| Looking for on-line counseling? Check these
guidelines first! 1. Your
online
counselor should have the same education, training, and experience as a professional
therapist in your own community.
2. Your online counselor should have completed a graduate program of
psychological counseling and have proper credentials: MSW, M.A., M.D., Ph.D.,
M.Div., S.T.M., D.Min., the same as a professional therapist in your community.
3. Your online counselor should be grounded in a psychological theory and
therapeutic methodology recognized by the professional community.
4. You should ask and expect to get
clear and complete answers to such questions as these from your online counselor:
- "What is your counseling approach? What is its name?
Who founded it? How well is it known and respected in the psychological and
psychotherapeutic community?" (Don't be fooled by a counselor who says
"eclectic." That just means the counselor is not guided by any
specific approach and, instead, takes a bit from here and a bit from there and doesn't pay
heed to underlying connections.)
- "Has your approach stood the test of time? When was
it started?" (Make sure it's not a passing fad, or a "fringe" approach such
as astrology, "New Age," self-hypnosis, etc.)
- "Has the approach you use influenced other
approaches in their creation or development?" (Which ones?)
- "Is your approach based on sound scientific
principles and research over many decades?" (Ask where you can you find articles or
books about this approach and its effectiveness.)
- "Does what you do in therapy have practical
application for my daily living?" (Some counselors do mostly "feel good" or
"supportive" therapy. They listen, smile, nod, and mumble platitudes. You may
feel good then, but this does little to help you solve your problems now or in the future.
You need and deserve a counseling approach that takes you seriously, and presents real
methods to help you in life.)
- "Can you, and will you, explain in
every-day language what you do and why you do it?" (If they say their concepts are
"too hard for the lay-person to understand," or "if I explained my methods,
they'd lose their power," you can be pretty sure they don't know their concepts well
enough, and aren't sure how their methods actually work! Is your therapist willing to
"de-mystify" the counseling process? (Freud took the "top-down"
approach, involving his made-up words and stressing the mystery of the Unconscious mind.
His was "king and his subjects" approach, familiar from secret societies
(including the medical profession!) for millennia. Adler's approach was democratic. He
stressed the equality of counselor and client in the cooperative enterprise of
counseling.)
Only one school of professional psychological counseling can satisfy
those requirements: the Individual Psychology of Dr. Alfred Adler. You
already know many of his contributions and ideas although you may not
recognize his name:
- Adler's ideas
and methods appear in most counseling
approaches today: Transactional Analysis, Client-centered Therapy, Rational-Emotive
Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Existential therapy, Humanistic
psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Positive psychology, Narrative
therapy, Ego psychology, Self psychology, as well as most pastoral
counseling.
- For more than a century, Adler's ideas and methods have
been subjected to scientific scrutiny and been summarized in literally thousands of
research articles, demonstrating their effectiveness in describing human personality and
improving peoples' lives.
- In fact, nearly all counselors are
essentially Adlerian counselors (they just don't know it)!
- Adler's concepts are familiar to most people. They include subjectivity
of perception, the importance of relationships and community, psychology of use, birth
order and sibling sibling rivalry, family constellation, the need to belong, "reverse
psychology," inferiority and superiority complex, over-compensation, goal
orientation, and more.
- Adler pioneered such basic counseling methods as family therapy, marriage counseling, group therapy, and parenting
education.
- Adler was popular with lay-people because he put his
ideas into plain language so people could understand and use them. He was honored by
parents and educators who used his methods with children and students to make families and
classrooms better. His parent-education approach, Systematic Training for Effective
Parenting (STEP; Dinkmeyer and McKay) is the most-used in the world!
- In fact, Dr. Alfred Adler has
been the single greatest influence on psychology for more than one hundred years!
Only one online counseling
service provides Dr. Adler's approach in a complete, clear, comprehensive, and useful
program...combining personal counseling with a complete introduction to his ideas and
methods:
LEAP Online : The
LifeCourse Effective Action Program
The only on-line counseling based entirely on Adlerian Individual
Psychology. |
The LEAP On-Line NoteBook provides
what you need to prepare for the LEAP sessions, so you can explore and revise your
Life Patterns and solve a current problem! |
LEAP On-Line: It's
time to learn about yourself!
- Learn how
ten Patterns you created as a child still govern and limit your life today.
- Learn how to revise and
reverse their limiting effects so you can live the life you want now!
- Learn the
influence of family origins on your life at the time you were born!
- Learn how six roles your
parents played prepared you to play those same roles today!
- Learn how your sibling
position then is your position with friends, coworkers, etc., today!
- Learn the ways more than 2
million childhood events create who you have become today!
- Learn the importance of
your dreams and nightmares.
- Learn the six ways you
tried to be significant then, and still use with others every day!
- Learn to think, feel, and
act more effectively using the E-B-R Cycle!
- Learn
how to control your unwanted or disturbing thoughts and feelings!
- Learn how you use your
Ideal self-image and other ideal images to measure your life!
- Learn how you use
childhood's ways to deal with life problems and decisions today!
- Learn how to solve a current problem using the LEAP approach.
- And when you're done, you get ten FREE half-hour
on-line counseling sessions!
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