Exploring the Locker

This article is an effort to foster grace and to create genuine, humble community. A new sense of community, that is not conditional on our abilities to censor ourselves to be more palatable to those around us. Instead, the birth of a new way of relating that considers our deep inner selves that feel shame, remember traumas, and cower in fear of these experiences. Perhaps most of all, this article is an invitation to explore our deepest inner selves, and the cost of censoring this self. This exploration is not a leisurely dive into the corners of ourselves that lie in the shallows. It is an adventure that will require a full set of SCUBA gear, and a courageous spirit. A courageous spirit that is not only willing to dig through the shame, fear, and anger that covers our raw selves, but a spirit that will then sit with these wounded and forgotten parts, and begin to build a new sense of balance.

Editorial

Editor-in-Chief H. Luis Vargas' editorial for the latest issue of Counseling and Family Therapy Scholarship Review.

Gateways for Transformation

Big life transitions, typically resulting from loss, can cause physical, emotional, and behavioral problems. Using a heuristic methodology, this article answers the question: Given polyvagal theory, how can yoga and depth psychology combine to support clients to make transitions more easily? Polyvagal theory hypothesizes that the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve, impacts impact many parts of the body related to physical and mental health. Breathing helps the vagus nerve function properly along with self-regulation, homeostasis, and the social engagement system. Yoga and depth psychology recognize the continuous cycles of life that exist in nature, the constancy of change, the aspects of the person that are unchanging, and the ability of both client and therapist to witness it all. To demonstrate the utility of combining yoga and depth psychology to heal the pain of transitions, a therapeutic program was developed and depicted graphically.

Observations on the Relationship between Resilience and Mindfulness

In the last three decades, mindfulness and resilience have received extensive scholarly attention. Research has burgeoned and they have both become “buzz words” in the social sciences and mental health fields. That said, they are often presented as unrelated qualities, skills, or states, and few studies and texts have examined their linkages and/or how they complement each other. Masten’s (2001, 2009) seminal papers and subsequent book (2014) that presented resilience as “ordinary magic” have had large impacts on resilience scholarship, bringing forth that resilience is much more of a common human occurrence and proclivity than previously considered. In this paper, we explore the potential for mindfulness to be a potentially overlooked and ubiquitous protective factor in the development and maintenance of resilience. To achieve this, we propose that mindfulness is fundamental to resilience by investigating linkages between mindfulness and resilience yet to be thoroughly explored in the literature, and discuss how mindfulness is logically connected to resilience. Likewise, we suggest that the complementary interplay between mindfulness and resilience is readily applicable and highly germane, as mindfulness may beget resilience and vice versa.

The Multigenerational Transmission Process of Healing Social Cultural Wounds within the Black community: A Comprehensive Analysis

This article examines the multigenerational transmission process of healing social cultural wounds within the black community. A comprehensive research analysis of slavery, racial trauma and racism along with the events surrounding their existence in our contemporary society are explored. Revealed throughout this framework are the theories literature has posited as solutions to racial wounds such as the ‘black self-concept’, ‘Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome,’ ‘Bowen’s Multigenerational Transmission Process,’ ‘racialized disease narrative’ and the introduction of the “social cultural wounds’ concept. 15 recommendations are suggested for addressing the racial healing work within individual, institutional, and systemic healing. Current theory, models, scales assessment and guides that address the treatment of racial trauma are given as guides for clinicians to engage in deep cultural competence work.

Beyond The Competency Model of Therapist Trainings - Developing Expertise Through Deliberate Practice

The purpose of the present paper is to describe how Deliberate Practice (DP) can be used to assist individual therapists develop expertise and improve their ability to effect change in their clients' psychotherapy outcomes. The author provides a targeted review of this literature and articulates a method of training therapists based on this relatively new and exciting concept. The initial training of psychotherapists represents an important milestone in an often lifelong career and one that is marked with a continuous professional development trajectory. While it is particularly important to achieve competency in many foundational skills and techniques during training, this method of training and continuous development of therapists does relatively little to engage individual practitioners based on their individual needs, which are said to be vast. Individual therapist effects account for a large proportion of the variance of client outcomes. However, historically, the individual therapist has been given little consideration. DP seeks to move beyond the standardized competency framework and provide a highly individualized training regime to therapists based on their individual deficits identified through data mining and linked to factors of therapy practice that have demonstrated to impact client outcomes; and as such, they can be leveraged by therapists. The findings of this review are used to inform seven recommendations for practitioners, training institutes, and regulatory bodies to consider for the initial and continuous development of therapists.

The Role of Practice-Based Evidence and Feedback Informed Treatment for Improving Therapy Outcomes

Attrition rates and deterioration of counselling and psychotherapy clients are two major concerns for those delivering psychological therapies across differential modalities. While a variety of correlations are said to contribute to attrition and deterioration such as, client, therapist and clinical level, identifying and improving outcomes for this cohort of people in routine practice is difficult. Even with the addition of hundreds of empirically supported treatments added to the profession, outcomes have not improved in line with these new approaches. Methods to limit the extent of poor outcomes has been established in the extent literature, thus, practice-based evidence is put forward focusing on Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT).

Changing the Narrative for LGBTQ Adolescents: A Literature Review and Call for Research into Narrative Therapy to Improve Family Acceptance of LGBTQ Teens

A large body of existing research has demonstrated the importance of family acceptance as a protective factor for LGBTQ youth facing increased risks of low self-esteem, depression, suicidal ideation, and other mental-health problems. However, little research has been done on therapeutic interventions for families specifically to address stigma and discrimination against LGBTQ adolescents. In particular, narrative therapy, with its focus on deconstructing and re-storying oppressive cultural narratives, seems a natural fit, but little to no quantitative research has been done on family-based narrative therapy for LGBTQ adolescents, and only a handful of qualitative studies have been published. Therefore, the paper reviews the relevant literature on LGBTQ youth at risk, family acceptance, and narrative therapy, and argues for narrative therapy as a potentially useful intervention to help a marginalized population thrive in the face of continuing challenges. Finally, the paper suggests some avenues for further research.

An Essay Concerning the Substance of Counseling

Our modern world appears to lack a way to find truth. Philosophically, this problem is formulated in a manner of knowing which never gets beyond the subject of the universe; even objectivity in the universe is arguable. The effort called empirical science then gives us conclusions that regularly perpetuate an unstable world. Due to this real subjective empirical constraint, the usual approach to therapeutic Counseling offers methods focused on the individual obtaining skills and conceptions that function to mitigate the apparent and ubiquitous problem of modernity. Empirical science, whether it be physical, biological or phenomenal, has left us with only problem; it leaves us in a lurch, right in the middle of a contradiction of a subject able to know truth. This is the main problem of mental health. I propose that modern problems of mental health cannot be solved truly with reference to what I call the conventional method of experiment and argumentative reason. We require a true and knowable substance of the universe if we are to gain headway. To this end, I propose a unitive discipline of Counseling founded in what is true of the universe. Less about the negotiation between subjects and more about what is true of that negotiation. This essay uses the philosophy of Graham Harman, called Object Oriented Ontology, or “Triple-O”, as a means to begin to establish the truthful substance of Counseling as a discipline in its own right, which is to say as well, as a universal object.

Introducing Feedback Informed Preference Accommodation (FIPA): A Case Study in Clinical Practice

Psychotherapy is a successful modality for those who engage in and complete a course of treatment. However, attrition rates and negative outcomes make up a significant and under discussed proportion of clinicians’ case load in routine practice. Innovative and novel methods to address these issues have been identified within the extant literature. However, their uptake can be impacted by issues such as utility and brevity. The present paper seeks to establish a framework for integrating Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) and the Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NPI) in clinical practice. That is, using the C-NPI for initial preference accommodation and following this up on a session to session basis to monitor the process and outcome of therapy. An overview of both approaches is provided, and a rationale for their integration elucidated. The author terms this integration, Feedback Informed Preference Accommodation (FIPA). A Case Study is put forward to demonstrate this process in clinical practice.