Based on TIP 57: Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services|SAMHSA A single counseling CEU course is available at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/394/c/ or the complete Trauma Informed Care Training Certificate are available at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/399/c/
How to End a Challenging Session Smoothly: 13 Eminent Therapists Share Their ...Becky DeGrossa
Do you worry that your client has just opened a wound as the clock winds down and you need to end the session? Are you concerned that you might be sending them off raw, unsettled, and unresolved?
If so, you are not alone. In fact, mastering the art of closing a therapy session without leaving your client feeling cut off is a challenge for many, and a skill that is worth learning.
Based on TIP 57: Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services|SAMHSA A single counseling CEU course is available at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/394/c/ or the complete Trauma Informed Care Training Certificate are available at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/399/c/
How to End a Challenging Session Smoothly: 13 Eminent Therapists Share Their ...Becky DeGrossa
Do you worry that your client has just opened a wound as the clock winds down and you need to end the session? Are you concerned that you might be sending them off raw, unsettled, and unresolved?
If so, you are not alone. In fact, mastering the art of closing a therapy session without leaving your client feeling cut off is a challenge for many, and a skill that is worth learning.
Communications and Negotiations, especially in a cross-cultural environment, can be improved dramatically by developing the foundational soft skills of Empathy and Self-Awareness.
This keynote presentation was delivered in Shanghai, China to a group of financial executives. It introduces Cross-Cultural Performance concepts developed by EME Career Consultants (www.emecareer.com).
In my last article, “Watch who you share your pain with,” I described several kinds of people who only make your pain worse by saying the wrong things. I call them, collectively, Dementors, familiar to Harry Potter fans as creatures who suck all hope out of you. They may magnify your tiny symptom into sure death, or seemingly provide incontrovertible evidence that your dreams can never succeed.
The effects of Empathic connections on our daily livesEnergy Luck
Black magic takes place abruptly in forms of accidents such as car crashes, tripping over something or injuring yourself badly, an Emphatic attack presents itself in a more natural way with physiological symptoms such as headaches, body aches, emotional drain, anxiety, and stress to get more information about Black magic removal services please feel free to contact me for a free consultation.
This slide show was designed to present the body of research related to reconciliation\'s effects and guide teachers in useful methods of character development with their students.
The Relational Arts: A Case For Counselling And Psychotherapycyberscribe
Master psychotherapist, author and academic Hugh Crago makes a convincing and readable case for the relational arts.
How does counselling work?
Why doesn't it work for everyone?
How is it different from psychology?
De escalation techniques in relationshipMoshe Ratson
Conflicting situations are some of the toughest things you’ll face in your relationship. When conflicts begin to deteriorate into angry reaction, they often stop of being productive. How to deal with angry and aggressive behavior in your marriage, intimate relationship or any relationship is very challenging.
Given the destructive nature that escalation plays in relationships, it is important to develop tools and strategies to limit and reverse this process. It is important to understand that if one person changes, it changes the whole interaction. This presentation provides tips and recommendations about how to a render a situation less flammable and to prevent further deterioration.
De-escalation techniques are core skills in marriage counseling, couples therapy as well as leadership and management interventions.
Push Strategy
Creating the network of resellers, agents, brokers, representatives
You can use the Push Strategy in the following cases:
1. Your product is popular and does not involve deep customization
2. You are new to the market
3. You have a tainted reputation and you can "borrow" mediator’s reputation
4. You're not going to stay long in this market and the release of this product is temporary
Be careful!
1. Advertising your product, in same time you advertise Reseller
2. There are the costs associated with sales, within a developed system of discounts for resellers, various contests, loyalty programs, providing them with various promotional materials, training, sales and so on.
3. Nothing keeps the reseller to break the contract with you
4. It is difficult to control and predict sales. Small businesses always have a certain dependence on distributers which are always pursuing their own interests
5. The breach of contract with a key agent can almost completely block the flow of new customers. This is a fairly common situation where the agent is "big", and you are "small"
Pull Strategy
Selling by yourself
PROS:
1. To release services or products under its own brand
2. To position your product as an element of prestige and service for the elite
3. By investing money in product advertising, in same time you will be supporting your brand
4. To get better control over sales and more stable ROI
cons:
1. The implementation of this strategy requires a financial and time costs
2. Your business is highly dependent on your reputation
Be Smart, do not share your profits with resellers
Sell on glabex.com - Save your time and money
Glabex.com is a unique platform, which helps you to sell your product by yourself, reach enormous number of customers, build your brand and create a reputation
Communications and Negotiations, especially in a cross-cultural environment, can be improved dramatically by developing the foundational soft skills of Empathy and Self-Awareness.
This keynote presentation was delivered in Shanghai, China to a group of financial executives. It introduces Cross-Cultural Performance concepts developed by EME Career Consultants (www.emecareer.com).
In my last article, “Watch who you share your pain with,” I described several kinds of people who only make your pain worse by saying the wrong things. I call them, collectively, Dementors, familiar to Harry Potter fans as creatures who suck all hope out of you. They may magnify your tiny symptom into sure death, or seemingly provide incontrovertible evidence that your dreams can never succeed.
The effects of Empathic connections on our daily livesEnergy Luck
Black magic takes place abruptly in forms of accidents such as car crashes, tripping over something or injuring yourself badly, an Emphatic attack presents itself in a more natural way with physiological symptoms such as headaches, body aches, emotional drain, anxiety, and stress to get more information about Black magic removal services please feel free to contact me for a free consultation.
This slide show was designed to present the body of research related to reconciliation\'s effects and guide teachers in useful methods of character development with their students.
The Relational Arts: A Case For Counselling And Psychotherapycyberscribe
Master psychotherapist, author and academic Hugh Crago makes a convincing and readable case for the relational arts.
How does counselling work?
Why doesn't it work for everyone?
How is it different from psychology?
De escalation techniques in relationshipMoshe Ratson
Conflicting situations are some of the toughest things you’ll face in your relationship. When conflicts begin to deteriorate into angry reaction, they often stop of being productive. How to deal with angry and aggressive behavior in your marriage, intimate relationship or any relationship is very challenging.
Given the destructive nature that escalation plays in relationships, it is important to develop tools and strategies to limit and reverse this process. It is important to understand that if one person changes, it changes the whole interaction. This presentation provides tips and recommendations about how to a render a situation less flammable and to prevent further deterioration.
De-escalation techniques are core skills in marriage counseling, couples therapy as well as leadership and management interventions.
Push Strategy
Creating the network of resellers, agents, brokers, representatives
You can use the Push Strategy in the following cases:
1. Your product is popular and does not involve deep customization
2. You are new to the market
3. You have a tainted reputation and you can "borrow" mediator’s reputation
4. You're not going to stay long in this market and the release of this product is temporary
Be careful!
1. Advertising your product, in same time you advertise Reseller
2. There are the costs associated with sales, within a developed system of discounts for resellers, various contests, loyalty programs, providing them with various promotional materials, training, sales and so on.
3. Nothing keeps the reseller to break the contract with you
4. It is difficult to control and predict sales. Small businesses always have a certain dependence on distributers which are always pursuing their own interests
5. The breach of contract with a key agent can almost completely block the flow of new customers. This is a fairly common situation where the agent is "big", and you are "small"
Pull Strategy
Selling by yourself
PROS:
1. To release services or products under its own brand
2. To position your product as an element of prestige and service for the elite
3. By investing money in product advertising, in same time you will be supporting your brand
4. To get better control over sales and more stable ROI
cons:
1. The implementation of this strategy requires a financial and time costs
2. Your business is highly dependent on your reputation
Be Smart, do not share your profits with resellers
Sell on glabex.com - Save your time and money
Glabex.com is a unique platform, which helps you to sell your product by yourself, reach enormous number of customers, build your brand and create a reputation
Why User Experience Design Matters in PsychometricsNorbert Morawetz
Potential.ly is a London based tech startup that designs engaging user interfaces and dashboards for talent software, questionaires and psychometric indicators.
In this paper we propose a new test statistic for unsupervised
change detection in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR)
data. We work with multilook complex (MLC) covariance
matrix data, whose underlying model is assumed to be
the scaled complex Wishart distribution. We use the complex
kind Hotelling-Lawley (HL) trace statistic for measuring the
similarity of two covariance matrices. The sampling distribution
of the HL trace is approximated by a Fisher-Snedecor
distribution, which is used to define the significance level of a
constant false alarm rate change detector. The performance of
the proposed method is tested on simulated and real PolSAR
data sets and compared to the likelihood ratio test statistic
"Understanding Financial Projections for Investment Presentations"TEDCO
Why are financial projections such a crap shoot? Your financial projections matter to investors. They reveal so much about you, your business and its potential growth, and are one of the main drivers in making an investment decision.
Neil Davis, TEDCO’s Director of Entrepreneurial Development, drills down on common errors made in preparing seed stage projections and how these projections are integrated into the business plan.
Explore how chronic conditions can cause a traumatizing loss of a sense of independence, hope or self and how to use CPT tools to help people accept what is and still live a rich and meaningful life
RESPONSE 1Respond to at least 2 colleagues by expanding on.docxcarlstromcurtis
RESPONSE 1
Respond
to at least 2 colleagues by expanding on evidence in support of play therapy.
Colleague 1: Christine
There are many ways play therapy can benefit children and in this case 6 year old Claudia. As children experience trauma service providers may also have difficulty with young children and self disclosure. Here is the list that I came up with after reviewing this discussion resources in relation to how this approach can benefit:
1) Creating a safe space to explore with safety can hold children accountable for responsible behaviors while developing successful insight to harness positive strategies to cope.
2) Children can also benefit as they learn new solutions toward dealing with issues while learning skills to express new and old emotion.
3) There can be a gained awareness to self; understanding thoughts and emotions.
4) Children can learn new social skills as they work with their provider and how to relate to self through creativity. Also, gaining communication skills as they use various forms of play therapy.
5) Children may also develop an awareness toward new and old abilities using a strength-based approach toward therapy.
Another form of play therapy that I am fond of while working with children is storytelling. It isn't for all children specifically concentrating on those that feel comfortable opening up and speaking to others. Storytelling has been beneficial to me while working with children in the past as it has revealed fear and anxieties. Utilizing different platforms of storytelling, self disclosure can build various survival strategies in children as they explore different situations through actions, movements, and changes. (Chiesa, 2012, pp 5)
Overall I feel strongly play therapy in all forms whether it be art therapy, role playing, non-directive/directive play, can promote healing, through self expression of feelings. It can also encourage children to build creative ways to deal with current and future trauma, and allow the development of healthy decision-making.
Chiesa, C, (2012). Scripts in the sand;
Sandplay in transactional analysis psychotherapy with children. Transactional Analysis Journal.
pp. 5
Retrieved from Walden Library databases.
Colleague 2: Tiffany
Play therapy can be beneficial because Claudia is a young child who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw a mugging which caused her to be fearful, and develop anxiety. Play therapy helps the child to relax and the child is interested in playing with the toys in the sand. The sand can help the child relax and the toys can help the child create her own world. Usually, children will repeat behaviors or experiences during play. This can help the social worker assess the magnitude of trauma or abuse the child has experienced. This also makes it easier for the child to talk about their trauma or experiences. Play therapy helps children address and resolve their own problems. Play therapy helps to communica ...
Gestalt therapyIntroductionThe history of Gestalt Th.docxbudbarber38650
Gestalt therapy
Introduction
The history of Gestalt Therapy
The beliefs on which it is based
The important contributors or practitioners of the theory
The theory of helping
The relationship between the helper and the client
Some techniques or approaches developed
The kinds of problems addressed
The populations on which the techniques are used
Multicultural issues in using these approaches
Research findings on the model or theory
Theory of Helping
Responsibility for themselves
Express
Fourfold
expression
differentiation
affirmation
choice and integration
Gestalt therapy is concerned with how a client is experiencing life at the present point in time, and will have this as the basis of the therapeutic work.
A Gestalt therapist, then, would help the client move into those feelings
(or thoughts) in a way that allows a deep immersion into those experiences and the
freedom to express what the client has previously feared to release. Once the client
has moved through the impasse and experienced and expressed what was lying
underneath, an insight usually occurs that helps the client understand what has kept
him or her stuck
Gestalt therapy is helping individuals assume responsibility for themselves rather than relying on others to make decisions for them
Gestalt therapy aims to challenge its clients to move from “environmental support” to “self-support,” in order to mobilize their own resources for dealing with the environment effectively and to make creative adjustments that permit the self to respond to environmental pressures and to inner needs.
expression clients are encouraged to tell who they are as fully as possible, even becoming aware of gestures, breathing, voice tone, and facial expressions. In order to keep them in the “now” and maintain responsibility, clients are urged to preface their expressions with the phrase, “Now I am aware. . . .”
differentiation, so that clients can differentiate among the parts of their inner conflict. They might be encouraged, for example, to exaggerate their facial expression and in so doing, they may become more aware of their “angry part.”
affirmation, occurs when the client is encouraged to identify with “all the parts” that are emerging into awareness. It is here that the Gestalt therapist will allow clients to fully express their pent-up emotions.
choice and integration, the client comes to say, “I am responsible for my frustration and resentment.” “responsibility is really response-ability, the ability to choose one’s reactions,” and it comes about only when we relinquish our defenses and allow ourselves to become aware of our true feelings and motivations. In this stage an internal integration brings a sense of peace and is a sign of a “completed gestalt.”
3
Therapist
“like an artist bringing something out which is hidden,”
-Frederick Solomon “Fritz” Perls
Helper v. Client
Helper (therapist)
Not objective or neutral
Relationship
Empathy
Respect
Challenge
a thera.
10 Most Common Errors in Suicide Assessment/Intervention
Robert Neimeyer & Angela Pfeiffer
1. Avoidance of Strong Feelings – Diverting discussions away from powerful, intense
emotion and toward a more abstract or intellectualized exchange. These responses keep
interactions on a purely cognitive level and prevent exploration of the more profound
feelings of distress, which may hold the key to successful treatment. Do not retreat to
professionalism, advice-giving, or passivity when faced with intense depression, grief, or
fear.
• Do not analyze and ask why they feel that way.
• USE empathy! “With all the hurt you’ve been experiencing it must be impossible
to hold those tears in.”
• Tears and sobbing are often met with silence of tangential issues instead of
putting into words what the client is mutely expressing: “With all the pain you’re
feeling, it must be impossible to hold those tears in.”
• “I don’t think anyone really cares whether I live or die.” Helpers often shift to
discussing why/asking questions as opposed to reflecting emotional content.
2. Superficial Reassurance – trivial responses to clients’ expressions of acute distress and
hopelessness can do more harm than good. Rather than reassuring clients, these responses
risk alienating them and deepening their feelings of being isolated in their distress.
• Attempts to emphasize more positive or optimistic aspects of the situation: “But
you’re so young and have so much to live for!”
• Premature offering of a prepackaged meaning for the client’s difficulties: “Well
life works in mysterious ways. Maybe this is life’s way of challenging you.”
• Directly contradicting the client’s protest of anguish: “Things can’t be all that
bad.”
3. Professionalism – Insulating or protecting by distancing and detaching from the brutal,
exhausting realities of clients’ lives by seeking refuge in the comfortable boundaries of role
definition. The exaggerated air of objectivity/disinterest implies a hierarchical relationship,
which may disempower the client. Although intended to put a person at ease, this can come
across as disinterest or hierarchical. Empathy is a more facilitative response.
• “My thoughts are so awful I could never tell anyone” is often met with, “You can
tell me. I’m a professional” as opposed to the riskier, empathic reply.
4. Inadequate Assessment of Suicidal Intent – Implicit negation of suicide threat by
responding to indirect and direct expressions of risk with avoidance or reassurance rather
than a prompt assessment of the level of intent, planning, and lethality. Most common
among physicians and master’s level counselors – due to time pressures, personal theories
or discomfort with intense feelings.
• What they’ve been thinking, For how long, Specific plans/means, Previous
attempts
1
• “There’s nowhere left to turn” and “I’d be better off dead” should be met with
“You sound so miserable. Are y.
1. Running head: LIGOWSKI METHOD !1
The Ligowski Method: Trauma Victim Therapy
Ariel Ligowski
Liberty University
2. LIGOWSKI METHOD !2
The Ligowski Method: Trauma Victim Therapy
Each therapy is presupposed with a philosophy and motivated by a goal that makes it
unique from other forms of treatment. Despite the diversity in psychological practice, there is a
collective goal: to treat clients through various struggles and hurtful situations, from divorce, to
grief counseling, to personality disorders, to a misbehaving child. The Ligowski Method is a
therapy designed specifically for individuals who have been recently traumatized by a horrific
event, drawing on techniques and concepts developed in cognitive-behavioral, Adlerian,
existential, and Gestalt therapy. Trauma victims are individuals who have been devastated by a
situation in which they had no control. As a clinical social worker utilizing the Ligowski
Method, I believe psychopathology is at risk to develop when trauma victims are not given a safe
space to work through their experience. In the absence of a safe space, victims can be potentially
victim-blamed or pressured to grieve at an undesired pace. The Ligowski Method aims to
empower victims, providing them with a safe space to heal from a situation in which they were
powerless. This therapy is anticipated to show outcomes whether in an individual, group, in-
patient, or out-patient setting, as seen in treatment for trauma victims and individuals with
anxiety (Welfare-Wilson & Newman, 2013). Treatment using this method is likely to be a long
process, considering the pervasiveness of trauma and anxiety, and would function best through
two meetings a week with the client.
While the structure of the Ligowski Method is important, as a practitioner I need to first
establish the appropriate therapeutic relationship. My client will be freshly recovering from a
traumatic event, and may even have a history of trauma, negative life experiences, or negative
thought patterns as a foundation. The method is useless without a therapeutic relationship where
3. LIGOWSKI METHOD !3
I am a wounded healer (Tan, p. 111). I cannot expect honesty or encourage self-awareness if I
am distant or closed-off as a therapist. While remaining professional, I will be transparent,
warm, and real with my client, occasionally sharing my own experiences or insights when
appropriate. Furthermore, I will draw from Carl Rogers and express congruence, unconditional
positive regard, and empathic understanding. Committing to being a wounded healer will enable
my client to be wounded, therefore achieving congruence. Our sessions will be a safe space,
where they can process in whatever way they need without ever inciting negative reactions from
me, thus achieving unconditional positive regard. Finally, to achieve accurate empathy, I will
become intimate with my client’s frame of reference, so that I can empathize as sensitively and
accurately as possible. Our first session will be breaking ground for such a relationship.
The first session will also contain my intake interview. This is common practice in social
work regardless of the client population. Based on the research of Mayou and Furmer (2002), in
addition to a typical intake form, I will ask about previous trauma and substance abuse/misuse.
Meanwhile, I will strategically look for patterns of injuries, destructive life choices, or thought
patterns that may be pervasive and deliberate. I will follow-up by checking my client’s records,
and, if appropriate, share any subsequent suspicions with informants and colleagues. Treating a
client in the context of the present traumatic event can be potentially beneficial, but long-term
effects are unlikely without a full understanding of the client’s history and comorbid struggles.
Once I have a rounded clinical picture, I can effectively practice trauma therapy.
The Ligowski Method has 3 steps. Step one is processing and owning the traumatic
event. Everyone processes trauma and difficult experiences differently. To gauge where my
client is at in their journey and meeting them there, I will utilize a variety of Gestalt techniques.
4. LIGOWSKI METHOD !4
Some might be more appropriate than others, depending on the type of situation. Generally, I
have five techniques I will routinely practice in step one of the Ligowski Method. For a client
with disorganized, detached, or repressed thoughts, I will immediately refer to the empty-chair
technique (Tan, p. 166). This might seem silly at first, but it is typically easier for a client to
organize and then direct his/her thoughts toward a person involved in the trauma (imagined to be
sitting in the chair) instead of to me. Even in stoic clients, this typically fosters vulnerability. A
client might partake in the empty-chair technique and end up screaming at her rapist, talking to a
friend who just died, or explaining to her mother how much she wishes she’d be compassionate
through the healing process. Typically when people are confronted with strong negative
emotions, they don’t want to dwell because it hurts. They might repress it, project it, minimize
it, or even rationalize it. When this occurs I will then encourage my client to “stay with the
feeling,” guiding him/her to fully experience his/her immediate feelings in the present, instead of
blocking or avoiding them (Tan, p. 163). Though painful, fully experiencing the depth of his/her
emotions will help the client own the emotions. As aforementioned, the purpose of the Ligowski
Method is to enable victims to have control over their healing. I would say a client’s sense of
control in his/her healing process is imperative for any type of healing to occur.
Through the empty-chair technique and staying with the feeling, my client now has a
plethora of emotions rising to the surface. This can be overwhelming, confusing, and difficult to
sort. I will use three techniques to help my client organize these intense feelings. I will feed my
client sentences, in which I suggest a sentence for him/her to repeat, so s/he can verbalize an
implicit message or attitude that is unclear (Tan, p. 163). For example, if my client was pushed
out of a car by her boyfriend and expresses denial, I might feed her the sentence: “I am in
5. LIGOWSKI METHOD !5
disbelief that the man I love is capable of pushing me out of a car and driving away”. This helps
organize my client’s thoughts, which is crucial in order for healing to occur. Another way to
encourage my client to own his/her experience is to require personal pronouns (Tan, p. 165).
Particularly when confronted with negative emotions, a client might distance him/herself from
the situation using semantics. For instance, a client who watched her friend die might say “It
was horrifying.” Utilizing personal pronouns, I would have my client restructure and restate the
following: “I was horrified watching my friend die.” While another technique that will prove
difficult for the client, it will guide the client to continuously own and process the situation.
Finally, in a further attempt to deflect passivity or denial, I will have my client convert questions
into personal statements (Tan, p. 165). If my client asks, “How am I supposed to go on?”, I will
have him/her restate the question as “I don’t know how I am going to move past this”.
Furthermore, if I have a client who asks “Why do bad things keep happening to me?”, I will have
him/her restate the question as “I feel like I keep experiencing bad things”. This is yet another
technique that seems trivial, but the emotional ramifications truly clear the way for healing in a
traumatized client.
Step two of the Ligowski Method is to eliminate automatic thoughts that formed in light
of the event. By now, the client has processed the reality of the trauma s/he has experienced.
Although s/he was given a safe space to fully experience those emotions and was guided through
the process by a professional, trauma runs deep, and cognitive distortions are almost guaranteed.
Cognitive therapy states that there are four types of cognitive distortions that I must confront as a
practitioner: arbitrary inferences, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, and magnification/
minimization (Tan, p. 261). A client makes an arbitrary inference when s/he makes a conclusion
6. LIGOWSKI METHOD !6
without supporting evidence. A client makes a selective abstraction when s/he forms a
conclusion based on an isolated detail of an event. A client makes an overgeneralization when s/
he holds an extreme belief on the basis of a single incident. Finally, a client magnifies or
minimizes when s/he perceives a situation in a greater or lesser light than it truly deserves. Some
of these can be tricky in the context of trauma, as we don’t want to accidentally victim-blame as
we attempt to correct their inaccurate thought processes. The best way to proceed is to not spell
it out for the client or take on the role of advice-giver, but assist the client in working it out for
him/herself. The best way to make cognitive distortions tangible is to write them out. On a
whiteboard or piece of paper, I will have the client write down the extreme belief, inaccurate
conclusion, or inappropriate perception that is the problem. The client will then draw an arrow
and write to the right of the belief what they feel is going to occur as a result of his/her belief.
The client will then write to the left of the belief what they feel happened that formed this belief
(an arrow connecting the event and the belief). For a rape victim, the result might look like this:
The action of drawing out the logical progression alone might help the client understand it is not
a plausible way to think and encourage him/her to deflect this cognitive distortion in the future.
If this is not the reaction, that is alright. From there, I will proceed by changing the diagram. I
will point out to the client that the only thing we know for sure is the original event (the text on
the lefthand side). We will then erase all the other text. I will encourage the client to write out a
belief that is appropriate, working only from the information provided by what is written on the
My father raped me
as a child and my
boyfriend raped
me recently
All men are
untrustworthy &
potential rapists
All men I get
close to will
eventually rape
me
7. LIGOWSKI METHOD !7
left. Once that is accomplished, I will encourage the client to write what they feel should or
could occur as a result of the newly written belief. Through this activity, the client restructures
the thought process activated by the traumatic event independently. The result may now look
like this:
Step three of the Ligowski Method is more applicable and imperative for those who have
years of traumatic or negative experiences preceding the recent trauma. The goal of step three is
to help the client reintegrate back into his/her normal lifestyle in a healthy way through rational
responding (Tan, p. 168). In rational responding, I will first assist the client in systematically
exploring evidence for and against a particular client belief. Let’s return to the rape victim
example. To combat her belief that all men are untrustworthy and potential rapists, I will
encourage an association with a male. It might be going out to lunch with her pastor or distant
male acquaintance, visiting a male professor on office hours, or having a lengthy conversation
with a male coworker. I would encourage her to interact with whatever man she chooses in a
public place, in a setting where she feels comfortable and like she has the power. Through this
relationship, she might contrive evidence that not all men are untrustworthy. Next, I will assist
the client in developing an alternate view or explanation that is more adaptive or reasonable than
the current belief held. Through this, I will utilize confrontation (Tan, p. 168). Rather than
combating the client’s belief with “why” questions, I will ask him/her “how” and “what”
My father raped me
as a child and my
boyfriend raped me
recently
My father and
my boyfriend
are
untrustworthy
rapists.
My father and
my boyfriend
should not be in
my life.
8. LIGOWSKI METHOD !8
questions, in order to avoid rationalization. For example, when my client reflects on her negative
view of men, I will gently ask her how all men are untrustworthy and potential rapists. Next, I
will encourage the client to decatastrophize (Tan, p. 259). The belief that all men are
untrustworthy and potential rapists is austere and debilitating socially. I will therefore encourage
my client to state the same belief in a less extreme way, which will bring her closer to reality.
My client might therefore minimize her extreme belief to the following: “All men like my father
and boyfriend are untrustworthy and potential rapists”. This belief is still slightly extreme and
problematic, but it is progress. It is also partially true, as there are universal red flags found in
abusive boyfriends and parents, and her ability to identify that is key to recovering from her
experiences in a healthy way. Finally, I will have my client develop concrete behavioral steps
that can be used to cope more effectively with the problem. I will instruct relaxation training for
my client to use whenever she feels anxious or triggered. I prefer relaxation training over
hypnotherapy, which reaps similar benefits (Golden, 2012). My reasons for this are that many
patients object to hypnotherapy, particularly patients that have been traumatized through a
situation in which they were not in control; Joseph Wolpe created relaxation training as an
alternative to hypnotherapy for this purpose (Golden, 2012). Furthermore, I can utilize
paradoxical intentions to eradicate unfavorable coping skills. For instance, my client might pick
at her skin whenever she is anxious. I will have her pick at her skin when she is feeling fine, in
various settings. Doing the action without the emotional instigation can potentially make her
feel silly or uncomfortable, therefore conditioning her to avoid the behavior. I might also utilize
the reversal technique (Tan, p. 169). If my client is reserved and quiet, I will have her scream
9. LIGOWSKI METHOD !9
everything at the top of her lungs, using profuse hand gestures. Similarly, if my client is volatile,
I will have her express herself quietly with her hands folded in her lap.
The hope in the Ligowski Method is that at the conclusion of the three steps, the client is
ready to healthily live their life and “get back to normal”. The Ligowski Method is meant to
emulate motivation enhancement treatment, which entails enhancing the intrinsic motivation of
the client to continuously help themselves, concluding with the discussion of varying treatment
options and discussing diagnosis’s (Korte & Schmidt, 2013). Based on the research of Korte and
Schmidt (2013), this process alone should alleviate the fear of manifesting anxiety. The goal is
for the client to then develop a “confidence to change”, guiding him/her to seek help for a
clinical diagnosis in anxiety. This is meant to equip the client with the tools to reintegrate into
everyday life, in spite of what s/he has experienced.
In light of trauma, “normal” is eradicated; it might take a long time for the trauma to feel
distant. It will always affect you. However, through fully processing and owning the trauma,
reorganizing various thought patterns, and developing effective ways to cope, a client can
potentially function well, even if the traumatic experience still hurts. Furthermore, regardless of
the success of the Ligowski Method, comorbid issues must be dealt with. For my rape victim
client, marriage and family therapy could be useful. I might have clients with mood, stress,
eating, or substance abuse disorders, all of which would need respective treatment. Though the
Ligowski Method only helps a victim process and cope with their trauma, a successful healing
journey will further enable wholistic treatment.
10. LIGOWSKI METHOD !10
References
Golden W. L. (2012). Cognitive hypnotherapy for anxiety disorders. American Journal of
Clinical Hypnosis, 54(4), 263-274.
Korte, K. J., & Schmidt, N. B. (2013). Motivational enhancement therapy reduces anxiety
sensitivity. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 37(6), 1140-1150. doi: 10.1007/
s10608-013-9550-3
Mayou, R., & Furmer, A. (2002). Trauma. British Medical Journal, International Edition,
325(7381), 426-429.
Tan, S. (2011). Counseling and psychotherapy: A christian perspective. Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Baker Academic.
Welfare-Wilson, A., & Newman, R. (2013). Cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis and
anxiety. British Journal of Nursing, 22(18), 1061-1065.