Image Credit: slark @Flickr

You may wonder what the counseling process is all about.  Part of that process is to help increase the quality of life for the counselee in all areas of their life: their relationships, career, school, and personal sense of who they are and what they are accomplishing.  There has been a big emphasis on intelligence as measured by IQ.  However, in the last 10-20 years, psychologist Dan Goleman has shed light on a very important area of intelligence, known as Emotional Intelligence. 

Here is a great definition of emotional intelligence, as written about over at Pick the Brain:

Emotional intelligence: “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.” -  Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer.

“The abilities to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others” – Daniel Goleman and Gary Cherniss.

In light of this definition, I work with my clients to do increase their emotional intelligence (or 'people smarts' as my younger clients would call it) in the following areas: (and I quote the following from Margaret Meloni)

Self-Awareness – A person who is self-aware understands their own moods and emotions and also how those moods and emotions may impact others.

Self-Regulation – Someone who exhibits self-regulation thinks before they act. Remember that person you worked for? The one who used to get red in the face, yell and scream and throw notebooks across the room? They were not exhibiting self-regulation at all.

Motivation – If you love to work and it is not just for money or for status; if you have a strong drive to achieve; then you know about motivation.

Empathy – The empathetic individual is able to understand the emotions of others and also learns to treat them as they wish to be treated.

Social Skill – Do you know someone who is able to meet new people and immediately develop a rapport with them? It is likely that they are very accomplished in the area of social skill.

I hope this takes some of the mystery out of that thing they call "psychotherapy."

Please comment and let me know what you think!

Photo Credit: misscupcake1 @Flickr

Behavior Contracts

First, how many times have you worked to put together a behavior contract, rules, or expectations for your children.  My wife and I worked on many different systems.  In the last few months, I came across Behavior Contracts, a site where, for a minimal price, you can have the lifetime right to use any of their behavior contract templates for rules/expectations, chores, and morning/evening routines.

From the site FAQ:

What are the benefits of behavior contracts?
They provide structure and consistency.
They establish clear expectations.
They are fair and mutually beneficial.
They teach responsibility and self-discipline.
They encourage parents and children to work together.

Animal Agentz

Much of the cutting edge, evidence based and effective therapy is rooted in cognitive-behavior theory.  However, the challenge I have found in working with kids, is that cognitive behavior therapy was originally designed with an adult population.  Animal Agentz uses great technology to help kids have fun while learning different cognitive behavior skills.  Check it out!

Advanced Brain Technologies

This company has products and is conducting constant research on how music can be utilized to nourish the brain and regulate emotions, promoting mental health and personal growth and development.  They have been also utilizing it to promote self-calming and regulation for children with ADHD, autism spectrum conditions, and kids who are overly-sensitive to stimuli.

I hope you might find some of this helpful.  I am going to continue to check them out both for my practice and for my own family.

Here are some characteristics of resilience to study and emulate, which I am quoting from her article:

"1)      Resilient siblings of dysfunctional families withdraw from family members enmeshed in problems. In this case, only Timothy escaped the patterns which led seven other siblings (two others died in childhood) to repeat the troubled lives of the parents.

2)      Resilient people have a caring adult in their lives. This person does not have to be related to the young person. Timothy accepted charity and met a trustworthy, caring adult.

3)      Resilient people develop and value personal competence and determination. In fact, this is considered one of their most effective resources by resilient adults looking back to their at-risk childhood. Timothy made a plan to leave and did not look back.

4)      Resilient people show a strong capacity to work, even in childhood. This is a strong predictor of career success and out-predicts the negatives of poverty or a multi-problem family. Capacity to work also predicts satisfying interpersonal relationships and good mental health in adulthood. Timothy was never without work from the time he was 15 years old.

5)      Resilient people set goals for their adult life, even when they are children. They focus on career or job success, self-development and self-fulfillment. They strive for a happy marriage to a spouse who is a source of support and with whom they will have children, and aspire to owning a home. Timothy and his wife were married for 52 years, and owned several homes of increasing value during this time.

6)      Resilient people set high expectations for their children. These include school achievement, higher education attainment, happy families of their own, and the clear expectation that they will do things the right way, not the easy way. All of Timothy’s children were expected to perform well in school, acquire a post-secondary education, and marry and have families, which they did, happily.

7)      Resilient people believe that failures will happen, but that you can always try again. Note that in the language of explanatory style, resilient people are not optimists—they don’t expect good things—but they do have high self-efficacy and take a long view when bad things do occur. That long view may have resulted in Timothy’s 52-year marriage and 19-year cancer survival.

8)      Resilient people are active in community service. Timothy gave back for years and years to support youth and young adults in areas that mattered deeply to him—the military and the church.In George Vaillant’s model of adult development, Timothy successfully negotiated the “six sequential tasks.” These are:

• Identity—separate from parents
• Intimacy—psychologically healthy involvement with a partner
• Career Consolidation—find work valuable to society, and both valuable and enjoyable to self
• Generativity—broadening social circle, providing care for the next generation
• Become Keeper of the Meaning—pass on traditions that link the past to the future
• Integrity—achieving peace and unity with one’s self and the world."

How many of us grew up hearing criticism?  Well, if we are human, all of us did!  The question is, how much did you internalize it as a kid, when your ability to question and analyze was much less than it is now?  To this day, you may live with limiting, nagging voices, which are a composite of the Gremlin, that Inner Critic based on all the negative ideas you have come to believe about and tell yourself about.

Come check out this article I came across, very well written, for some ideas on how to banish that Gremlin, and to start planting a beautiful new Creature in its place.

What is one of the biggest challenges to personal growth and development?  How about sleeplessness?!

Going without sleep can really tax our personal reserves.  I've had periods of dealing with insomnia, and let me tell you, I noticed the difference: more edgy, more irritable, little things getting to me.  But then, the more I would try to get to sleep, the more I thought about not getting to sleep, the more insomnia I would experience, and so on, and so on.  It was one vicious cycle!

I'd like to share some resources with you that have been helpful to me.  However, I would also like to hear from you in the comments about what have been helpful solutions and strategies for you.

A friend of mine who is also a practicing therapist and certified hypnotherapist, Rob Smith, has produced a great cd called Sleep Easily.

Now, what worked for me in terms of audio programs, may not work for you, or for a child.  Therefore, you may want to explore other great programs that are available.

Finally, I've included a really great article I found regarding this topic.  I hope you will read it, enjoy it, and apply it!  Let me know your results!

P.S. 4/29/09 Based on one of my commentors, isabella mori, I have included her wonderful article, which provides even more great strategies for falling asleep.

What is it that has made Tiger Woods so great in his career?

I just finished reading a very interesting article about becoming great in your career.  During this economy, striving for excellence is a great idea, so that you can create your own economy by making sure that who you are, as a person, and the value you bring to your work place is of a degree of excellence such that employers are seeking you out.

Here is an abbreviated tip sheet from the article I read in Fortune magazine:

 1. Approach each critical task with an explicit goal of getting much better at it.

2. As you do the task, focus on what's happening and why you're doing it the way you are.

3. After the task, get feedback on your performance from multiple sources. Make changes in your behavior as necessary.

4. Continually build mental models of your situation - your industry, your company, your career. Enlarge the models to encompass more factors.

 5. Do those steps regularly, not sporadically. Occasional practice does not work.