International interviewing and counseling 9th ivey chapter 09

Intentional Interviewing and Counseling:
Facilitating Client Development in a
Multicultural Society
9th Edition

Allen E. Ivey

Mary Bradford Ivey

Carlos P. Zalaquett

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Chapter 9

Focusing the Counseling Session:
Contextualizing and
Broadening the Story

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Chapter Goals and Competency Objectives (slide 1 of 2)
Awareness and Knowledge

▲ Conceptualize clients as persons-in-relation and persons-in-community.
▲ Identify contextual factors affecting clients’ current situation or concern.

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Chapter Goals and Competency Objectives (slide 2 of 2)
Skills and Action

▲

Help clients tell their stories and describe their issues from multiple frames of reference, a valuable method for
creative change.

▲

Increase clients’ cognitive and emotional complexity, thus expanding their possibilities for restorying and resolving
issues.

▲

Enable clients to see themselves as selves-in-relation and persons-in-community through community and family
genograms.

▲

Facilitate and clarify client cognitive/emotional processes so that they can take action to address their concerns,
issues, and challenges.

▲

Include advocacy, community awareness, and social change as part of your counseling or psychotherapy practice.

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Introduction: Focusing Essentials (slide 1 of 2)
Meet Nelida…
Here I am, a grad student in counseling. I did well in college in Miami and thought it was no big deal
because I was only four and a half hours away. But my first day of class, I raised my hand, made a
comment that very first class, and a classmate asked me if I was from America (nervous laugh) or a native
(nervous laugh). Yeah, and I said well I’m . . . . I was just four and a half hours away, and he just found it
very hard to believe. So, after that comment was made, it kind of made me a little bit more hesitant to
participate in discussions. It made me more self-conscious.

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Introduction: Focusing Essentials (slide 2 of 2)

Focusing: Intentionally focus the counseling session on the

Anticipated result: As the counselor brings in new focuses, the

client, theme/concern/issue, significant others (partner/

story is elaborated from multiple perspectives. If you

spouse, family, friends), a mutual “we” focus, the

selectively attend only to the individual, the broader

counselor, or the cultural/environmental context as

dimensions of the social context are likely to be missed,

necessary to gain a broader understanding of client and

and counseling and therapy may fail in the long run.

issue. You may also focus on what is going on in the
here and now of the session.

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Awareness, Knowledge,
and Skills of Focusing (slide 1 of 2)

▲ Therapy is for the individual client.
▲ Focus begins with the client.
▲ Focus on the client’s problem or concern.
▲ Attending to the theme, or central topic(s), of the session is a second area of focusing.
▲ Focus on contextual dimensions.
▲ Clients bring to you many community voices that influence their view of self and the world.

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Awareness, Knowledge,
and Skills of Focusing (slide 2 of 2)

1.

Significant Others

2.

Mutual Focus

3.

Immediacy, Here-and-Now Focus

4.

Counselor Focus

5.

Cultural/Environmental/Contextual (CEC) Focus

6.

CEC Counselor Statements Leading to a Positive Conclusion

7.

Focus on Physical Health and Therapeutic Lifestyle Issues

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 1 of 7)

▲ “Free-form” activity where the client uses his or her own style to present community.
▲ Helps the client generate a sense of connection and how we all develop in a community/cultural
context.

▲ Helps the therapist more completely understand the client’s cultural background and history.
▲ Can provide a better grasp of the developmental history of clients and help identify client
strengths for later problem solving.

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 2 of 7)

Developing Your Own Community Genogram

▲

Select the community in which you were primarily raised.

▲

Choose significant symbols to represent key items in relation to:



Yourself/Client



Family(ies)



Influential Community Groups



Items from RESPECTFUL Model

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 3 of 7)

Building your community genogram – Basic symbols:

living

Close

MALE
Enmeshed
deceased

Estranged
living

Distant

FEMALE
Conflictual
deceased

Separated

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 4 of 7)

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 5 of 7)

Identifying Personal and Multicultural Strengths

▲

Post the genogram on the wall during sessions.

▲

Focus on a single dimension of the community or family.

▲

Help the client share one or more positive stories relating to the community dimension
selected.

▲

Develop at least two more positives.

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 6 of 7)

The Family Genogram

▲

The family genogram provides additional information about all-important family history.

▲

We use both strategies with clients and hang the genograms on the wall during the session to
indicate to clients that they are not alone.

▲

Family stories can be a real source of pride and can be central in the positive asset search.

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The Community Genogram: Bringing Cultural/Environmental/Context into the Session
(slide 7 of 7)

Debriefing a Community Genogram

▲Helps you learn developmental history and cultural background of client.
▲Start by asking client to describe the community and significant events in his or her past
development.

▲Ask for a story about each genogram element.
▲Seek to obtain positive stories.

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Multiple Applications of Focusing (slide 1 of 3)
Multicultural Issues and Focusing

▲ From social sciences to biology, research confirms the critical role of context.
▲ Bullying and cyberbullying have short- and long-lasting emotional and physical consequences for
those targeted.

▲ Ostracism makes people depressed, helpless, and likely to engage in suicidal ideation or
behavior.

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Multiple Applications
of Focusing (slide 2 of 3)
Advocacy and Social Justice

▲ Advocacy is speaking out for your clients; working in the school, community, or larger setting to
help clients; and working for social change.

▲ Whistle-blowers who name problems that others like to avoid can face real difficulty.
▲ Advocacy is the only possibility when a client is being abused.
▲ Counselors who care about their clients also act as advocates for them when necessary.

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Multiple Applications
of Focusing (slide 3 of 3)
Counseling Clients Who Have Internalized Oppression

▲ Paulo Freire developed a step-by-step model for working with internalized oppression.
▲ Adapted for therapeutic psychology, steps include: (1) Developing a relationship; (2) Build
individual, family, and cultural strengths; (3) Body anchoring of positives; (4) Hear the story again;
(5) Encourage naming of the negative story; (6) Return to strengths and anchor them again; (7)
Plan for generalization

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Action: Key Points and Practice
(slide 1 of 2)

▲ The Skill of Focusing
▲ The Importance of the Individualistic “I” Focus
▲ Selective Attention
▲ Draw Out Stories with Multiple Focusing
▲ Seven Focus Dimensions
▲ Community and Family Genograms
▲ Apply Focus to Examine Your Own Beliefs

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Action: Key Points and Practice
(slide 2 of 2)

▲ Focusing and Other Skills
▲ The Action Plan
▲ Multicultural Issues
▲ Social Justice and Advocacy

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