Calendar for San Diego therapists and counselors

Hi all,
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. Work, school, wedding planning, and basic living – it’s been difficult, to say the least, to do it all at once! I have so much respect and wonderment for the students who simultaneously work full-time and have children to care for.

So to compensate for my writing hiatus, I thought it would be helpful to create a calendar that lists all MFT-related events in San Diego county. I hope that this resource will be helpful for the local MFT and counseling community. If you have an event you want to add, please email me at ky[at]compassforcounselors.com!

The calendar can always be found on the right hand column of this blog…or you can just click on the image below:

Art Therapy

Portrait #1

Even though I have had a long history with art, I have always been hesitant to do what I call “expressive art” – that is, art that reflects one’s perception of people, places, experiences, and emotions.  This is in contrast to art that aims to capture physical reality. For much of my life, I have strived to master the latter – only to be madly discouraged at the complexity of such a feat!

It’s been some time since I’ve done any art, but the topic has been reeling in my mind recently.  A few of my classmates have been experimenting with drawing in their sessions – and we also recently watched a video on doing art therapy with children.

I had a lot going on yesterday, so I thought, “What the heck? Why not some art therapy?”

I dug up my old art supplies – oil pastels, paper, markers, paper.

I quieted my inner art critic, the one that taunts me: “If it’s not perfect, it’s not good enough.”

I gave my hands absolute freedom.

Portrait #2

In the process, I asked myself many questions: Why am I using so much orange and reds?  In the head space of “letting go”, why is there still so much structure and symmetry?  What is the meaning behind the chaos partnered with orderliness?

In the end, the pieces that I drew were clear reflections of my emotional state, the way I think, and the way I work. Putting everything on paper forced me to acknowledge emotions that I kept quiet.  It also helped me to accept the ways in which I choose to operate vs. always striving to be different.

I did not originally intend to blog about this, but this was such a wonderful experience for me, I wanted to share it with you all.  I hope this gets you thinking about using art therapy in your practice!

On the righthand side are two of the four pieces that I completed yesterday.

Theorizing About Counseling Theory

Theory is a huge part of our counseling training.  Theory informs how we position ourselves with our clients, how we conceptualize our clients’ problems, how we determine what interventions to use in our treatment.  Theory is the invisible hand that guides what we say and what we pay attention to in our sessions.

In our first year of school, we spent a semester learning about some of the primary schools of theory in MFT: Bowenian, Structural, Cognitive-Behavioral, Narrative, Collaborative Language Systems, and Solution-Focused.  In the last two months, I have really struggled in figuring out if any of these theories truly resonate with me as a therapist.  However recently, one of my professors said something that made complete sense to me: “Choose a theory that matches your worldview.  If you don’t really believe it in, you’re just going to come off as not being genuine.”

It made me realize that perhaps I don’t entirely believe in the tenets of some of the post-modern theories that I have been experimenting with.  And neither do I truly connect with the ways that the traditional theories conceptualize families and individuals.

I am learning that I do love some of the major ideas behind post-modern theories – the client being the expert and the therapist being the collaborator, the problem being separate from the client, mining the client’s strengths and support system, etc.  However, I am still craving for a theory that provides a more concrete map on how to conceptualize the problem and the solution, and a map on how to structure the treatment.  I am becoming more accepting of how I thrive on structure and direction; without it, I feel like I’m just floating on air.

This self-understanding explains my almost-immediate love for Motivational Interviewing, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) – and I am gravitating towards specializing in one of these theories.  In this blog, I have only written about Motivational Interviewing, but plan to write about DBT and EFT in the coming weeks.

I wanted to use this post to introduce my ongoing process in thinking about counseling theory – I would love to hear how your journey has been similar or different from mine.  If you feel like sharing, please comment in the section below!

- Ky Ngo

Silence is not dead space

photo credit: Casper Moller (Flickr CC)

I’ve recently started a daily meditation routine in the mornings. A few weeks ago, I was meditating lying flat on my back when I sensed my heart beating. My body’s heartbeat is usually so faint that I cannot detect it even in my quietest state; but on this particular morning, I could hear and feel it pounding in a steady yet urgent pace.  I tuned into the rhythm and found myself sinking in the spaces in between the beats…the millisecond moments when absolutely nothing was happening: no heartbeat, no flow of air, no blinking, no thinking, no doing.  Those moments were pure stillness and quiet.  I let myself linger there and savor it – all without my usual anticipation of what was going to happen next. Ironically, being present in these in-between moments made it easier for me to be present in the moments that followed – the next heartbeat, the next breathe, the next movement. 

The in-between moments in my meditation is akin to the in-between moments in my therapeutic conversations – the moments between words. I am very aware of my compulsive tendency to avoid silence in my sessions. I fill potential gaps of silence with half-constructed questions, reflections, my ideas on what the client just shared, and, frankly, whatever I can get out of my mouth!  I associate silence with awkwardness – and I become fearful what my clients think about me when I give silence a seat  in the room.  What I’ve observed as a result of this tendency is that the conversation feels rushed, and the client may even feel that they are not being heard.  Nervously anticipating what I am going to say next translates into my not taking enough time to make meaning from what they shared.  The fear of the in-between spaces of a session has only led to sloppy, unguided and hasty conversations. The fear keeps me from being present with myself and my clients because I was always anticipating what was coming ahead.

Imagine the difference when I applied my meditation insight to my counseling sessions…

After my client shares something or after I ask a question, I practiced letting the room go silent for several moments.  Usually one of two things would happen: the silence gave space for the client to say more OR their silence signaled that they wanted me to carry on the conversation or to otherwise re-ask my question.  When the former happened. the client often brought conversation that is rich, and our connection felt strengthened. When the latter happened, I simply acknowledged the cue and proceeded to formulate a better-formed question or response.

Giving silence space in the conversation was a little uncomfortable at first, particularly with clients who are not talkative or have yet to open up to me. However, this has helped me feel so much more present as a therapist that the potential for mild awkwardness doesn’t keep me from practicing it.  I’m finally beginning to learn what it means to practice with SLOWNESS (thanks for always reminding us of that, R.E.).

After reading this, I hope you take away the idea that silence is not dead space; a lot can happen in silence or as a result of silence…but you can only know it if you try it…

- Ky