Adlerian

Stages of Living

Everything that you may encounter in your career in counseling or really any profession there are these steps to follow in the Helping professions and also in life.

1. Engagement- You will orient yourself to the problem and establish communication with the client.

2. Assessment- You will investigate and determine what will affect the problem of the client for probable prospects and help.

3. Planning- This is where you will process the problems into needs and start formalizing goals and objectives.

4. Implementation- You will do activities and discussions where you follow the goals and objectives that you and the client/patient have decided upon, and also monitor and assess for any progress made.

5. Evaluation- You will make sure that your planning and doing were effective for the client.

6. Termination- This is when treatment ends for whatever reason that may occur between counselor and client/patient whether good or bad. It could be financial, irreconcilable differences, or that you did your job and the client/patient feels better and want to proceed on their own with what you taught them in handling their problems.

7. Follow-up- This is where you as the counselor, and if the client/patient wants to can ask questions on how they are doing.

Helping Framework for Children

The steps given earlier are the same ones that we follow for all types of clients and patients. As shown in the subtitle the first setup is for children and there will be similarities and differences between all the different age groups.

1. Engagement- Let the child get to know you and get familiar with the playroom. This is when you can get to know the parents and how they see the problem(s). You can initiate communication between them and you.

2. Assessment- The counselor will consult both with the child and the parent and the teachers if child is old enough to attend school and build an equal relationship with each of them. This relationship must set limits, and give encouragement to making their lifestyle work for them.

3. Planning- This is where the counselor digs further into the child and their problem and tries to figure a way to work into the 'Crucial C's', which are (control, connect, count, courage). You will have to decide what is important for the child to know like skills in friendship, power-sharing, negotiating, and whatever new skills they need to know pertaining to the goals and objectives that will be set or were set by both of you before and during therapy.

4. Implementation- When working with the child client you will use various toys, stories, art and cooperative games to reach specific and general goals and objectives. Also, in this type of therapy you will use the following types of materials like nurturing toys, scary toys, expressive and aggressive toys, and pretend/fantasy toys to get them to share information of what is going on in their life. As mentioned in the textbook that I studied (James, 2003) you can use the following techniques as 'Spitting in the Soup', metaphors, and modeling good self-talk, and as the counselor you must always give them time to practice new ideas and skills.

5. Evaluation- Evaluating the child you may see how they view themselves, as well as others and the world around them. You can also see how they act and feel in various situations and how they relate to other people. The counselor will see if their plans to re-educate and re-orient them to use proper and positive behaviors.

6. Termination and Follow-up- The counselor can ask the parents how many sessions they think may be needed to work with them and their child in dealing with various issues and situations that may present during the therapy sessions. At the end of therapy you can offer your time and help in and for the future.

To be continued....