This is the last blog to the four-part series: “How to Find the Right Counselor for You.” In the three prior blogs, I shared an introduction, and what personal elements and relationally-directed principles to look for in a relationship, coach, counselor or therapist. In this blog, I will share about what method to look for.
Simply stated, method means approach. A recent publication tracked over 100 different methods to couple's coaching, counseling and therapy! With so many methods out there, finding the right method is equally as important to finding the right type of person to be your counselor.
Thankfully, the plethora of counseling theories can be really boiled down to six basic (or parent) approaches: practical, humanistic, cognitive-behaviorism, pscychodynamic, narrative and social systems.
Here is brief summary of these approaches:
Practical (or pragmatic) approaches work to address challenges that are present in the relationship. By looking at the couple's situation and focusing particularly on how the couple engages difficult situations, practical approaches endeavor to draw concrete solutions. Now, pragmatic approaches are no less scientific than others, quite the contrary: many of them are deeply imbued with the emerging field of evergetics (the study of the every day). Three key words to understanding practical or pragmatic approaches are: situation, interaction and management.
Humanistic approaches work to edify the relationship by cultivating the couple’s personal resources. Closely paired to practical or pragmatic methods, they presume that people have the innate capacity for healthy living should they be exposed to the appropriate training and given access to positive solutions. The key words to understand humanistic methods are training and nature.
Cognitive-behaviorism pairs the insights of the famous behavior researcher B.F. Skinner to how people think about themselves in action. They connect experience and emotion, so that couples can re-align their mindset by altering their environment and actions. They seek to help couples engage their challenges in order to create new experiences. The key words to understanding cognitive-behaviorism are: action and mindset.
Psychodynamic (or psychoanalytic) approaches work with couples by helping them to understand how their unconscious drives and motivations determine how they relate to one another. Developed in the early 1900’s by the famous Sigmund Freud, contemporary psychoanalytic approaches differ considerably from Freud’s initial concepts of id, ego and superego, insofar as contemporary psychoanalytic approaches conceptualize the unconscious mind by the patterns that play out in relationships throughout life. Unconscious, drive and interrelationship are the key words for understanding psychodynamic approaches.
Closely associated are narrative approaches, which work with couples to understand how their unique stories and experiences shape how they understand meaning in their respective worlds. Narrative approaches are focused on the way in which the couple has been shaped through life and how their shaping forms their identity in the relationship. The key words for understanding narrative approaches are: self and story.
Social systems approaches work with couples by helping them understand how their thinking, emotions and actions originate by means of their social interactions and obligations. They are primarily focused on not only how a couple’s mindset has constructed by the performative demands and symbols of society at large, but also their behavior. The key words to understanding a social systems approach are: emergence, response, and obligation.
So, which approach from above is the right one? The answer is all of them (to some degree): human beings, relationships and the world are complex. There’s no sole approach that is entirely right in itself. However, this doesn’t mean that there is not a reliable approach. Instead, the right approach will reckon that it takes a complex method to engage the complexities of life. As a result, a great couple's coach, counselor or therapist will use a systematic (or multi-modal) approach. Put another way, they will use all of the aforementioned insights from the six parent approaches to collaborate with the couples to makes sense of all the couple understands and experiences of each other and the world. Further, the right approach will be evidence-based, while maintaining a robust understanding of human nature as it is expressed through what is common to everyone so that what is particular to the couple can readily be discerned. In so doing, the right counselor will effectively facilitate mending the tacit dimension of relationship in order to bring every interaction into focus and thereby foster new fruit.
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