allowed to play freely in the sand using their chosen objects. Art therapy Since children often find it difficult to express their feelings or concerns directly, the medium of art provides them with the opportunity to explore these non-verbally in a safe situation (Case and Dalley, 1992). Art therapy is used to enable children to express feelings, anxieties and concerns through the use of such media as drawing, painting and sculpting. Once feelings and concerns are brought into awareness they can be worked through with the help of the therapist. For example, a widely used technique with children is to get them to imagine they are a rosebush and then to draw themselves as a rosebush. Allan (1988) has provided detailed instructions for this activity along with guidelines for interpretation of children's drawings. Allan (1988) also discusses several other art therapy strategies, based on a Jungian approach, which are very useful for children and adolescents. Drama therapy Drama therapy involves the spontaneous use of role play in which children can safely express strong feelings and learn from externalizing the experience (Vernon, 1993). The roles which children play include themselves, others in their lives or symbolic characters. Dressing up in costumes and the use of puppets can be helpful in encouraging children to get fully involved in role plays and to facilitate the expression of feelings. Another useful drama therapy technique is 'sculpting' in which children are asked to make living sculptures of their relationships with important people in their lives by placing their bodies in relation to another person in such a way as to demonstrate how they experience that relationship. Writing therapy Since writing is a normal activity within schools it provides a non-threatening medium for counseling interventions. In their fascinating book, Allan and Bertoia (1992) demonstrate how children and adolescents can work through negative emotions and painful experiences by means of the writing process. Writing therapy can be used to help children improve their emotional well being and gain a better understanding of themselves and their world. This approach can be used with individual children, small groups of students or with whole class groups. Writing activities used range from completing sentence stems through writing journal entries, poems, letters and stories. Although all the above approaches and strategies are useful at various times and in a variety of situations, it must be emphasised that the teacher's personality and relationship with students represent the most important strategy. Goals of the Program Goals of the programs in these special education settings are similar to, and are adapted from, peer mediation programs for regular education students. The goals include the following: Learning to help their peers who are in conflict find their own solutions Engaging their peers in active problem solving Learning and practicing the art of compromise, active listening, and focusing on common interests and areas of agreements to solve conflict For special education students, the practice of peer mediation is especially relevant. Many of these students are very familiar with conflict in their lives, in their families, in their communities, and in former schools. For some of them, their disabilities have been the cause of family strife for example, disagreement between their parents over child management. Frequently they have "normal," successful siblings who represent a standard for success they are unable to reach. As young children, these special needs children become the butt of teasing by peers, and often are the unwitting victims of insensitive teachers and school staff who, unaware of the children's limitations, often assume they are merely lazy and treat them as such. Their special frustrations often erupt in physical acting out, typically when they reach middle school if not before. The onset of puberty and hormonal changes further confuses and disrupts their self-image. It is not uncommon for special needs students to be attracted to antisocial peer groups who offer a sense of belonging in exchange for both loyalty and delinquent behavior. These students, as a result, often sense an inability or unwillingness of parents and school personnel to truly listen to their issues and concerns. Special education students usually respond quite readily to their peers' offer to mediate a conflict. It is remarkable how quickly special education students, both as disputants and as mediators, grasp the significance of, and use the opportunity for, this kind of empowerment. Program goals for peer mediation typically are a decrease in school truancy, a decrease in aggressive behavior between students, and improved school climate and teacher morale. Peer mediation programs in special education share the same goals. They identify with the mediation program, they get a lot of positive reinforcement from their peers and from us when they're in that mediator role. So it does enhance their self-esteem. School or for any grade level where a more abbreviated exchange is preferred, two classrooms can pair up and share their work with each other. For instance, eleventh-grade English classes coordinate the literature they are studying with contemporary poetry and songs about feelings. The strong emotions in Shakespeare's plays might be studied at the same time as art classes are encouraged to consider how artists have depicted strong emotions of sadness through the centuries. Music classes might study the different use of instruments in symphonic arrangements to communicate various emotions. School wide language arts themes can also integrate special needs and regular education students in their efforts. Works Cited Allan, J. Inscapes of the Child's World: Jungian Counseling in Schools and Clinics. Dallas, TX: Spring. (1988) Case, C. and Dalley, T. The Handbook of Art Therapy. London: Routledge. (1992) Cowie, H. and Pecherek, A. Counseling: Approaches and Issues in Education. London: David Fulton. (1994) Gass, M. and Gillis, H. L. Focusing on the 'solution' rather than the 'problem': empowering client change in adventure experiences. Journal of Experiential Education, (1995) 63-9. Hall, E. and Hall, C. Human Relations in Education. London: Routledge. (1988) Hazler, R. J. Helping in the Hallways. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (1998) Manthei, R. J. Counseling: The Skills Of Finding Solutions To Problems. Auckland, NZ: Longman. (1997) Murphy, J. J. Solution-focused brief therapy in the school. In S. D. Miller, M. A. Hubble and B. L. Duncan (eds) Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (1996) Read More