My theory

...or really my passion--I've discovered it!

Families are my passion.  I want to help families be whole and healthy.  I want to help parents raise their kids well.  I want kids to feel loved and invested in by their parents, and to be best friends with their parents, just like I am with mine.  I absolutely love the experience I had growing up in my family.  And I want everyone to be able to say the same thing.

Every family is different, but I think a family is successful when kids feel substantially equipped by their parents, and emotionally close to their parents, so that when they grow up, children and parents are able to relate to each other as close friends, able to mutually encourage each other.  A child should feel that his parents are his most supportive allies.  I believe this kind of encouraging and supportive relationship can be maintained even through developmental years.

I have often tried to put these concepts together in my mind, sort of in search of a theory to neatly summarize what makes a family good.  Here are my thoughts on a few key components:
Consistent time together: families need consistent time spent together to be friends with each other and get to know each other.  The time spent together will foster the most openness and support if vulnerability and value are present in those times.
Vulnerability: mutual sharing of concerns, struggles, dreams, desires.  Sharing the deep places together vulnerably contributes to closeness in a family and enables them to understand one another.  It also leads to opportunities to value each other.
Value: Communicated a number of ways, value is placed on others especially in moments of vulnerability.  It comes through empathy, encouraging words, words of hope about the future, speaking to a person's identity, and also through physical touch and all the other love languages.

Parents are responsible for arranging/requiring consistent times of interaction for the family.  Within those times parents must invite vulnerability and model valuing of family members, and vice versa as well.  Children will grow into these traits as they see them modeled are invited by parents to practice them.

So I realize this post is a little over-enthusiastic and simplistic, but it's a work in progress.  Thoughts?  Additions?

Unfinished Stories

Have you ever wondered what to say when someone asks how something or someone has changed your life?

My experience usually goes something like this:
Question I read in a book: "How has Jesus changed your life?"
My thoughts: "I'm supposed to have a great answer to this question."
Book: Gives wonderful example answer involving turning from a life of addiction, dramatic conversion experience, and ninjas.
My thoughts: "hmm, my story isn't really like that."  "What is my story?"  "Why can't I think of anything?"  "Did Jesus really make a difference in my life?"  "Sarah, don't be silly, of course he did!  You have learned and grown so much!"  "Why can't I think of anything?"

I mean, my story isn't like the other stories I hear that sound, well, exciting and dramatic.  My story feels much more steady and even-keeled, with no huge turning points, only lots of little ones.  It's always bothered me that I find it difficult to answer the question, "How has Jesus changed your life?"

I think it's because all my stories are unfinished.  There's nothing I can look at and say, "I used to really mess this up, but now I get it right."  It doesn't mean I'm not changing and learning, it just means I'm learning and changing more of the same things continually.

Here are some of the dimensions where my life keeps changing:
Learning to spend time with Jesus
Knowing Jesus
Learning who Jesus says I am
Learning to share and be generous
Learning humility
Learning to love other people with actions
Learning to communicate acceptance with words

There are many others, those are just the few that come to mind at the moment.  The thing is, they're all unfinished.

Rejection.

The door is closed.
It seems unopenable, impenetrable, immovable;
it doesn't really matter that it was closed inch by inch
until the last crack of light disappeared,
instead of slammed shut in an instant;
it is closed for now.
The phone buzzes.
It's a final word from a former friend,
words of anger, words that pierce;
"I don't like what you said, I won't be your friend,"
the message sinks past defenses to the vulnerable heart;
will it stay that way?
Avoided glances.
This hurts almost more than the words that were spoken,
a constant reminder of friend torn asunder,
and the heart wants to harden, to strengthen defenses,
to numb all the hurts,
yet it remains open.

25 pages...

means I have just finished writing the longest paper of my life.

I am happy to say I have come a long ways in paper-writing since I first started this blog.  No, I do not have many blog posts to show for the paper I just finished.  But I understand the process a lot better.  Or rather, I've developed a process that's starting to work for me.

For this paper I knew I had to start more than a month in advance for several reasons: 1) I had never written a paper longer than 16 pages and didn't even know if I was capable of writing 25 pages of double-spaced text; 2) my prof straight up required us to have 20 sources; 3) I decided based on previous paper-writing experiences that familiarity with sources definitely helps the medicine go down; 4) reading 20 sources takes a very long time.

Well, I didn't end up reading 20 sources, but I did read significant parts of at least 13 sources.  In fact, out of all the time I spent on this paper, probably about half of it was spent reading and taking notes on sources.  I hadn't written anything aside from a single blog entry (on the medical model) until less than a week before my paper was due.

For the sake of drama, let me chronicle the last few days of the process leading up to the Monday 12:30pm due date:

Thursday.  Usually I'd be busy seeing clients all day, but I had half the day off, so I finished reading a source I had started and was able to write the first 2 pages of my paper.

Friday. After working two hours at my job in the morning I come home and send out a call to prayer by email to faithful friends letting them know I'm feeling quite overwhelmed at the prospect of writing 23 more pages by Monday.  I work until my meeting at 5pm, and still have only written 2 more pages.  The girls I meet with from 5-6:15pm encourage me that God will help me write my paper.  I go home and write another 4 pages, and also add in the blog about the medical model, which puts me up to 9 pages.  I am not feeling very happy with the pace of my writing and estimate that if I continue at the same pace I will not finish on time.

Saturday.  I wake up and read my Bible and ask Jesus to help me with my paper.  While I am praying, I get the idea that instead of writing sections of the paper in order, section by section, I should try writing source by source, and just plug in the information from each source into the appropriate section.  I apply this strategy and work until a bridal shower that night, with a brief break to choreograph some of my new rap parody.  By the time I leave for the shower I have 17 pages, which has me feeling very pleased.  I come home and am able to add only 1 more page, putting my total up to 18.  I have finished adding the information from all my source notes, and I go to bed.

Sunday. It's my Sabbath, so I don't work on my paper at all.  Now maybe you understand why I was afraid of not finishing.

Monday.  I wake up at 6am and work straight until 11:45am.  I had been sleeping a little fitfully the night before and woke up ready to start working.  I had been worried about what I would add to my paper, not knowing how I would get another 7 pages since I had already used the information from my sources.  But I just start working through the paper and adding transitions and explanations between all the information from my sources, and the paper keeps growing.  At 11:45 I had three lines on the 25th page.  Done.  I emailed it in and left the house within ten minutes to catch the bus.  I even made it to class on time.  I feel AWESOME!  I think I am smiling super huge and dancing in my seat the whole bus ride.  I try not to smile to big at my classmates who all look dead tired, but I feel FULL of energy and enthusiasm.

What did I learn? 

1. Source by source writing is TONS easier than section by section writing.  Before I wasted so much time looking for the facts I needed and wondering if I was missing anything.  This way it was all included and I just put it in whatever section needed it most.  I'm really thankful God shared that secret with me :)
2. Jesus provides for me!  And that's why I take a Sabbath, to remember that Jesus can provide for me and does provide for me despite my best efforts.
3. Reading sources and taking notes on them is worth it.
4. I can write 9 pages in one day.
5. Starting to actually write more than a week in advance would probably be a great idea next time.
6. Finishing a task that seemed overwhelming and impossible well and on time is a completely exhilarating feeling!

Oh, and the paper was about evidence-based practice in psychology, but who cares?

The Medical Model

The medical model has long been the dominant model of our time for providing health services.  It has the most power, the most money, and the largest following.  Essentially it has these core components: a disorder, a scientific explanation for that disorder, a mechanism of change, healing actions, and specificity.  The disorder is whatever the problem or complaint is that puts the patient in need of services.  The scientific explanation is the etiology of that problem according to relevant research or theory.  The mechanism of change is whatever strategy will be used to solve the problem.  Healing actions are the specific interventions applied to the patient.  Specificity is the inference that the healing actions are what cures the patient.  These comprise the core of the medical model.

In the realm of medicine the strategy used is applying medical knowledge, and the healing actions are the actual treatments given, but in psychology the strategy is the theoretical approach of a given counselor, and the healing actions are the specific interventions used.  In medicine the interventions are physiochemical, but in psychology the interventions are psychological.  Both have incidental, or placebo, effects that are psychological.  This poses somewhat of a problem for psychology as both the specific interventions and the incidental effects are psychological.  Perhaps the medical model is not the best framework for psychology.

Nevertheless, psychology has adopted the medical model, which means it has had to fight for turf in the medical arena.  In the 1990s psychopharmacology started to assert that its treatments were more effective and more proven.  In response, psychology had to prove the effectiveness of its own treatments, which led to manualized treatments and contributed greatly to the thrust now known as evidence-based practice.

In the medical model everything must be proven, and since psychology has professionally fallen into this model, it leads to specific treatments having to be documented and then proven through research, as if they were a new drug being tested.

Counseling in the Chinese World Consultation: Diamond in the Rough

…or in the jungles of Thailand, as it were.

This consultation was not well known outside of certain circles, nor was it advertised beyond a few notifications.  It was arranged by humble people doing significant work, and attended by the same.  I did not have much idea of what to expect in coming here, but what I found was valued relationships, insightful discussions, rest for the weary, and vulnerable stories.

What made the conference so beautiful was the people who came.  We had counselors, professors, community leaders, counselor-trainers, students, spouses, nonprofit workers, and supervisors.  And they came from a variety of backgrounds, some from Chinese backgrounds, some from Western backgrounds, and some from a mix, and current living situations in all parts of China (Beijing, Chengdu, Sichuan, Kunming), Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and America.  Some came as teams, some as individuals, some as couples, and even some as families.  Many already knew some others, and many new connections were made.

Our backgrounds greatly enriched the conference but also posed some challenges.  The greatest challenge revolved around the truly bilingual composure of our group.  A little more than half of our 28 participants spoke Chinese as their heart language, and the remaining spoke English.  Of course, the vast majority of the group spoke both languages, enough to benefit from proceedings in either language, but a few speakers did not understand much at all of the other language.  So even though the least bilingual among us spoke at least some of the other language, it was not enough to understand a session.  This meant that a burden of translation fell onto the small portion of our members who spoke both languages well enough to translate.

Translation was a struggle throughout the conference, and taxed our most fluent members heavily.  We tried several different strategies, most often choosing to have simultaneous translation for small groups of people at a time so as not to slow down our meetings.  This language divide also permeated our informal interactions, with participants of the same heart language more likely to connect with each other than primary speakers of opposite languages.  However, I was impressed to see bilingual meal tables and a lot of code-switching (e.g. switching between English and Chinese), and plenty of persistent participants making connections with speakers of opposite languages as well.

Personally, I found the bilingual nature of this conference delightful yet stretching.  I was a little nervous when, as a primary English speaker, I was placed in a small group with three primary Chinese speakers.  I thought our small group would probably have to operate completely in Chinese, and worried that this might keep me from fully participating.  Our small group did operate mostly in Chinese, but I was absolutely delighted to discover that I could understand almost everything that my group members were saying.  Of course I didn’t understand every single word, but I understood their stories and what they were communicating.  And I even learned new words, and was reminded of old words I had forgotten, just from context.  This is extremely exciting to me because my cross-cultural growing up experience has made language a crucial issue for me.  One of my greatest longings is to have more language ability.  It is always disappointing when I realize how much more there is to learn, or compare my Chinese ability to my English ability and find them so disparate.  Conversely, it is always a great joy when I discover that I have succeeded in a new way or have made significant progress in learning Chinese.  The new success that I delighted in this time was that of understanding Chinese spoken on a vulnerable heart level.  Never before had I had Chinese friends communicate with me on the heart level in Chinese.  I felt I was opening new doors of potential for vulnerability in cross-cultural friendships.  I still cannot communicate in Chinese on that heart level, so thankfully my group was able to find a happy medium in that it was completely acceptable for me to talk in English, since they all understood it well enough to understand what I was saying.  So we had a small group in which each of us spoke in our heart language, and all of us understood.  This was truly precious to me.

It was stretching too in that I also got tired.  I can understand a lot, but it takes more work to understand Chinese than it does to just listen in English.  Listening in English is like breathing.  Listening in Chinese is like treading water.  My mother would add that listening to both simultaneously is like running uphill.  I sincerely admire international students who have learned English as a second language and now attend classes in that language.  If I was already feeling tired, I had to force myself to keep paying attention and understanding instead of just tuning out.  There are also other levels of understanding that I have not yet reached.  When in our meeting we watched four group members have an academic-level discussion on major issues that arise in doing counseling in the Chinese Christian world, there was too much that I could not understand, so I had to listen to someone else translate.  I dream of the day when I will be able to not only understand that level of discussion, but also communicate well enough to participate.

This conference also produced the treasure of rich discussions built on our diverse backgrounds, and facilitated by our flexible schedule.  When attending a conference, one usually expects to be given a schedule of specifically what will happen when, accompanied by appropriate descriptions.  The schedules that we were given upon arrival had very little detail, as well as very little correspondence to what actually happened during our conference.  I suppose fewer numbers of people all staying in the same place and eating the same meals does allow for easy rescheduling with just one announcement.  What really happened is that we would start one session and everyone got so involved that it went overtime.  Also, we took long breaks.  The breaks were supposed to be only 30 minutes long, but they turned out to be more like an hour long.  However, no one seemed to mind, because what was happening during the breaks was the same as what was happening in the sessions, people were sharing stories and learning from each other and encouraging each other.  In fact, this is what happened the whole week no matter what we were doing.  Whether we were in a session, in small groups, eating, walking, or just standing around talking, the stories and learning continued.

We had two “fishbowl” discussions that were particularly interesting.  Four or five people were chosen to discuss a certain topic while everyone else watched.  For the first we had a professor, a community leader, a counselor-trainer/director, and a former community leader who is now a counselor.  All were native Chinese with experience working in China.  They discussed tricky issues involved in doing counseling in the Chinese world.  It seems there are a complicated set of expectations that clients have for counselors and community leaders in China.  For example, community leaders are often expected to do counseling for free for members of their community.  At the same time, the members may not really be serious about doing the necessary work of counseling, and use the community leader’s lack of counseling qualifications as an excuse not to engage.  Some community leaders are really not qualified, and most are overburdened with other responsibilities.  Others actually are qualified, and for them it can be helpful to let clients know their qualifications.  Clients in China respect qualifications and will be more likely to engage if they know they are working with a professional.  On the other hand, there are not many counselors at all in China, so people in certain communities are being trained to do the work of counseling without going through a formal program, by other counselors.  It was also suggested that any clients be asked to pay at least a small sum of money so that they would take counseling more seriously and be willing to engage in the work.

The second fishbowl had a Chinese couple who had worked in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake for three years, and three other people to listen and reflect with them.  Their stories were incredible and heartbreaking.  Since they were living in the earthquake zone, they too experienced the aftershocks and trauma.  They would visit a small town and return later to find it completely wiped out by an aftershock.  People disappeared as quakes continued to shake.  All day long they listened to other people’s stories and grief.  They were so full themselves that this put a lot of tension on their marriage.  The husband wanted to be alone after hearing other people’s stories all day, but the wife wanted someone to talk to.  And in some cases, the grief they were dealing with was so intense, that the wife described feeling like an idiot and not knowing anything to do.  So she just sat for three days with children who had lost both their parents because their father killed their mother in his trauma, not saying anything.  She realized the children were talking to the dog, and that was the only time they would talk.  So she talked to the dog too.  She was able to bond with them by just being there for three days, feeling their pain and talking to the dog.  Slowly this couple is being restored and renewed.  They have left the earthquake zone and are learning to laugh again.  They have more time to be together as a couple, but this is a burden that leaves slowly.

We also had several case consultations, where a member would share about a client, and the rest of us would listen and give feedback.  One psychotherapist was working in a Malaysian city that did not have many other therapists.  She was the only one with her level of qualifications, working at a local hospital.  A man with schizophrenia came to see her, but became explosive and threatening when she confronted him about sending her long emails that he expected her to read in between sessions (and in smaller communities it is much more difficult to limit access to your email address).  She struggled with on one hand feeling compassionate toward him and wanting to help him but on the other hand feeling extremely threatened by him.  His psychiatrist had already told him that he could only be seen for prescribing medicine and not for psychotherapy. In situations like these it seems best for the counselor to become a mobilizer of resources.  She cannot continue to see him, but what she can do is recommend other resources to him.  Also, confidentiality became a different story after she found out he was her next door neighbor.  People in the complex need to know, since he is in danger of harming her.  Other stories were shared and this was a valuable venue for discussing some of the challenges of providing care within a smaller community where the counselor may also be part of the community.  It becomes essential for the community as a whole to take on some burdens of caring for hurting individuals in their midst.  Again, confidentiality becomes a different issue and the counselor needs to help clients become part of community.

None of these were planned or scheduled before the conference started, but anything that happened became a platform for rich interactions full of insight.

More vulnerable stories were shared during small group times and saturated our informal interactions.  These went hand in hand with rest for the weary, because part of the soul is restored when it has a chance to share its burdens with a kindred spirit.  I had my own story unpacked when I realized through conversation with my TCK roommate for the conference that I had “more issues than I thought” when it comes to crossing cultures.  There were painful aspects of my experience that I had ignored and thought I had skipped over.  But I realized I hadn’t skipped over them, I merely failed to recognize them.  It felt so relieving to be with someone who understood because she had experienced the same, and it was good to hear her insights.

The other aspect of rest was just getting away from our normal routines and schedules, escaping to the beautiful mountains of Thailand, just up the road from an elephant training camp.  I heard people exclaiming how they were so grateful to come to this conference because it was giving them rest for their minds, souls, and bodies.  The flexible schedule also made the conference more restful, because it gave a feel of doing whatever was needed, instead of pressure to get things done or obey a schedule.

This conference was incredibly valuable to me and others who attended.  It gave us the opportunity to connect with like-minded people and care for each other.  Some participants previously felt very isolated in their work and ministry, but now feel they have support accessible through a quick email or phone call.  It gave us a chance to listen to and learn from each others’ experiences.  It gave us a chance to rest.  It enriched our perspectives on counseling in the Chinese world.  This conference was truly a blessing.
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So were the elephants down the road...

PS. See more pictures here

https://picasaweb.google.com/sarspin/ThailandElephantsAndOrchids?authkey=Gv1sRgCPr0yt609v3bqwE&feat=directlink

References

Well, I finished that paper I was working on in several earlier posts.  Indeed, I was very thankful for having practiced writing about it on this blog.  It made it much easier to get started writing when I sat down to write the paper because I already had something to work with!  That paper was much easier to write than previous papers.  It was longer too!  I think it has a lot to do with how familiar I was with the content by the time I sat down to write.  I knew the facts, and could even remember which sources they came from.  A very nice feeling.

Since I never cited anything before when I wrote on here, I thought I should at least include a list of the references I used.  See below.
References

American Board of Professional Psychology. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.abpp.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3285

American Psychological Association (2010). Accredited internship and postdoctoral programs for training in psychology: 2010. American Psychologist, 65(9), 868–893. doi: 10.1037/a0021495

American Psychological Association (2009). Statement of the APA Board of Directors on the Internship Imbalance Problem. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.appic.org/downloads/APA%2520Imbalance%2520Statement.pdf

Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.appic.org

Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. (2010). Psychology licensing exam scores by doctoral program. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.asppb.net/files/public/ASPPBPsychExamScores3-19-10.pdf

Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.asppb.org

Chin, E. M. (2009). Using externships, internships, and postdoctoral placements to your advantage. In S. F. Davis, P. J. Giordano, & C. A. Licht (Eds.), Your career in psychology (pp. 135-150). Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

DeAngelis, T. (2006). License to move. Monitor on Psychology, 37, 80. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug06/license.aspx

De Vaney Olvey, C., Hogg, A., & Counts, W. (2002). Licensure requirements: Have we raised the bar too far? Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33(3), 323-329. doi:10.1037/0735-7028.33.3.323

Hall, J. E., & Boucher, A. P. (2003). Professional mobility for psychologists: Multiple choices, multiple opportunities. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34(5), 463-467. doi:10.1037/0735-7028.34.5.463

Logsdon-Conradsen, S., Battle, J., Anderson, P., Zimand, E., Sirl, K., Stapel, J., Ventura-Cook, E., Babat, N., & Kaslow, N. (2001). Formalized postdoctoral fellowships: A national survey for postdoctoral fellows. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 32(3), 312-318. doi:10.1037/0735-7028.32.3.312

Matthews, J. R., & Matthews, L. H. (2009). Preparing for licensure. In S. F. Davis, P. J. Giordano, & C. A. Licht (Eds.), Your career in psychology (pp. 151-162). Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.nationalregister.org/about.html

Robinson, J. D., & Habben, C. J. (2003). The role of the American Board of Professional Psychology in professional mobility. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34(5), 474-475. doi:10.1037/0735-7028.34.5.474

Texas Administrative Code. (n.d.) Examining Boards, Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, Applications and Examinations, title 22, part 21, chapter 463. Retrieved from http://info.sos.state.tx.us/pls/pub/readtac$ext.ViewTAC?tac_view=4&ti=22&pt=21&ch=463&rl=Y

Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tsbep.state.tx.us

Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. (2007). Information for oral examination candidates. Retrieved from http://www.tsbep.state.tx.us/files/agencydocs/brochurenew.pdf