Shannon Hodges is the author of 101 Careers in Counseling and several other titles.  He spoke to WTCI via email about his career and what he’s learned from it.

What’s your background?  What do you do now?

My background includes some 20 years of personal and career counseling in community mental health agencies, university counseling centers, and in student affairs (supervising college residential living communities and other roles). I have also directed a county mental health clinic in Oregon and run a university counseling center in Minnesota.

I am currently an Associate Professor of Counseling at Niagara University where I teach several classes. In addition, I have published several books, professional journal articles, in magazines and newspapers, and recently a mystery novel with a counselor as the main character.

What’s your next book going to be?

I’m writing two books, one professional book on college and university counseling centers with a colleague from Niagara University and two colleagues from Georgia Tech. I also just completed the first draft of a follow-up mystery book, (same character as in the first). The main character is a counselor who stumbles into and helps solve mysteries, albeit not always in the neatest package.

The title is The College and University Counseling Manual: Essential Services Across the Campus. My colleagues and I are writing about traditional services provided by the college counseling center, personal counseling, career, individual and group counseling, etc. So, we are exploring traditional services but also examining emerging trends and changes. (e.g., counselors working in the residence halls, counseling students with high functioning autism and asperger’s syndrome, etc.). Finally, the last chapter of the book will address 21st century changes: distance education, use of Skype for  distance counseling, counselors providing mediation and conflict resolution training for students, extensive trauma counseling and debriefing skills and function, etc.

How has college counseling changed over the years?  Has the clinical approach altered?  Is there a shift in what problems clients are presenting with?

College counseling, like all of higher education college counseling, is changing due to costs and technology. So, while clinical approaches are similar (e.g., cognitive behavioral and humanistic approaches likely dominate), the way services are being delivered will change. For example, Georgia Southern University just outsourced their counseling center. This is a big concern as to make money the company providing the services will have to reduce services. This means college counseling at Georgia Southern will be more focused and less present in general student affairs. (Will they continue to help with say, Resident Advisor training? Will they participate in Project Safe Zones for Gay & Lesbian students, etc.?).

There are shifts in the types of students and issues being presented at college counseling centers. Most especially, student with high-functioning autism and aspergers are matriculating to college and they need a lot of assistance with social skills. Far more student on psychoactive medications are coming to college than ten years ago. Counseling via Skype will become more common on college campuses as well.

Of all the different kinds of work you’ve done, what’s been the most rewarding?

I would say it would a tie between counseling and teaching. In both cases you work hard to get healthy messages across to sometimes unenthusiastic clients and students. When these go well, I feel a real sense of accomplishment. These two different types of professional work leave me feeling that maybe, just maybe, I made some small difference to someone.

How did you come to write the books that you have?  

I became interested in becoming a writer in my early twenties but it took several years before I had any luck getting published. I began in the “backwaters” of writing by authoring articles in newsletters and college newspapers. Then, in graduate school a journal accepted one of my articles and the article won an award. More confident, I began having more success.

Although I do a wide variety of writing (e.g., fiction, professional journals, magazine, etc.), fiction is my real love. The most engaging aspect of fiction writing is creating an interconnected world. I expect all fiction writers might mention this as well.  My goals for the future are to write more mystery novels, magazine pieces, and professional journal articles.

Watch a Shannon Hodges interview here.  Find books he’s authored at Amazon.

Sally Palaian, PhD is a Michigan-based psychologist and author of Spent: Break the Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth.  She talked to WTCI via email about working with clients who struggle with spending.

I grew up in a financially dysfunctional home — so in young adulthood I was on my own to figure out how to make my way with the financial aspect of life.  I found a therapist who recognized that the financial dysfunction from my childhood was similar to having alcoholism in the home.  That gave me a framework for my struggles and helped lessen my personal shame about my financial confusion.  From there, I was somewhat self-taught and read all types of books about money and money management.

After years of my own financial recovery, my therapist friends started asking me to help them with their finances.  At first, I declined the requests.   Then one week, two friends (from different parts of my life) mentioned to me that I should be lecturing others on this topic, I thought perhaps the universe was talking to me, and maybe I should listen!

So, I began to give talks and presentations to people to help them organize finances, make spending plans, stop compulsive shopping, visualize futures, learn to balance the material and spiritual parts of life,  develop sensible debt repayment plans, increase incomes, and other areas unique to individuals.

Then I wrote a book on the topic because many folks who called me for help couldn’t afford to pay for my services.  I decided to put all my ideas into a book that was practical and affordable.

For most of my career my psychology private practice has been focused on trauma and addictions of all sorts:  compulsive eating and eating disorders, sexual addictions, alcohol and drugs, relationships and codependency and now I do money coaching.   I also love to do marriage counseling using Imago Relationship Therapy — sometimes couples are referred to me to work with marital money issues.

Many clinicians find it difficult to talk about money with clients.  How can clinicians best address money issues in session?

The first step for clinicians is to clean up your own side of the street about money — explore your own countertransference issues about money — look at childhood messages about money, look at your own money patterns and behaviors, are you where you want to be financially?  Also get clean about how you view your financial dependency on clients.  If clinicians take a look at their own finances, it makes it much easier to enter the terrain of a client’s money.

After this, money discussions begin during the initial phone call when there’s discussion of fees.  I tell clinicians — do not miss this opportunity to clarify the financial arrangements at the outset (late cancels, method of payment, etc.) — this is when you lay the foundation for future discussions about money. It’s particularly important if a potential client is trying to arrange a “sliding fee” — ‘cause if they have you lowering your rate for them, and they are overspending, it sets up a dynamic whereby the client won’t be able to be honest with you about their purchases.

It’s also important to ask pointed questions about a person’s financial situation/circumstances/habits as part of the assessment.  Also ask about how their parents handled money, as well as the behavior of their spouse or grown children.  What is their greatest financial success?  What is their greatest financial disappointment?

After that,  I probe whenever they make references about spending money, giving gifts, feeling pressure about debt, liking or not liking their job, their spouses financial behaviors, their kids borrowing money from them, etc.  I ask pointed questions:  Could they afford that purchase?  Do they think they are spending too much?  Have they saved for retirement before loaning money to their children?  Have they made a budget?  Are they in debt?   

What criteria do you use to identify a client who qualifies as a money addict?

In order to label someone as a full blown money addict, I look to addiction criteria from the DSM, or Alcoholics Anonymous — looking at the behaviors to see if they have grown worse over time, the person is more and more preoccupied with the dysfunctional behaviors, if they can’t stop even though they promise themselves they want to stop, etc.  I have more of them outlined in my book.

However, there are a lot of folks on the slippery slope to addiction, but don’t yet qualify with the above criteria.  These folks have money disorders — some of which can be changed with some behavior modifications, some insight therapy, some accountability and honesty to family members, and some financial education.   If clinicians are proactive, they help these people (not slip deeper) by not being afraid to probe their money issues.  I think that many clinicians enable dysfunctional money behaviors by tiptoeing around the topic.  We do clients a great disservice if we are shy to ask.

How do you tailor treatment for a money addict?

I have them begin to record their spending, gather financial documents so they can see the debt totals, make commitments to not use credit cards, we take a look at impulsive purchases, or other ways they sabotage their success, explore the chronology of the dysfunctional money behaviors, and take a look at childhood also.  We are making practical life changes while exploring the underlying things like:  what money means to them, what “image” and “selfhood” mean to them, what security means to them, who are they punishing by being so unsuccessful with their finances?

How have you integrated Imago Therapy and money addiction focus in couples therapy?

If couples are stuck in money power struggles,  Imago Therapy is extremely useful to help people explore their money history with each other.  I have the couple make a map or blueprint of their childhood money scripts:

•    What their parents believed about money
•    How their parents were in alignment or not about financial decisions
•    Did the parents have similar values about how to spend money
•    Who made the money, who spent the money
•    Did anyone withold or splurge with money
•    Were there secrets about money
•    Was there fighting about money
•    Were there promises made but not kept with finances
•    What were the actual financial circumstances in childhood
•    How did they experience their financial circumstances as a kid — some folks are happy with what happened, others aren’t.
•    Financial behaviors are sometimes influenced by generations before — so I’ll ask also to go back to the generation before or any other unusual circumstances of the previous generations.

After each person has an understanding of where the other person comes from, I then have them dialogue their disappointments/frustrations/expectations with each other — then from that we discuss how each person would like the family finances to be different, and then we talk about what actions could be taken to get to that place.  I do some processing of feelings and some behavioral intervention work.

If there’s a lot of money dysfunction in either individuals past — we’ll do parent-child dialogues — to give each person the opportunity to work through their feelings toward the parent with the dysfunctional behaviors.  Sometimes folks plain and simple don’t have money skills because they were never taught healthy skills, sometimes their own behaviors are in reaction or rebellion to the parents skills or values.  Imago Therapy is a great forum to flesh out the origin of the differences — if couples understand their partner, it’s easier to become a stronger financial team and work toward dreams together.

The global financial changes are awakening lots of folks.  We’re on the threshold of new discoveries about money and materialism in this culture.  These are such exciting times to be exploring our financial patterns and beliefs.  I love to inspire folks to take a look both inside themselves about their values, how they can find balance between materialism and spirituality, and ultimately how to be happy in this wonderfully abundant world!

Find Sally Palaian, PhD on the web at sallypalaian.com. Her book is Spent: Break the Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth.

With individuals, a therapist can stall. “You can always say, ‘Tell me more about that,’ and take a few minutes to figure out what to do next,” he says. “In couples therapy, the emotional intensity of the couple’s dynamics doesn’t give you that luxury”…

“You often see Partner A dragging in Partner B because Partner B is behaving in ways that are unfulfilling and insufferable,” Dr. [Terry] Real says. “On the intake I’ll ask, ‘What’s wrong with the marriage?’ and Partner A will say, ‘Bob.’ So I’ll ask, ‘What’s wrong with Bob?’ and Partner A will say, ‘His Bob-ness.’ ”

Sound familiar?

Facing Our Fears - Why We Avoid Doing Couples Therapy, by Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson

Removing the Masks, by David Schnarch

A Matter of Choice - Deciding Whether to Be Right or Be Married, by Terry Real

In or Out? - Treating the Mixed-Agenda Couple, by William Doherty

West Meets East

As mindfulness practices work their way into the therapy mainstream, we’re asking more clinically sophisticated questions: Who needs what practice when? What are the downsides?

Suggesting Mindfulness

As a clinical intervention, mindfulness is best understood by stripping away its aura of mystical spirituality and understanding the crucial role suggestion plays in the change process.

When Meditation Isn’t Enough

 A psychotherapist discusses how to help clients transform the disruptive feelings and thoughts that they’ve learned to simply observe during meditation.

Shadow Side of Meditation

 A Zen teacher describes the benefits and limitations of traditional meditation practice.

Relational Meditation

Being anti-Pharma is hardly edgy business; it’s now the established intellectual position of most academics, not to mention everyone.  Insurances are refusing to pay for the branded psych drugs, doctors are being forbidden from consulting; and, simultaneously, Big Pharma is abandoning psychiatry.  Pfizer has all but closed its CNS division, temporarily pretending to still care about something called Pristiq that no one takes.  By next year, all of your love-to-hate drugs– Zyprexa, Geodon, Seroquel– will be generic.  There are no new blockbusters coming, no innovative treatments, no Big Pharma research money.  By 2013, you’ll have gotten what you were not careful to wish for.

UPDATE:  Another response in the NYT: In Defense of Antidepressants.

AND:  Psychiatrists respond at NYRB.

You know about the 80/20 rule, right? It’s the guideline that 80% of your return comes from 20% of your investment. For example, 80% of your referrals come from 20% of the people in your network. 80% of your new business comes from 20% of your prospects. 80% of your new contacts come from 20% of the networking activities you engage in. And so on.

Like all such guidelines, this one is inexact, but helpful. If used correctly, it makes you stop and think. Where are most of your returns coming from? And where is most of your effort going?

Imagine how much less time and money you could spend on marketing if you could simply identify the 20% of your current efforts that are really the only ones that matter. You could let go of 80% of what you’re doing…

Continues here.

The Road to Mastery
By Scott Miller and Mark Hubble
Therapists usually enter the field because they’re drawn to the work. But whether they excel depends largely on their professional community.

Building a Culture of Excellence
By Bob Bertolino
We all have stories about the bureaucracies that stifle clinical creativity and seem to exist primarily to generate meaningless paperwork. Here’s a tale about a community agency that actually works, and how it got that way.

What Therapists Want
By Barry Duncan
A close-up look at a 20-year, multinational study that captures the heart of therapists’ aspirations—and perhaps the soul of our professional identity.

Opening the Path
By Barry Duncan
Down for the count, a therapist again discovers that even the most hopeless sessions can have a positive outcome if you stay with the process.

From Isolation to Connection
By Peter Fraenkel
A modest proposal about how to get out of your cubbyhole, enliven your conversations with others in the field, and experience a new kind of professional community.

Mapping the Future
By Mary Sykes Wylie
Emerging from their monastic little cells, 3,000 psychotherapists had a
schmooze-fest celebrating the power of face-to-face

Experiencing Presence – Some Thoughts

Saving the Game: The Use of Gaming within Psychotherapy

Technology Enhanced Coaching

Cutting Edge Technology to Aid People with Mental Health Issues

Certificate Programme Services: Certificate in the Therapeutic Use of Technology

 

There might not be a piece of tech more due for an update than the cash register. Enter Square, a payment platform created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. With the aid of a tiny magnetic card reader that attaches to a smart phone, Square lets anyone process credit cards. It might not do away with paper entirely — plenty of people still prefer cash — but you certainly don’t need to wait for a receipt: sign on the screen, and Square sends a copy straight to e-mail.

Download the “Square” app and off you go.  More info at squareup.com.