Counselling & Psychotherapy

Art therapy, as a means of self-expression and healing, is used in a variety of clinical and rehabilitation settings. Here, it is tested with a population judged to be involved in terrorism-related activities. This paper presents an extensive review of the art therapy program at Mohammed Bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Care, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The objective of this study is to showcase the use of art therapy in the care and rehabilitation of ex-jihadists, with suggestions for best practices. This paper is the first description in the literature of the efforts of the Saudi government to explore the use of art therapy in counterterrorism. Art therapy outcomes on a population incarcerated for terrorist activities are presented alongside treatment and reconstruction of extreme ideology through art production. We conclude that a successful art therapy program is required within the overall approach to counterterrorism. Further, a strong understanding of the cultural backgrounds of the subjects, along with recommendations for relying upon specific artistic components of the therapeutic process are clearly indicated. According to government sources, together with the other programs offered to ex-jihadists, the art therapy program discussed here, which has been in operation since 2007, has achieved an 86.17% success rate, with (as of January 2015) a 13.83% recidivism rate. This is a strong indication that art therapy is an efficacious approach in counterterrorism.

Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation

(ISBN: 978-1-62857-075-5)

Are you ready for psychological healing? This book is your liberating guide to psychological growth, including self-understanding, self-transformation, healing psychologically painful inner conflicts, as well as achieving psychological and spiritual fulfillment. Some aspects of psychological health and fulfillment clarified in this book include, authenticity, sincerity, integrity, creativity, intuition, empathy, inspiration, vitality, courage, strength of character, unselfish love (or warmhearted caring), emotional security, inner wholeness, and fulfillment.

Readers will discover a new understanding of effective psychotherapy, groundbreaking diagnostic psychological testing research, as well as the distinction between the ego self-concept, the experiential self, and the transpersonal self (the real self, the relational self, or the holistic self).

The authors deeply explored their own psychological pain and experiential truth to write this book, as a way of helping readers achieve greater self-understanding, fulfillment, and liberation from psychological pain. These principles of psychological self-understanding and healing self-transformation can also enhance the development of interpersonal relationships, as well as facilitate effective and fulfilling ways of living in society. Self-transformation at your fingertips!


About the Authors

The primary author, Dr. Max Hammer, was a distinguished Psychology Professor and supervisor of graduate students and interns in the clinical psychology, psychotherapy, and counseling practice training program of the Psychology Department at the University of Maine, for many years, as well as a respected psychotherapist and clinical psychology consultant and diagnostician. Dr. Max Hammer was one of the original core clinicians who founded and developed the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Maine, beginning in the 1960′s. In his work with graduate and undergraduate students in that program, Dr. Max Hammer provided a refreshing Humanistic and Transpersonal perspective, with an emphasis on flexible, warmly caring, empathic responsiveness to the needs of the individual psychotherapy client. A secondary contributing author is Dr. Alan C. Butler, a distinguished colleague and friend of Dr. Max Hammer’s. Dr. Butler, a Cooperating Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine, as well as a psychotherapist, clinical psychology consultant, and diagnostician, was one of the original staff members at the University of Maine counseling center, and served as the Training Director for its internship program for over thirty years, which he was instrumental in developing. Both Dr. Max Hammer and Dr. Alan C. Butler helped gently nurture and encourage thousands of graduate and undergraduate psychology students in their own individual journeys of personal reflection and transformation. The other secondary contributing author, Dr. Barry J. Hammer, also from Maine, has a specialization in the history of world religions, and for many years has studied the process of psychological and spiritual transformation, and its applicability to enhancing human relationships and compassionate social change.

The primary author, the late Dr. Max Hammer, was an editor and a major contributor of two previously published books, The theory and Practice of Psychotherapy with Specific Disorders (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1972); and The Practice of Psychotherapy with Children (Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press, 1967). He also published about 30 articles in the fields of psychotherapy and clinical psychology.

The primary author, Dr. Max Hammer, is deceased, therefore, this website will be managed by his eldest son and secondary contributing author Dr. Barry J. Hammer. Another secondary contributing author is Dr. Alan C. Butler.

Amazon Purchasing Link:

https://www.amazon.com/theory-practice-psychotherapy-specific-disorders/dp/0398025398

DOI Link:
https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.123.3.363-a

Book Description:

This book is unique in several basic ways.  It presents a theoretical discussion of the essence of the psychotherapeutic process, which goes beyond just the remediation of pathological symptoms, and also acquaints the reader with the essence of the growth process, which enables one to continue one's personal growth beyond the removal of pathological symptoms to personal maturity, fulfillment, and self-realization.

This book is also unique in that its format approaches the understanding of the therapeutic process through the understanding of the treatment of patients with specific psychopathologies discussed by consistently successful professional psychotherapists.

This book is unique as well in that in addition to the various major neurotic and psychotic disorders, it also covers areas rarely, if ever, found discussed in other psychotherapy books, such as psychodynamics and psychotherapy of suicidal patients, psychotherapy of patients with psychosomatic disorders, psychotherapy of patients with acting-out disorders, psychotherapy of patients with sexual disorders, psychotherapy with the aged, and an entire chapter devoted to establishig some basic criteria for an effective psychotherapy process.

Essentially, this book is designed to serve as a source book or reference book for professional psychotherapists, and students studying to be psychotherapists in such fields as psychology, psychiatry and social work, and it could also be useful as a textbook for advanced courses in psychotherapy, as well as a supplemental text for basic introductory courses in psychotherapy.  Each of the contributors has deliberately taken the pains to try to communicate in a way that will be intelligible to the student, as well as offer material that will be new, informative, and challenging to the more sophisticated clinician. This book goes beyond being what may be called a how-to-do-it type primer. It is not meant to be a structured "cookbook" or set of formulas blueprinting the course of psychotherapy.

Each contributor to this book is a renowned authority  in the area of the treatment of the specific disorder  about which he is writing, and he shares with the reader his understanding of the basic nature of the disorder, along with the therapeutic  considerations and insights that he has found to be most valuable in dealing effectively and successfully with persons with this particular kind of pathology. Case illustrations are appropriately supplied in order to help clarify  for the reader how this contributing therapist deals with the particular kinds of patients under discussion.  However, the suggestions made by each contributor should in no way be interpreted as the only way such problems can be approached and resolved. Rather, it only represents the way that one outstanding clinician tends to deal with the special problems involved in the treatment of persons with the particular disorder under discussion, and it is meant to serve only as a helpful guide for the reader.

As the reader may have already gathered,  the emphasis in this book is primarily focused on the professional and practical aspects rather than on the academic aspects of psychotherapy.  It is meant to fill a void and be consistent with a growing trend today in which professional clinicians and students studying to be psychotherapists want material to study that will provide them with the necessary skills most relevant to exactly what they will be doing in their professional career, rather than the strongly academic emphasis to which they have been exposed at most educational institutions.

This book recognizes that effective psychotherapy is not something that can be learned by being exposed only to theories, techniques, or research findings. Psychotherapy is not just a doing, or a predetermined set of techniques, as such, and, therefore, there is no formula, or systematic defined procedure, that has to be mastered. Rather, it involves an empathically sensitive, genuinely caring, engaged, being-with or intimate experiential communion, and the understanding of patients that naturally arises from that, from which then flows the therapist's appropriate responses. One has to truly, and deeply, here before one can act appropriately and meaningfully. Thus, the best way for one to really come to learn anything significant about effective psychotherapy is to have those clinicians who are truly masters of the art and science of psychotherapy share with others their sensitive and profound understanding of the nature of psychotherapy with patients with particular pathological symptoms.

Anormal Psikoloji kitabı, ruhsal bozukluklar alanında çalışan tüm profesyoneller, psikiyatristler, klinik psikologlar, psikologlar, psikolojik danışmanlar, hekimler, sosyal hizmet uzmanları, psikiyatri hemşireleri ve bu alanlarda öğrenci yetiştiren akademisyenler ile eğitim alan öğrenciler için temel bir başvuru kitabıdır.
2013 yılının Mayısı ayında yayımlanan DSM-5 ölçütlerine göre ruhsal bozukluklarla ilgili sunulan bilgilerin güncellemesinin de yapıldığı bu kitap, tüm dünyada pek çok üniversitenin psikiyatri ve psikoloji bölümlerinde ders kitabı olarak okutulmaktadır.
Kitabın her bölümünde, ilk olarak ruhsal bozukluklarla ilgili vakalar sunulmakta, daha sonra bozuklukların klinik tanıları yapılmakta ve DSM-IV-TR’den farklı olan DSM-5’te yapılan değişikliklere yer verilmektedir. Ayrıca, DSM-5’teki tanı ölçütleri, bozuklukların etiyolojisi ve epidemiyolojisi, bozukluklar üzerinde kalıtımın ve çevrenin etkileri, biyolojik ve sosyal ve kültürel etkiler, en güncel araştırmalardan elde edilen verilerle harmanlanarak sunulmaktadır. Ruhsal bozuklukların tedavisinde etkili olacak terapi yaklaşımları ve ilaçla yapılan tedaviler hakkında da bilgiler veren kitap, sahip olduğu zengin içeriği ile eşsiz bir kaynaktır.
Anormal Psikoloji kitabının; profesyoneller ve öğrenciler için önemli bir rehber olacağına, yardıma ihtiyaç duyan insanların sorunlarının çözümüne, ruhsal bozuklukların tanı ve tedavisinde önemli katkılar sağlayacağına inanıyoruz.

In questo contributo viene descritto un modello di intervento terapeutico e riabilitativo, sviluppato dall’Autrice, per i pazienti psichiatrici gravi nella prima comunità terapeutica assistita del dipartimento salute mentale di Siracusa, Italia, seguendo le basi epistemologiche della Gestalt Therapy. Viene analizzata la novità del Modello Gestaltico Comunitario nel percorso storico dal moral treatment all’antipsichiatria e gli elementi di differenza con il primo modello di comunità proposto da M. Jones. La metodologia clinica segue le fasi evolutive spazio-temporali del ciclo dell’esperienza di contatto di ogni ospite all’interno della Comunità, tenendo conto delle funzioni del Sé e degli strumenti di intervento terapeutici possibili, dal clima relazionale al significato del farmaco assunto. Attenzione viene data anche alla prevenzione del burn-out degli operatori sanitari e sociali che lavorano in comunità.

Improvisational exercises play a role in fostering a child’s creative abilities, enabling better socio-emotional development and communication skills in later development. This review paper investigates how creativity has been assessed and defined in previous developmental and educational psychological literature, focusing on the benefits of pretend play and improvisational teaching during music lessons in classrooms. By shedding light on this literature, better insights as to how child therapists use different types of therapeutic interventions, with pretend play and improvisation at
the forefront, are addressed. The implications of using improvisational exercises during training programs for trainee counsellors are also addressed.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book intro in downloadable .pdf] 

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." --John Steinbeck Scientific research confirms what people have always known: answers, ideas, and inspiration do come to us in dreams. Harvard psychologist and world-renowned dream specialist Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., offers this rich collection of examples of how the world's most creative practitioners in art, music, film, science, literature and other fields have used the revelations of their dream life to inform their work. Dr. Barrett offers insights showing us how to encourage lucid, meaningful dreaming, and how to apply the meanings of our dreams to solving problems--from the everyday to the extraordinary. This is the stuff dreams are made of. In the visual arts, Jasper Johns couldn't find his unique artistic vision until he dreamed it in the form of a large American flag. Salvador Dali and his colleagues built the startling new genre of surrealism out of dreams. Kubla Kahn dreamed the design for his stately pleasure dome; thousands of years later, Lucy Davis, chief architect at a major firm, continues the tradition of dreaming designs into life in her extraordinary buildings. Film is a fertile avenue for dreams: "Twice I have transferred dreams to film exactly as I had dreamed them," confides director Ingmar Bergman, as have Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman, and John Sayles. From Mary Shelley's terrible nightmare, which became Frankenstein, to Stephen King's haunting dream as a little boy, which led to his first bestseller, countless writers have consulted the Committee. Musicians from Beethoven to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney have whistled the Committee's tunes. In science, physiologist Otto Loewi dreamed the medical experiment that earned him the Nobel Prize. In sports, Marion Jones dreamed she'd broken a world record, then brought the dream to life. Gandhi translated his dream of resistance into a movement that changed the world. Since Freud, we take it for granted that our dreams reflect our past. In The Committee of Sleep, Barrett reveals how dreams can also tell us about our future potential--and how to reach it.

“As we know, well-led groups provide many member benefits: feelings of universality, a sense of hope, altruism, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and mutual support...This text is affordable, easy to use, and very suitable for providing group work material in BSW or MSW practice courses.”

— Greg Tully, West Chester University



AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO GROUP WORK
Second Edition

Rich Furman, University of Washington, Tacoma
Kimberly Bender, University of Denver
Diana Rowan, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

An Experiential Approach to Group Work is not your typical group work text! Using dozens of exercises that build practice-tested skills, the authors' approach is in perfect step with CSWE's competence-based education requirements. The book is organized into three sections—the first addresses stages of group practice, the second looks at major types of groups, and the final section looks at examples of group work practice with special populations.

Features of the Second Edition

    Expanded! Discussion of the theory of group process and dynamics
    New! Content regarding Canadian, British, and Australian group work practices
    New! Chapters on anti-oppressive practice, group work with immigrants, and macro-practice group work
    New! Content on the use and development of technology to aid group work
    Contains customized exercises for each group work topic, designed to build the student and practitioner’s skills for use in group work sessions
    Special emphasis on how to bring individual sessions or groups to closure
    Provides examples of group work in specialized settings: conflict resolution groups within elementary schools, pregnant teens, Latinos, and HIV/AIDS clients

The Counseling & Guidance Network recognizes the critical need for attention to the affective needs of the gifted individual. This Network is dedicated to addressing the social and emotional growth of the gifted and talented. In addition, emphasis is placed on planning and implementing a variety of systems and services for meeting these needs.

Editing & Design: Dr. William Goff II & Merzili Villanueva

The article introduces discourse analysis as a fruitful approach to psychotherapy change-process research. Extracts are presented from a successfully resolved, client-specified, problematic theme that was selected from a successful 8-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The study offers a heuristic demonstrating (a) how resolution of the client's problem evolved from implications raised by the client's own description of her predicament and involved the therapist's legitimation of a morally defensible account of the client's actions and (b) how cultural meanings can be brought into the consulting room as intimately personal problems. The implications of studying therapeutic change as a discursive activity comprising the use and negotiation of sociocultural meanings are discussed.

In chapter 10, Linday Finlay writes with Anna Madill , to describe and explain some different ways to analyse data. Four contrasting types of analysis are outlined with practical exemplars: narrative, thematic, discursive and creative. Each type of analysis highlights different aspects and so enables different insights. As such, qualitative analysis is always tentative, partial and emergent....

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF
-- TOC and book summary in downloadable .pdf] 
According to the poet Elias Canetti, "All the things one has forgotten / scream for help in dreams." To the ancient Egyptians they were prophecies, and in world folklore they have often marked visitations from the dead. For Freud they were expressions of "wish fulfillment," and for Jung, symbolic representations of mythical archetypes. Although there is still much disagreement about the significance and function of dreams, they seem to serve as a barometer of current mind and body states.

In this volume, Deirdre Barrett brings together the study of dreams and the psychology of trauma. She has called on a distinguished group of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers--among them Rosalind Cartwright, Robert J. Lifton, and Oliver Sacks--to consider how trauma shapes dreaming and what the dreaming mind might reveal about trauma. The book focuses on catastrophic events, such as combat, political torture, natural disasters, and rape. The lasting effects of childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse or severe burns, on personality formation, the nature of memories of early trauma, and the development of defenses related to amnesia and dissociation are all considered. The book also takes up trauma and adult dreams, including Vietnam veterans and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Holocaust survivors and perpetrators, rape victims, and firestorm survivors. Finally, this volume concludes with a look at the potential "traumas of normal life," such as divorce, bereavement, and life-threatening illness, and the role of dreams in working through normal grief and loss.

Taken together, these diverse perspectives illuminate the universal and the particular effects of traumatic experience. For physicians and clinicians, determining the etiology of nightmares offers valuable diagnostic and therapeutic insights for individual treatment. This book provides a way of juxtaposing the research in the separate fields of trauma and dreams, and learning from their discoveries.

This book has been written out of a need to provide a material that can be used for training counselors and lay counselors from a biblical perspective. There are a lot of misconceptions concerning counseling. Most people believe that all you need to do counseling is a Bible and a desire to help people. Other people think it is because someone comes to them for counseling. I have done so several years ago when I hadn’t any formal training in counseling.

All these are noble feelings about counseling. But good counseling goes beyond these feelings. Just like no one becomes a Doctor by feeling that he/she can help others; or a Pastor becomes one just by feeling a need to preach; in the same way, no one becomes a good counselor by just feeling like being so. To do effective counseling, you need to be trained in counseling because counseling is a profession just like any other which operates from a professional code of ethics.

This book is tailored to give you some basic ideas about counseling. Reading this book does not qualify you to be a professional counselor but it will stimulate you to seek professional training in counseling. If you are humble, it will help improve your counseling skills. Reading it will give you some first aid skills to do some interventions. It will help you to be better off than those who just feel they can do counseling without any training or basic knowledge.

The first four chapters provide you with some basic information about what counseling is, the qualities and skills a counselor must have and the ethics involved in counseling. Chapters five to sixteen highlights the most common areas people often seek counseling. A selected bibliography for further reading is provided. Lastly, there are some good appendices you can use as references for further discussion as you counsel people.

Generating over $14 billion dollars annually, the porn industry has become increasingly more influential (Tarrant, 2016). While some individuals and couples report positive benefits associated with viewing the material, others explicitly come into therapy due to problematic pornography use (Borgogna & McDermott, 2018). Among other presenting issues, these clients often deal with problems related to addiction and marital discord. Thus, in order to meet the needs of these clients, clinicians ought to acquire an understanding of the impact of pornography, and how to address it within therapy. As such, the following paper will explore problematic pornography use, discussing etiology, assessment, and treatment considerations. Throughout the exercise, these issues will be analyzed from a systemic framework, highlighting insights that pertain to both individuals and couples.

In this article I want to spend time with suffering - how we experience it, the critical role it plays and how we can come to terms with the elements of suffering that we cannot eliminate and still lead fruitful, dignified lives.  I have limited myself to the particular issue of trying to understand the psychological capacities and competences (wisdom) that will reduce unnecessary suffering and which are essential conditions for democratic forms of living ranging from deliberative processes in formal, democratic institutional settings to intimate relationships. Suffering is a primary problem for democratic ways of working because the suffering that everyone experiences acts as a direct limitation on our capacity to function to the level required in democratic interaction. Thus alleviating suffering and finding the psychological capacity to tolerate it are important means of enhancing the quality of democracy.

The purpose of this book is to help mental health professionals increase their cultural competence to better serve Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians who are congregants in the world’s fastest-growing religious movement. My focus is twofold. First, I aim to increase the reader’s awareness and knowledge about Christians who live their faith within Pentecostal cultures. Second, I hope to increase the reader’s knowledge about the assessment and treatment of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians with mental health needs based on a review of research and recommendations from experienced clinicians. My approach to assessment and treatment is the commonly held view that best practices are holistic. Therefore, I will attempt to integrate Pentecostal and Charismatic spirituality with assessment and treatment in ways that respect the spirituality of the person seeking treatment and enhances therapeutic outcomes.
Key words: Christian counseling and psychotherapy, Christianity and Racism, Christianity and sexism, Christianity and genderism, Pentecostals, Charismatics and LGBTQ+, Prayer and counseling/ psychotherapy, Counseling /psychotherapy and beliefs in demons/ demon possession, Christian counseling strategies

This study examined the factor structure of the School Counselor Leadership Survey (SCLS). Survey development was a threefold process that resulted in a 39-item survey of 801 school counselors and school counselor supervisors. The exploratory factor analysis indicated a five-factor structure that revealed five key dimensions of school counselor leadership: (a) interpersonal influence, (b) systemic collaboration, (c) resourceful problem solving, (d) professional efficacy, and (e) social justice advocacy. This article discusses implications for practice, research, and training.

"This paper illustrates the potential uses of poetry therapy for practitioners interested in
cognitively based psychotherapies. Separate brief discussions of cognitive therapy and the
uses of poetry and poetry therapy are presented. The congruence between these two
approaches is addressed. Sample exercises and poems as illustrations are presented that
demonstrate this congruence."

Wie kommt es, dass einem manchmal eine Zustimmung die Lust am Weitermachen verhageln kann? Wieso ist es manchmal so diffizil, die richtigen Worte zu finden, wenn man einen doch „nur“ unterstützen möchte? Und was wäre eigentlich ein plausibler Hintergrund für die gängige Wendung, dass die Botschaft stets von den EmpfängerInnen bestimmt werde? Mit solchen und ähnlichen Fragen ist man dicht an dem, was mir seit einiger Zeit unter dem Namen „Self-Determination Theory“ (SDT, Theorie der Selbstbestimmung) eine ziemlich hilfreiche und weiterführende Anregung geworden ist. Als Edward Deci und Richard Ryan im Jahr 2000 die SDT einem umfassenderen Fachpublikum vorstellten, konnten sie auf die Ergebnisse von etwa 30 Jahren Forschung zurückgreifen. Das vorliegende Buch verdankt sein Entstehen dann dem offenbar fruchtbaren Impuls, den 1999 eine erste, exklusiv der SDT gewidmete Konferenz setzte. Die meisten der hier versammelten Beiträge entstammen diesem Umfeld.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Turkish form of Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire revised by Tutty (1997). The sample of the study was composed of 476 female (47.4%) and 528 male (52.6%) students who were enrolled in primary and secondary schools. The construct validity was analyzed using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Similar Scale Validity methods. The CFA results indicated that the Bad Touch sub-scale was composed of 22 items, and the Good Touch sub-scale was composed of 8 items, which formed a 30-item questionnaire. The model which was tested based on the results was found to have very good fit indices, and the dimensions obtained fit the original form of the questionnaire. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient between the questionnaire and the Good Touch Bad Touch Scale (Çeçen and Kaf Hasırcı, 2013) used for Similar Scale Validity was found .62 (p<.001). Reliability analysis indicated the KR-21 coefficient as .74. The results showed that the Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire was a valid and reliable tool for measuring children's knowledge about sexual abuse.