Let's Unpack That #15: Finding Your Theoretical Fit

It’s a question we’ve all been asked time and time again: “What’s your theoretical orientation?” We first heard it in grad school, but answering that question has never really gone away. Picking a counseling modality can feel like choosing a side, but real counseling rarely works that way. In this episode of Let’s Unpack That, we talk through what has actually helped us decide the tools to use in session and the modalities we root ourselves in. 

Some counselors may find themselves practicing primarily from one modality, whereas others utilize a more eclectic blend. We explore both perspectives during this episode, and acknowledge the similarities and differences that can confuse new learners when taking in the many counseling modalities to choose from. Join us as we review three core foundational theories (Psychodynamic, Cognitive Behavioral, & Humanistic) that influence additional waves of therapies. 

Finally, we explore how even though there can be many similarities in the “cake” of counseling, different “frostings” influence what we respond to in session. If your cake is frosted full of Motivational Interviewing, you’ll respond differently to client complaints than your colleague decorating their Somatic-Focused cake. If you are a counselor, student, or curious listener trying to find the modality that fits your brain and your clients, this episode will help you breathe and get practical. 

Listen, then tell us what influenced your theoretical fit. Subscribe to Ohio Counseling Conversations, leave a five-star review, and share this with a friend.

OCA Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/ohiocounseling

Created by the OCA's Media, Public Relations, and Membership (MPRM) Committee & its Podcast Subcommittee

·Hosted by Victoria Frazier and Lauren Collins-Knight

·Pre-Production & Coordination by Lauren Collins-Knight and Victoria Frazier

·Editing by Lauren Collins-Knight

·Original music selections by Elijah Satoru Wood

Transcript

Welcome And Why Modalities Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Let's Unpack That, a short form segment from Ohio Counseling Conversations, where we dig into the topics, tools, and truths that shape our work as counselors. Whether it's a trending issue, a clinical insight, or something we've all been thinking about, we're here to process it together.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Welcome back to Let's Unpack That. I'm Victoria Fraser. And I'm Lauren Collins-Knight. And today we're exploring different therapeutic modalities and approaches. A lot of counselors utilize an eclectic blend in their practice. I know I'm definitely more that way, but it can be challenging to determine even what tools go into your eclectic toolbox, if you will. So today we thought it'd be fun to kind of talk about how we came to our primary modalities, the origins of some different modalities, and also how we use them in our practice. Lauren, I know that you are a little less eclectic than me and you kind of have one very strong primary focus. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Absolutely. My primary modality is acceptance and commitment therapy or act. I know a lot of folks call it ACT, but ACT practitioners call it ACT because we are trying to be active during session and teach different skills. And these skills are a lot of like mindfulness and acceptance as it's in the name. And it kind of comes from like this third wave of different behavioral therapies. So it's like in the same realm, if you will, like DPT needs mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, stuff, you know, compassion-focused therapy, those kinds of things,

ACT Basics And Values Focus

SPEAKER_01 1:40

because there's such an emphasis in the third wave of acceptance, mindfulness, and compassion in addition to the other, you know, traditional behavioral kind of interventions and stuff. Let me see what else. I can just info dump about act right now. Let me try and tear it down. It was developed by Stephen Hayes in the 1980s, but it is rooted in like BF Skinner's radical behaviorism. That we like to pick out of BF Skinner's work is functional contextualism. Because we like to explore the context that is associated with the behavior. Because sometimes some behaviors can be very helpful, and that some behavior can be unhelpful depending on why we're using it and the context. Essentially, like, is it working for you or not? Because a lot of what ACT does is exploring values and if your behavior is in line with them or not. Which is why I love it so much. But that's just me.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

You and everyone who uses ACT, right? It's not just you. True. Thank you for that primer. I know that as someone who's gotten that primer multiple times, well, Ashley, very helpful. I am pretty eclectic. I would say that I'm largely based in feminist theory, and I'm probably going to use a lot of that as my framework today. I think there's a misconception with feminist counseling theory a lot of times that it's it's just for women. And that it can only really be done with adults. Because when we're thinking about feminist counseling, it it did come from the second wave of feminism, specifically in the US, when we were seeing a lot of women, you know, sort of take back their power in that in that second wave. But we started applying it largely for women, by women. It when it started because a

Feminist Therapy With Kids

SPEAKER_02 3:30

lot of what we were talking about was related to sexism, misogyny, stereotypes that were pretty ubiquitous in the mental health field that that counselors and clients were facing. It has evolved since then, specifically to be a lot more inclusive. People of different races and ethnicities and sexual orientations and gender, even. And and one of the things that I really love talking about, as people who have listened to the podcast before, will probably know I work a lot with kids. And I think that feminist counseling really does have a place in the room with children as well. So cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Tori, tell me more about that. I because I have that bias. I always thought that you know, feminist theory would be better applied with adults. Yeah. How do you use it with kids?

SPEAKER_02 4:15

So I think it goes all the way down to like the roots of how I practice. So something that we're thinking about is like a feminist pedagogy and trying to create an egalitarian relationship between yourself and the client. And there's always a power differential, right? Because we're the experts in the room and people are coming to us for help and understanding. And it's really apparent when you're working with kids, right? There's an even larger power differential. Even like my kids, I've never told a child to call me this in all my life. They call me, a lot of them call me Miss Victoria. And that is inherently creates this expectation that I'm in charge and I tell them what to do. And if you're practicing from more of a feminist or child-centered place, you want the kid to really feel like they're in the driver's seat and you really want them to understand. And obviously, there are limits to that when it comes to safety and making sure that the sessions are, you know, somewhat productive or helpful. But really, what you're trying to do is make sure that you like everyone in the room understands that we're working towards these goals together and letting the kids have a hand. I think it goes such a long way in creating a really strong therapeutic relationship, a lot of trust. It helps you align with your kids so quickly. I also think it's so helpful in rapport building, especially with kids, to remember that they're not just tiny humans. They work differently, but they are still humans, right? Like they're not just tiny girls. They have wants and needs and desires. And I think that we have knowledge that we can use to help them, but they also know what they need. Like if we're looking at more of like a child-centered play therapy approach, we don't, and you're non-directive, it can seem like you're just letting the kids play, but they that's their language and that's how they they learn. And so it's our job to best acclimatize to our clients, right? And if my kid's gonna learn best by, you know, creating a sandbox thing or like fighting with a toy sword or throwing pillows around the room, like that's what we're gonna do. And so I think that is something that lends itself so well to work with children, and then also understanding a lot about autonomy with parents as well, and and teaching them like if we look at like teaching the parents, right, about power differentials and how those come out when they're engaging with their kids. And a lot of times when we have conflict, it's a power struggle, and the parent is upset because I'm the parent, you should listen to me and do what I say, and and that is true. You know, we we don't live in a utopia where kids never have to put on their shoes or eat a vegetable or clean their room or stop hating their sibling. But we also have to remember like kids can see the world and they're very intuitive and they understand how it works and they're challenging it. And we can we can gently remind them what boundaries are helpful and we can also work with them to make sure that their voices are heard. So I'm the same way as that's amazing. I you are with Act, I could talk about it for ages. I also talk about like when we think about feminist therapy, we do power analyses, right, where we look at different societal institutions and and aspects of ourselves that are being influenced by experiences we're having. And I I think that's important for kids too, because part of your individual identity is like chronologically where you are in time, along with your age. And so it's it's important to talk to kids, you know. If if I have a kid right now whose the big struggle is like screen time, and she doesn't has that much screen time because she's only on her her iPad for like two hours a day. And that is pretty small compared to other people of her age cohort. But to her dad, she's on the iPad constantly and it's rotting her brain. And so she has this understanding that she's barely on it, and he has an understanding that she's on it all the time, and they're both right if we look at where they are in their age groups and what is going on in the world based on their development. Yeah. And so we have to find a way to like have a happy medium, but also the parent needs to understand what the iPad means to that child. Because to him it means entertainment and like escape, and to hurt means connection. And so we also have to look at like how they're using things because they use technology to feel.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Wow, and that's exploring the power differences and like the perspective differences there.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah, and it it's good for kids because it also teaches them to look at the world that way and understand what other people are doing and trying to have a bit of that like investigation and like that consciousness-raising ability. And it's people as they move through life to get them. It's not that we don't take personal responsibility for what happens. If you didn't study for your math test and fail, it's it's your fault. But if you didn't study for your math test and you have ADHD and you're the eldest sibling in your household, and your parents both work full-time jobs, and you have four younger siblings, that's a different situation. And so it helps that consciousness raising and looking outside ourselves is also something that I think is so valuable for kids to learn young because it gets out of like guilt and shame feelings. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Oh my gosh, what led you to rooting your eclectic practice in feminist counseling?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I wish that it was something grander than this, but genuinely, I think that I was radicalized by the movie Matilda in my youth. Oh my goodness. And I think I've always been a bit of a warrior for women's rights and feminism my whole life. And I was in my theories class, and that we it it's so funny because it's not even like we had a full day about it. It was like a 10 minutes, and I was like, oh, that's how my brain works. Like that's just

Finding The Modality That Fits

SPEAKER_02 9:40

that's just how I think about the world. I didn't know that one, not everyone was thinking like that because I have that bias constantly where I think we're all the same. And two, I was like, oh, like this is helpful, like this is a good thing, this is a strength. And so I kind of, you know, anytime it was brought up in class, I I I really kind of just latched onto it. I found it so validating for my own experiences. And then anytime I could work it into a paper or a class discussion, I was there. I also just think You were on it. Oh, I locked on. And I also think that feminist counseling theory is kind of all around us. Like I think about it when I watch movies or read gossip magazine pop culture rags, and I think about it when my friends have a problem, and I think about it when I listen to music. I think that it is so ever-present and it's so applicable to every situation because we all live in a society, good or bad. We sure do. And I think that it's just such a wonderful base to work from because you bring your individual experiences to whatever is happening to you. So next to you experience things completely different based on who you are, what's happened to you, where you come from, all of that.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

You were already thinking systemically and you were like, oh my gosh, I'm glad people in counseling are too, to some extent.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah, it was so affirming. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you came to ACT?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, definitely. So mine is a little different. I didn't really think too much of ACT when I first heard about it in like theories and treatment planning class. But my supervisor at the time during practicum kind of like saw me struggling, trying to find my footing and was like, hey, I'm just gonna slide you this ACT textbook, read it to your heart's content. And when I started reading it, because I was like, absolutely, I need to figure out what I'm doing. And it really like clicked for me, especially this idea of like our thoughts, our private internal experiences. Like they're just neutral things. We add on a layer of like judgment and uh you know perspectives about it when those are just neutral experiences. Yeah, we have thoughts, we have feelings, we have urges, that happens. But it's the behavior when we are fused with that internal experience that like typically creates these problems that drive people to come to counseling. And that just like blew my mind wide open. I was like, whoa, a new way to learn and understand the world. And this was also very helpful because the ArchTech book did a lot. It was by Dr. Russ Harris, Achemate Temple, by the way. Anybody interested, highly recommend. All of my coworkers know I will push it so hard. But another reason why it like really fit for me is some of my colleagues have described to me, they're like, Lauren, we think you're a naturalist. And I'm like, what on earth does that mean? And it's like because of how much I'm into evolutionary psychology and kind of exploring how humans are complex social animals. And when I take act and combine it with that evolutionary psychology, I'm like, oh, well, of course, this is how our brain evolved. Like our brain evolved to keep us safe and you know, as healthy as we can. It doesn't mean we evolve to be happy. And so that has also really helped me, especially with the acceptance piece of like, yeah, sometimes our life experiences stuck, they're uncomfortable, and that's normal. So that is what really helped me is that book and my supervisor at the time, you know, helping me to incorporate ACT into my into my practice.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I love that. I say something so similar to a lot of my clients, obviously, depending on their where they're at in their journey of like your brain is doing something for a reason. It has evolved to try to protect you. It's specifically, I talk a lot about it's evolved to remember hurtful things, it's evolved to remember bad things because the people who didn't remember that saw their friend get eaten by a tiger and then the next week tried to pet the tiger. And they didn't have to have children. And so we are descended from people who were afraid of things for their own good. And that's helpful, but tigers aren't a problem for us so much anymore. Now it's like Cynthia might be mad at me. And we have similar reactions because it triggers a similar part of our brain. And I do a lot of work with OCD, actually, all throughout the lifespan, and that's how much OCD, specifically contaminant and germ-focused OCD. The idea of thoughts be thoughts being a neutral thing that are brought to you, and we're able to separate from them and look at them as information. And feelings are information even, right? If we're thinking about sometimes OCD is just feelings of disgust, and it feels wrong and yucky, and and that's okay. That's what is being brought to us by our brain and our mind. That's not who we are. We're allowed to look at it and say, Okay, thank you for this information. Thank you for trying to tell me that I might be unsafe. I, the person, know that I am okay. So I'm going to sit with these feelings and not try to investigate them and not reinvest in that cycle. And just it's like a mindfulness, it's a little bit of CDT, right? It's a little bit of like diffusion, it's it's so many things. I think a lot of counseling theory can kind of be the same if we're looking at just kind of to do. The reason might be different. I think that's helpful for different clients. If the one explanation makes more sense to them, that's great. Or for clinicians, if if you understand it through an act lens, and I understand it from like a CDT mindfulness of this lens, that's great. But ultimately, we're getting to the root of the thing, which is you are in charge, your thoughts are neutral, you are allowed to decide what to do with them. Like if we're looking at, if I pull up the CDT triangle and we look at thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, you are always in control of your behaviors. Always, always, always, unless you're getting hit on the knee with a mallet at the doctor's. You're in control of your behavior. You're never in control of how you feel because I can't look at you and say, get really happy right now. We can affect how we feel, but we're not directly in control of it. And we're halfway in control of our thoughts. We can think things on purpose, but we also have automatic thoughts, whether they're of an intrusive, distressing nature or the automatic categorization you do when you meet a new person.

unknown 16:12

Right?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

And then Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

As I love to tell my clients, we can only influence these things, we can't control them.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Exactly. And then if we we look at that, and this is just the spiderweb of my brain, if we think about how those thoughts are automatic, we didn't choose how they work. We were socialized into that. When you meet a new person, you do all this categorization of them automatically, and it's it's maybe it's connected to bias and maybe it's a neutral thing for you. But your brain likes patterns because it evolved that way, and society shaped those patterns, and that's gonna affect how we think and feel and also what we do. And so that one little tool, CBG triangle, you you can apply it to so many different things. And I always tell my clients, I'm gonna throw a lot of information at you right away. I want you to tell me what makes sense, and we're gonna go from there.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I love that. And I think you're thinking I'm thinking of because we're talking about how like so many things, so many concepts like are unified in these different modalities. And I remember in grad school being like, oh my gosh, this is all the same cake. We just have different frosting on top of it. And depending on how you decorate your cake is how you understand like your your different counseling practice and how you move in the in the counseling room.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And I think that if we want to zoom out a little bit, is an inherently feminist way to think you want to pick the frosting that your client likes the best. You want to work with their individual differences and you want to do the best you can for them.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Well, I don't want to get us bogged down too much because I think you and I could just do this for an hour, and I know that because we really could.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

We should explore what makes up the cake.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

That would be fun. Like doing a breakdown of the ingredients. I have this coping skills sheet I do with my clients called Cope Cakes. The little we do it, and it you put all of your ingredients in and you write out like directions, like the recipe. So the cake metaphor is strong with me. I also just like cake. I think that this concept of like all of this is the same at its base, and we color it different ways, and there are there are little quirks to each thing, can be really helpful when you're situated in your your modality or you're really comfortable with your practice. But at the beginning, it can be challenging for new clinicians to try to make sense of it, right? And I specifically always remember in any class that's about theory, whether it's counseling theory or psychology or sociology or or whatever it might be, like a social science, people can get really bogged down on like, well, which one's true, which one's right. And yes, it's it's that is speaking to the absolute nature of our society and how we like specific answers, right? And so I think that if you're someone who thinks more holistically and eclectically, that might not be your experience. I know it wasn't mine, but for a lot of people It was mine. I was like, which is the truest one? Well, you want to do the best for your clients, right? Like you you want to pick the one that is that is right. I thought it might be kind of cool for us to go through a couple of really common core bases of different modalities and kind of look at how they've evolved and like kind of the meat on their bones a little bit. Definitely. So You know I love history. I know, and so do I, but I'm I like ancient Egypt and you like things relevant to Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

I like psychology history, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

So let's start with psychodynamic, which I think I don't know, it's so helpful, but also Freud. Freud's there. Freud's there now, thinking. When I graduated, one of the girls in my undergrad class had a cap that was like that said,

Psychodynamic CBT And Humanistic Roots

SPEAKER_02 20:00

can we kill Freud twice? And that really made me laugh. Oh my god. I like his ideas, but oh buddy.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

So of our Oh my god, tell me about his ideas. What makes up psychodynamic?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

So it is thinking about the unconscious processes that past experiences have on our current behaviors and relationships. And something that I I do really value about it is that we're gaining insight to ourselves and how we're working. We can look at things like attachment wounds and and a lot of adlerian concepts, which also fall under you know that umbrella. And we can also look at emotional patterns. I think that in my brain, this makes sense almost at the beginning because we're building standing in an insight to ourselves and then not to get too ahead of ourselves, but eventually we can't only work from that place.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, we can't only gain insight and expect that to create change. Because if that were true, I would, I would have, I would have made so many changes already.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Well, no counts the level of therapy, right? If we could have response, we would be fine. But knowledge, knowledge isn't belief, and so it has to go further. Speaking of changing belief, do you want to talk a little about CBT?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, CBT cognitive behavioral therapy is where we introduce more of those like skills-based kind of structured, very present-focused sessions. Like Tori mentioned, exploring like the relationship between thought patterns, behaviors, your emotional responses with a CBT triangle, using a lot of skills and teaching clients about automatic thoughts, you know, cognitive distortions, and like building some of those coping skills of like how do we want to respond when we notice this cognitive distortion? Are we going to challenge it? Do we need to build like healthier habits and you know, behavioral activation to challenge these things? There's so much research and it's so evident. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

I think CBT is helpful because it gives you a lot of like action items, right? Like it it is very applicable. And you can definitely versus more of like the the other two kind of bases we're talking about. It's like dynamic and then humanistic or existential thinking, which is where I like to live, I would say most of the time. We're thinking about that, we're prioritizing personal growth and that insight piece. And then the thing that I actually really love to talk about, which is self-actualization. And I think that's what a lot of people expect when they come to therapy, right? Like I have an idea of who I am and who I want to be, where I want to find that first, and then I want to make changes to get there. But if we're thinking about that, can we be self-actualized if we can't meet consistently and take care of ourselves? But then what does it mean to have struggles with those things? Because we interpretize everything. And the other part of it is it really emphasizes the therapeutic relationship, which statistics that's stuck in my head since I heard it the first time is 70% of counseling outcomes are determined by a relationship with your counselor. And I think that's one of the really wonderful things about our field is if if it was just about the knowledge and it was just about being able to do those things, you'd be able to put up a book the self-helpless and do it. But it's not just about that. I love talking to my clients about social learning theory and how we we you know the sky is blue because someone told you that. That doesn't make it less true. We create our realities. And so the context of the therapeutic relationship ideally should be inherently healing because you are able to learn new things together and create new realities for yourself. And lastly, we're looking at identity, purpose, and ultimately feeling fulfilled and what that means for you. And I think the thing that's really helpful about these theories is we have to remember no matter where you're practicing from, it's not a formula that you can just follow. You have to be responsive to your clients. And so with our last little bit of time, I thought we might talk a little bit about how different approaches would maybe respond to the same problem. So maybe let's start where you live, Lauren, with ACT. If a client is saying something like, I really want to establish boundaries with my friend, but she gets so upset when I try to bring it up, it makes me so nervous. How would you maybe respond to that in an ACT-focused way?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

With ACT, we are focused a lot on values-directed action. And

One Boundary Problem Many Approaches

SPEAKER_01 24:30

so we would be looking at the behavior that the client wants to take and is it going to be in line with their values or not? So we might explore like, is this client interested in speaking up and trying to assert herself? Is that in line with the kind of person and the kind of friend you want to be, or not? And that's where I would primarily like focus first with clients who would bring up boundaries. What are your values? How are we acting them out?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

I love that. I love a good like values list and inventory because I think it speaks to so much to motivation. Something that my clients don't love hearing is where you feel that in your body. They hate that. Oh, they hate it. I have a lot of grown-ups who are intellectualizers and high achievers and eldest siblings. And so something that I really find wonderful is we keep, I think a couple times we said just because you understand doesn't mean you believe or or like thought can't get you everywhere. And it's not everything. Thought is powerful because it's how we interact with ourselves a lot of the time if we have a strong inner dialogue or monologue. But there's another part of if we take it to the CBT triangle of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. And we can find less value in feelings sometimes, but they are messengers and information. And so focusing on body sensations or like the physicality of maybe anxiety when you're trying to set those boundaries could be helpful for a client. If we're working for more of a somatic place where it's like, okay, maybe you're noticing your chest gets really tight and your heart races and your hands shake. What can we do to address the somatic experience of that first before we try to set the boundary? If you already know you want to set the boundary, is it maybe the physical reaction you're having that's that's limiting?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Do you want to talk a little bit about how motivational interviewing would help this client? Definitely. So with motivational interviewing, it's kind of exploring different parts of yourself. Like so part of you maybe wants to speak up and assert yourself, but another part of you is really anxious about that. And with motivational interviewing, my clinical director is really big into am I the way that I am into act. And so to be explores a lot of angel talk versus sustained talk, and exploring which part of that feels stronger right now. So an MI response to establishing boundaries with a friend, but it makes me upset, or it makes her upset, so it makes me nervous. It'd be exploring which part of you feels stronger right now, that's one that wants to speak up and establish that boundary, or the part of you that is anxious and wants to pull back and stay silent.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

I think that's that's so interesting because it's I think it goes back to that act thing of like what feels like it's aligned with you. Exactly. And I think that also speaks to the somatic part of well, what is keeping us back? Is it how you're experiencing it? And what does that teach you about yourself? Maybe more of a pleasant thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:44

We don't want to miss any information. We have to look at your thoughts and your feelings.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

I think if this client was sitting in front of me, my brain goes to like, what do you believe is going to happen? You say she's it makes you nervous because she's upset. Is it just that she's going to be upset and that feels wrong? Or do you have a belief that something else will happen because she's upset? And kind of looking at at that, then we can go to like have you had past experiences with a friend where you did try to establish a boundary? What did that teach you about yourself? Do you have a belief that you can't do that? Did you learn that you know maybe our people pleasing is coming up there? And I also have a list of cognitive distortions that I think I should get on a tapestry at this point because if we're thinking more of like a CBT cognitive distortion route, I think it's I'm still a bit feminist influenced because I want them to tell me which one I don't want to tell them. Yeah. And so at this point, of course, we've already gone through them and they have a good understanding and everything. And I'm happy to help if they need it. But I like to have give them the list and say, can you identify any challenges you're having within the list of cognitive distortions? And then we can look at how to do some cognitive restructuring and things like that. Something about me is it's all gonna be mixed up. Very eclectic. It's all very eclectic. I think that even if you have a strong base to pull from, like with ACT, it's so helpful to have different things to supplement, right? Because maybe you need a bit of something else to help the client understand the concepts or to get them on board with learning the concepts. Definitely. And so if you had something to kind of leave with counselors or counselor attorneys who are working on finding their modality, do you have any piece of advice you would give them one?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I think based on our conversation, I would encourage them. Well, first I would remind them there's actually not a true answer. There is no most correct one. Because I needed to hear that in my theories class. And two, I would encourage them to explore like what theory already kind of aligns with how you think and understand

Advice For New Clinicians

SPEAKER_01 30:00

the world. Uh because act and like evolutionary psychology was how I was viewing the world versus feminism and other eclectic practices were how you were exploring and like understanding the world. And we don't have to build something out of scratch. Like you can take your previous experiences and incorporate that within your counseling modality to like come to understand like your base of where you're rooted in.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

I love that. I think that's so helpful. I think if I had anything just to kind of leave as a little bow at the end of this, is when you're struggling, when you feel frustrated or like you don't know what you're doing, listen to your clients. Listen to what has clicked with them before, or ask them, you know, what are some things that were influential for you and how you understand the world and trust them to know themselves. You don't have to be perfect and you can always change your mind if you've been going one route and it's just not clicking with one client. That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong or or the client's not trying. But it's it's okay to mix and match. I think sometimes we can get a little stuck in our boxes and always going back to what is on their mind today or what did they come into counseling with the intention of exploring or working on. I think that's gonna do it for us for this episode of Let's Unpack That. Thank you so much, Lauren, for all of your wonderful slides. And thank you, Tori. It was wonderful getting to chat with you today. Thank you. Oh my gosh, I had so much fun. If you have any counseling theories or perspectives that you would like to hear discussed on the show, please feel free to drop us a line. You can text us from the link in our show notes or always connect with us on social media. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an update. And we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Thanks for joining us for Let's Unpack That, brought to you by Ohio Counseling Conversations and the Ohio Counseling Association.

Listener Invitation And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 31:55

If it sparks something for you, share it with a colleague or drop us a line. We'd love to keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening. And until next time, we encourage you to keep unpacking the big stuff one conversation at a time. Let's unpack that as a podcast intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views, opinions, and references shared by hosts or guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Iowa Council Association. Any appearance by a guest does not imply an endorsement of them, their views, or any organizations they may represent content discussed should not be interpreted as official positions, recommendations, or endorsements by OCA or its leadership.