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One of the things I like to work with online is diaries or journals. I use them both professionally and personally. Since online counselling works with the written word anyway, this age old technique is easilly adapted.
You can chose a form and medium that fits you:
- a plain piece of paper
- a nice album
- a blog online
- a word document on your computer
But that is only the start. If you think a written document is always boring and just ink or computer letters, think again! This form of writing can also appeal to people who like to paint or even scrapbook. Like I am doing here with images, you can use any form creativity to make your document look nice.
On the computer you can further work with colors, and drawing, you can photoshop your photo's.
On paper the world is your oyster. Draw, paint, do whatever you like to make your document look the way you want it, and feel like it is yours.
How does this tie in with therapy you might ask? It helps you to find who you really are. For some people this is achieved by writing, this can be free writing, or from suggestions of your therapist. You will be amazed how much surfaces when you set pen to paper. The same way with drawing. A therapist might ask you to draw your perfect house, or draw a picture of how you see yourself and than see what happens. Don't worry you don't have to be an artist to achieve this. What is important is that it is coming from your soul.
Curious? On the left you can see one of the books I love to perruse and work with. The auther is Capacchione and the title the creative journal.
Why not give it a try? And if you would like more guidance you can always contact me.
One of the great things of the internet, you can attend a conference without leaving your own home. Last week there was a virtual conference taking place in second life, organised by counselor education in second life. I had been in there once before, but to say that I know a lot about it would be an overstatement. That is why I took some time during the days before to make a new avatar and to make sure that I at least had the skills to make her sit down. But in case I totally sucked I had the backup of onlineventswho were going to show the whole conference few of charge. The great thing was also that their chatroom was integrated into the chatroom of the conference.
Let me give an overview of some of the lectures I attended, it will give you a bit of an idea of what was discussed.
Wednesday:
I attended the opening session and I must say I was very busy watching what other avatars looked like etc and amazed at the technology of second life.
Keynote session: sexualized Role Play in Second Lie and Beyond.
I was a bit surprised that the conference opened with a discussion on a topic like this. But soon I was watching and found myself imagining the benefits this might have for counsellors working with sexual issues in clients. So much is possible in SL. You can make your avatar very life like. :) And to use this in issues, make it vivid so to speak, yes I can see the benefits in that.
Counseling in Genderland
As this is still a controversial topic, I was very interrested to hear this lecture. I have not worked with Transgendered clients myself, but I firmly believe that there are people who were born in the 'wrong' body. And that they are entitled to care and the possibility to change bodies. SL can help in this process. Before trying to live as the other gender in real life, they could safely practice the other gender role in SL and get a feel for it already.
Demonstrating Cyberculture through Film: Life 2.0.
We started with watching the trailer for this movie. It does show some of the drawbacks of SL. The people who get into it too much and forget their first life. How healthy is it to be in SL more than 18 hours a day? Is it adultery to have a cyber affair on SL? all interresting questions for a counsellor. The cases of internet addictions will only grow in the future and how many of us are prepared for that? Do we run the risk of addiction ourselves when we work on the computer and also do our research there? How would you help couples with relationship issues if you don't know about cyberculture? So much to think about.
On thursday morning there would be a tai-chi session, I was interresting to watch that, as I did not think my avatar could manage it. But I could not find the location. Instead I did find the meditation area and tried a little bit of that.
Competencies in Addressing the Christian Client's Worldview.
This morning there were some technological problems. It wasn't until halfway through the lecturetime that the sound came back. That shows that even with many experts in one room, technology can still let us down. That is why it is important to have backups when working online with clients. Make sure there is an emergency telephone number you can reach each other on, so one of you is not left hanging and waiting what is going on.
The lecture had to be cut very short and it lost some because of that.
CACREP goes international with IRCEP: the international registry of counselor education programs.
Very interresting to hear that there is now some movement to come to international counselling standarts. IRCEP will try to do that and counselling institutions from all over the world can apply. Right now there is such a difference between counselling education all over the world, in some countries it means a masters degree, in other countries you can call yourself a counsellor without any training again. Which makes it important for the client to check a counsellor's education before starting work with them.
So the conference gave me a lot to think about. I like the medium that Second Life is. I can see a lot of possibilities to use it in counselling. But before I could ever contemplate that I would have to get a lot more familiar with it. And find out how secure it is. Can it be encrypted so the client's anonymity can be guaranteed.
I would love to get feedback about what other people think about SL and counselling.
Counselling & Coaching are both professions where you are never finished with your studying. Sure you have your degree and your work but the world around us changes. New methods are found and tested and to be honest most of us are just plain curious. I definately fall into that category. Since finishing college and starting work I have always done some studying on the side. Sometimes for work and sometimes just *gasp* for fun. Right now all my studying and reading is geared towards online working. I will read about social media, networking, marketing but also about how to work effectively online. This week there is a conference in and about second life I am thinking about attending. I very much see the advantages of working in second life and making an avatar that expresses who you are inside. My only problem... second life is still one of my challenges online. I have been able to finally dress my avatar but adding hair is still beyond me. So the next few days I am going to give it one more try to teach myself new skills. And hopefully I will feel confident to attend.
I have talked about TILT magazine before and as I have now finished reading the magazine I would like to say some more. It is pretty exciting as this is one of the first magazines focussing completely on online work.
I am going to focus on the articles that struck me the most.
What would you do?
This invites the reader to participate by posting their reply to a dilemma. This one is pretty close to my own heart. What would you do when others tag you in photos on the internet that you rather not be tagged in. you can post your reply on the forum. You can be so carefull about your own internet security making everything friends only but you don't always have control over what others write about you. Or post photo's of you.
Want to know what is in the top 10 hits when you type your name? Try this Dutch site. WieDanOok The text is in Dutch but it is pretty simple. Time your first and last name in the search box and see what comes up. you might be surprised.
Alice in virtualland
An article about the journey that a therapist and a client, Alice, make together. The client is already welversed in how new media work, she spends a lot of time on the internet and has a virtual life in Second Life. For this she has created an avatar a 11 year old girl. The therapist, Lucy has a lot of experience and is totally confident at the beginning of therapy. But because she is a novice when it comes to computers, she totally misses the point of Alice's troubles. And only after many a session do they both realise this. At this point Lucy's journey of learning about new technology begins.
I think this raises a very important issue. Therapists working today, are going to get more and more clients, especially younger ones, for whom an important part of their lives take place online. Facebook, twitter, second life and words like avatar, tweet are normal to them. If we want to be able to relate we can't but help get familiar in this new world as well.
There are many more interresting articles, tips, reviews etc in the magazine, but I suggest you read them yourself.
The magazine is free and you can download it to your computer or your ereader like I did.
If you want to read the magazine for yourself you can download it here.
I grew up in such a different world. When I was a teenager there were no computers. [And I am not even ancient] No mp3 players, DVD players or mobile phones. We were lucky to have kids programs on one of the two tv channels on wednesday afternoon for three straight hours.
Boy what a different world it is today. Most kids have their own computer next to their other electronic toys. And for a lot of adults teenage conversations are hard to follow. Think about text message language that is finding it's way to being used on the computer as well. For therapists it poses more problems. When you start to work online, you have to think carefully about how you want to present yourself online. What do you want clients to be able to find about you? And are you going to try to find out about clients? And what about the past? The things that are already online?
If you would like to find out more about online counselling, since this month there is a new magazine available. And of course it is online. It is in English and will be published bi-monthly. The world of online counselling is growing daily, and more and more people are finding out how it suits their needs to be able to go online for their counselling needs. No travel, you can reply when it suits you and it is often cheaper than f2f counselling. Also more and more counsellors are getting especially qualified to be online counsellors. One of these is Online training for counsellors. They also have a register where you can check out the counsellors who qualified through them.
Welcome to the first blogpost on the new blogsite. Please feel free to come by often as I do plan to keep this blog stocked with useful information for you.
Welkom op deze eerste blogpost van mijn nieuwe website. Ik hoop dat ik je hier veel vaker mag begroeten omdat ik van plan ben deze site vaak te updaten met handige informatie die voor jou van belang kan zijn.
Are you curious to what Safe Haven Coaching can mean for you? Please have a look at the official websitehttp://www.safehavencoaching.eu/. You will find that it is a bilingual site.
Ben je benieuwd wat Safe Haven Coaching voor jou kan betekenen? Neem dan een kijkje op de officiële website. Deze website is twee-talig.
Feel free to ask me for more information: info@safehavencoaching.eu
Vraag gerust om wat meer informatie: info@safehavencoaching.eu
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