“SERVING THE COUNSELING, GUIDANCE, AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONS”

What’s Happening This Year

So far we are off to a very good start.  I became president in August 2008 and I am working with the Board to increase membership and get more students involved.   The November conference on “Trauma in the Community” was a big success.  Over 90 practitioners and students came out on a Saturday to Bowie State University to attend the conference.  Sambhu Banik, Ph.D., President, Family Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center, discussed different theoretical perceptions of trauma.  Alan Green, Ph.D. Chair, Department of Counseling and Human Services, Johns Hopkins University presented research performed as a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship during his doctoral work in Guyana on trauma and adolescents.  Major Jocelyn Kilgore, MD, a psychiatrist at the Uniformed Services University, talked about her experiences working with clients when stationed in Afghanistan and her current work with male and female veterans.  Dr. Satterfield described the work he did at the U.S. Veterans Administration.  Finally, Renee Butler-Smith, doctoral student at Capella University, made a presentation on trauma and incarcerated women.

Plans are underway for our Annual Conference in May. This year the theme is “Domestic Violence: Clinical and Community Interventions”.  We are working very hard to put together a wonderful program.  Rhea V. Almeida, LCSW, Ph.D, our keynote speaker will talk about domestic violence and transformational family counseling.  Other speakers include Former Senator Sharon Grosfeld, Domestic Violence Laws and their Impact on Women, Lisa Dressner, MSW, Domestic Violence and Adolescents

Wanjiru Kamau, Ph.D., Domestic Violence and the Immigrant Population, Maya Gupta, Ph.D., The Human-Animal Bond and Violence Intervention, and Renee Butler-Smith, Doctoral Student, Capella University, Domestic Violence, Prevention and Dating.  We are also inviting graduate students to present poster sessions.  If you are interested, please send me an email at enyang@aol.com.  For more information and to register for the conference, please go to our Website (www.mdcounseling.org).

We have a new website, designed and managed by Dr. Marilyn Maze.  We now offer easy access to conference registration, newsletters, volunteer opportunities, and important resource (including a list of supervisors).  You can also join MACD and pay for membership and conferences with just a couple of clicks of your mouse.  Take a look at the new website at www.mdcounseling.org.

We will also continue to publish our quarterly newsletters, send out important legislative information via our listserv, participate in ACA Southern Regional activities, and work with and support our divisions.

NEWS FROM DIVISIONS

MCDA EVENTS

 The Maryland Career Development Association held its annual conference a Loyola Graduate Center in Columbia on January 23.  Transforming Career Jitters into Career Confidence in a Challenging Economy, the conference theme, clearly resonated with career counselors.  Topics included an explanation of the economics behind the long term projections of employment, how to uncover dependable strengths, and a variety of breakout sessions.  Future events include a workshop called “Link Up, Link In, Using Online Resources to Enhance your Career Goals” near the end of March in the Gaithersburg area and a workshop called “Interpreting Labor Market Information in the Current Economy” near the end of April in Hunt Valley.  Watch the MCDA Website (http://www.MDCareers.org) for more details on these workshops.

 VALUES IN COUNSELING

Do you believe spiritual, ethical and religious values are essential to the overall development of the person?  Are you committed to integrating these values into the counseling process? Then become a member or get active again Maryland’s Association for Spiritual, Ethical and Religious Values in Counseling (MASERVIC) and help to create a counseling environment that:

1.       Empowers

2.       Enables expression

3.       Encourages exploration

4.       Fosters development

5.       Applies research

MASERVIC members embrace these values as they relate to the person, to society and to the profession of counseling and human development. MASERVIC is  a division of the Maryland Association for Counseling and Development (MACD) which in turn is a branch of the American Counseling Association (ACA).  ASERVIC (the national ACA association) celebrates their 35^thanniversary this year with 4000 members of varying faiths and beliefs.

While MASERVIC is far from reaching 4000 members, we are looking to re-energize this division with current and new members.  Through active participation, volunteering, leadership and creativity, we can develop newsletter articles, website resources, workshops, conference ideas, etc. that fit within MACD’s mission of promoting public confidence and trust in the counseling profession and influencing policies that affect professional counselors and the welfare of the diverse clients we serve.  

So if you are interested in writing a MASERVIC article for MACD’s newsletter, have some ideas to give MASERVIC a presence on MACD’s website, thoughts on possible MASERVIC workshops and suggestions on how to be active in this year’s annual MACD conference on May 1, 2009 – send me an email and let’s get this ball rolling! Membership in MASERVIC is free from now until July 1, 2009 – thereafter, only $5 annually for students/retirees and $10 annually for regular members with your annual MACD dues! Sign-up today!

Marsha Boveja Riggio, Ph.D., LPC, NCC

MASERVIC President

marsha@drriggio.com

NECA AWARDS LUNCHEON AT ACA CONFERENCE

MACD members attend the American Counseling Association Conference in Charlotte are invited to attend the NECA Awards Luncheon & Social Justice Institute

Friday, March 20, 2009

11:45 am--4:30 pm

(prior to the annual ACA Convention)

Westin Hotel, Charlotte, North Carolina

Harris Room

Registration Form

You may also register online at www.employmentcounseling.org

See NECA Website or ACA website (www.counseling.org)

for more program details, location, accommodations, and on-line registration

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM (Submit one form for each individual)

Name__________________________________________________ Daytime Phone_________________________

Organization______________________________________ Special Needs ________________________________________

Address___________________________________________ E-Mail (required)_____________________________________

City ______________________________________________ State/Prov _____________ Postal Code __________________

Payment by Check � Credit Card Type: M/C � Visa � Amex � Billing Zipcode (if different )________________

Card Number: ________________________________________________Expiration (month/year) ________ / _________

NOTE: For payment via invoice, send email to kbrawley@mindspring.com for a NECA ID number

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FEE…………………………$75

Includes: Full Hot Brunch, Resource Materials, CEUs

July 1, 2008

You may register by email by sending all registration and credit card information to kbrawley@mindspring.com

If registering by regular mail, print out form and send completed copy with Fee Payment or credit card information to

Institute Director Dr. Kay Brawley, 38 Ocean Way Drive, Ponce Inlet, FL 32237-7313

REQUEST FORM THE MACD BOARD

Please let us know if you are planning on attending the ACA conference in Charlotte this year.  It would be a great time for us to share a table at the Opening Party or get together for lunch or dinner. Please contact Elizabeth Nyang at 301 693 5410 or via email (enyang@aol.com) and let her know when you will arrive and where you will be staying.

Using Metaphors to Get Unstuck

Do you find your clients describe themselves as “stuck”? Do they repeat behavioral patterns, even though, cognitively, they’ve developed pretty good insight into them and made clear plans for how behave differently? Perhaps they describe it as “going around in circles” or being “a hamster on a wheel, unable to get off.” How often have you taken many sessions with a client before determining that the key issue to resolve is not the presenting problem, but something far deeper and more fundamental? What I’ve found is a technique that often determines that core issue(s) in the first session, in a gentle and respectful way that leaves the client feeling in control and safe. And rather than me providing the solution, I  facilitate the client to find his/her own, which in and of itself, is both honoring and empowering.

Most people readily describe how a feeling or an issue is for them in metaphor. What I’ve discovered in using with a technique called Symbolic Modeling that works with personal metaphors, is that these metaphors often hold much more information than the client is aware of cognitively; in fact, they hold the “keys” to getting “unstuck” and to healing.

Symbolic Modeling is a therapeutic process developed by psychotherapists Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, based on the work of psychotherapist David Grove. Using Grove’s Clean Language, a progressive questioning technique based on clients’ exact words, the facilitator works with a client’s internalized metaphors to symbolically clarify personal beliefs, goals, and conflicts, and to bring about meaningful change. Fine, you say, but what practical good is working in symbols?

Studies of the brain suggest that experiences and emotions are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain in the form of images and symbols. These may not be readily accessible to the left hemisphere, center of our verbal and problem-solving capabilities. It appears that Symbolic Modeling brings what is stored in the right hemisphere, often subconsciously, into the left hemisphere, into words and consciousness. No longer inaccessible, one can now explore these symbols: their attributes, organization, interactions, and patterns. These metaphors may be limiting a client’s ways of coping, due to the metaphors’ prescribed inner logic. By helping the client determine what s/he needs to change to meet his/her desired outcomes, transformative shifts can occur within a client’s metaphors, bringing about meaningful change on cognitive, affective and behavioral levels.

In other words, working with the symbols does address the client’s patterns, beliefs, emotions, etc. that influence every day behavior. Insight into the sources and meanings of these metaphors does not seem to be necessary for healing and change. The mind appears to know how to help itself if we just connect the parts. In metaphor, the client knows what needs healing, on multiple and deep levels.

Not sure how this would work? Go to: http://tinyurl.com/69m8gh  and look up the archived radio show from 8/9/08 “Discover the Transformational Powers of Your Personal Metaphors.” You can hear me discuss Symbolic Modeling and facilitate interviewer Jon Mejia in a live session, as Jon addresses his desire to stick to an exercise program.

What’s a Session like for a Client?

Symbolic Modeling is a language-based mind/body therapy with three basic components:

Metaphors: these metaphors aren’t created the way you might pick one when writing a poem; instead, you experience them as they already exist in your mind, and you are now discovering them. The images which make up your metaphors relate to one another, and it is in these relationships that the patterns of your behavior, feelings and thoughts are mirrored.

Clean Language: The Symbolic Modeling facilitator uses a unique sentence structure, based on your exact words, to ask questions about the images you describe. The facilitator focuses your attention on their details and their relationships with one another. The facilitator’s speech does not sound like ordinary conversation; it is grammatically awkward and very sparse. This encourages you not to engage cognitively or conversationally with the facilitator. S/he is there to guide your exploration of your metaphors, not to interpret their meanings or add observations or determine what you should do with them. This is very much a client-centered process.

            Modeling: Together, the facilitator and you are working on developing a full picture of your Metaphor Landscape. Through a series of questions, and possibly over a number of sessions, you will collect details about your metaphors by and through which you have stored your experiences and responses to those experiences.

Think of building a model town for a train garden. It is full of objects which serve a variety of purposes. You might have a train, running on a track, which may split in places. The tracks may go by a bank, a school house, and homes. There may be switch controls which regulate the train’s going and coming. About each of these, there will be added details and purposes.

Similarly, you and your facilitator are creating a model of your internal metaphors to explore. In a surprisingly emotional and visceral way, you’ll discover there are things you want to change with these images, and your facilitator will help guide you through discovering how that can happen. As changes occur with your metaphors, profound shifts are also felt emotionally, as the mind seems to ‘rewire its circuits.’

Clients typically describe a session with these words and phrases: “Wow!...amazing!...visceral…rich…goes so deep so quickly…it feels like something really important happened…I’ve done lots of therapy before, and I never realized….It’s gone, it’s simply gone; I’ve been feeling guilty and anxious about [X], and now all that’s gone.”

This mind/body technique helps clients get ‘unstuck’, find their own solutions, and move towards their desired outcomes.

Gina Campbell  has a private counseling practice, located in the Ruscombe Mansion Community Wellness Center in Baltimore, where she works one-on-one with clients using Symbolic Modeling. Visit www.ruscombe.org, go to ‘Select Your Practitioner,’ and ‘Counseling’ for more details. She also offers training in facilitating using Symbolic Modeling and Clean Language.

Background:

Gina has a Master’s degree in School Counseling from Loyola College in Maryland and is a Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator through the National Association for Biblio/Poetry Therapy, of which she currently serves as president. She has trained in Symbolic Modeling at The Omega Institute in New York, in England and France with its developers, Penny Tompkins and James Lawley. She is a Certified Foundation Level Symbolic Modeling Facilitator.  You can contact her at www.symbolicmodeling.comor  gina@symbolicmodeling.com

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Outpatient Christian Counseling Practice has pt/ft openings for LCSW-C or LCPC. Various locations throughout Southern MD, suburban MD, Anne Arundel County and Baltimore metro regions. To apply go to www.safeharbor1.com or email resume to cebuckingham@comcast.net, selena@safeharbor1.com or Eriksundquist@safeharbor1.com . Practice utilizes Christian based- Clinically sound treatment approach.

The National Association for Poetry Therapy

 29th Annual Conference

Embracing Poetic Expression:

 Creative Pathways for Self, Community, and the World

April 15-19, 2009

Crowne Plaza National Airport Hotel

Arlington, VA

Friday, April 17  2:00-4:00 pm  Session B-3

 Symbolic Modeling: A Different Way of Working with Metaphors
Symbolic Modeling is a mind/body counseling approach that taps into subconsciously held beliefs and patterns, held in the mind as symbols and images, and works with them to bring about greater clarity, eliminate blocks, and enable change. First developed for working with trauma patients, it is now applied to a broad range of counseling issues, as well as in business, leadership development, and a wealth of other contexts. Learn about the technique, observe a brief demo, and get a taste of what it’s like to explore your personal metaphors!

Presenter: Gina Campbell (MEd., CAPF) began her study of Symbolic Modeling in 2003.  Attracted to another way to use metaphors, she studied with Tompkins and Lawley, developers of the technique, in Europe. Gina brings this pioneering work to this side of the Pond, facilitating individual clients in person and by phone. She also offers training in the Symbolic Modeling method. www.symbolicmodeling.com

About NAPT       The National Association for Poetry Therapy is an energetic, world-wide community of poets, writers, journal keepers, helping professionals, health care professionals, educators, and lovers of words who recognize and appreciate the healing power of language.
  Poetry facilitators and therapists work in mental health, medical, geriatric, therapeutic, educational and community settings. The term "poetry therapy" encompasses bibliotherapy (the interactive use of literature) and journal therapy (the use of life-based reflective writing) as well as therapeutic storytelling, the use of film in therapy, and other language-based healing modalities. For more information, go to www.poetrytherapy.org .

Credentials         Those who wish to become practitioners of poetry therapy are invited to explore the Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator (CAPF), or, for licensed mental health professionals, Certified Poetry Therapist (CPT) and Registered Poetry Therapist (PTR) credential training programs offered by trainers credentialed by the National Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy. Visit www.nfbpt.com for more information.

Attention, Counselors!

® Do you have clients who are stuck in old patterns or beliefs?

® Seeking a client-centered technique that keeps you out of your client’s content?

® Want to empower clients to trust their inner knowing and find their own solutions?

® Looking for a technique that works on the mind/body level?

And want to do all this using a creative and engaging process

that you'll find both fascinating and enjoyable?

Mining Your Metaphors

with Symbolic Modeling & Clean Language

Levels I Training                   Level II Training

June 23-24, 2009                    June 25-29, 2009

in Baltimore, MD

   Hidden within us lie precious resources: the images and symbols that are our minds and bodies’ way of storing our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, memories, experiences, body responses—all of it, past and present—that make up who we are. You can work with those images or metaphors with surprising results!

“Transform your imagery to transform your life.”

   Learn the basics of Symbolic Modeling and Clean Language—a systematic process for working with your client’s metaphors to promote decision-making, creativity, personal healing and growth. Get at the deep-rooted sources of issues and insights which may not be accessible at the conscious level. And learn to do so in a way that keeps the facilitator’s influence to a minimum.

The training balances didactic explanations with lots of hands-on experience and practice so you leave with both an understanding of the what’s and why’s of Symbolic Modeling and Clean Language AND basic skills.

Cost:  $900    ($300 for Level I only-2 days  / $ 600 for Level II only -4 days)

Be among the first six people to register for Levels I & II, and receive a $50 discount!

NBCC CEUs available—Level I 14 hours,  Level II 26 hours

To schedule a session or for more details, visit www.symbolicmodeling.com,

or contact gina@symbolicmodeling.com or 410-560-1170

Find out if Symbolic Modeling and Clean Language training is right for you. Schedule a phone session and experience how powerful working with your own metaphors can be. Cost: $80

Testimonials

Clear, well-structured, excellent modeling.  I feel I have a good start both in theory and practice.           

  - Susan Cook-Greuter,   developmental psychologist, Boston, MA

After the training I was excited to teach the faculty how to use Clean Language to be more effective in listening to parents, and in resolving conflicts that arise with students.  Using drawing to explore metaphors is a natural with young people unable to articulate their experiences or goals,both individually and in groups.      

  -Jill Rowan, LCPC/school counselor, Baltimore, MD

ACA 2009 Conference:  March 19-March 23

Dear Counseling Students:

The American Counseling Association is holding its next annual conference in March of 2009 in Charlotte, North Carolina

Attending the conference is a fantastic learning experience, a great way to network, and an opportunity to appreciate an academic experience with peers from our counseling program. 

If you are interested in attending, and/or would like more information, please contact the VP of the Student and Alumni Counseling Association (SACA), Tabitha Wurster, at tabitha.wurster@gmail.com

START EARLY:

COLLEGE& CAREER PLANNING SERVICE

“EARLY INTERVENTION IS THE KEY”

Marjorie A. Goode, M.Ed

Educational Consultant

agoode2003@yahoo.com

www.startearlycollege-careerplanning.com

301-924-7027

Rockville, Maryland

26 years of school counseling experience