After having learned a bit about person-centered theory and therapy and then being exposed to behavior therapy, it makes sense to consider how you can combine the two. For me, the best first step is to integrate your person-centered attitude and skills into a behavioral problem-solving process.

 Person A: As usual, your job is to pretend that you’re a client who’s coming for counseling. You have a minor, but frustrating problem. It helps if the problem is concrete and best if you have a recent experience with it so you can describe it well.

When you sit down with your counselor, take about 5 minutes to describe your problem. Explain how bad it is, how difficult it is to change this problem, and share some of the strategies you’ve tried on your own. As the counselor listens and responds, do your best to respond genuinely back to the counselor and then go with the counseling flow.

Your counselor will engage you in a problem-solving process. Be yourself and participate as you would if you were with a “real” counselor.

Person B: You will be combining your person-centered attitudes and skills with a problem-solving approach. The basic steps to problem-solving [which you should always remember] are as follows:

1. In collaboration with the client, identify the problem. When you do this, use your listening skills to try to operationalize it in a behaviorally specific way. Remember, you can ask questions, but if/when a person-centered counselor asks questions, the questions are centered on your client’s experiences and emotions. Remember also to avoid asking two questions in a row, because you need to paraphrase before moving to another question.
2. Brainstorm (generate) a list of possible strategies that your client could use to solve or manage the problem that you’ve collaboratively identified. Remember to: (a) ask your client permission to start making the list, (b) tell your client that you’re only “making a list” to so that both of you can see all of what might be possible, and (c) therefore neither of you can criticize the alternatives/strategies on the list. In fact, you should let your client know that you’d also like to hear some bad ideas or strategies that have been tried, but that didn’t work perfectly.
3. After you’ve generated 5-10 alternatives, share/show the list to your client and then ask if it would be okay to discuss the pros and cons and likely outcomes linked to each strategy. The purpose here is to collaboratively engage in a reflective process. You’ll want to know about obstacles that might make using some strategies more difficult and potential positive or negative outcomes/side-effects of each strategy. Explore your client’s thoughts, emotions, and reactions to each of the options, using your best listening skills. Behaviorists call this process “means-ends” thinking or “consequential thinking.” Engaging in this process can be naturally behaviorally inhibiting (meaning that it can decrease the chances of an impulsive behavioral response).
4. Hand the list to your client. Ask something like, “Based on our discussion and on your feelings and thoughts, would you please rank these ideas from 1 to 8, with 1 being your first choice and 8 being your last choice (assuming there were 8 options).
5. After your client has ranked the ideas, collaboratively make an implementation and evaluation plan. Your client might choose to use 1 or 2 or 3 different strategies. That’s fine. Ask questions like, “How will you remember to try this out?” and “How will you know if your strategy is successful?” You might need to help your client understand that the goal or outcome needs to be within your client’s circle of control. You also might need to provide psychoeducation on solutions often don’t fix things quickly and that it might take weeks to see progress. Let your client know that you’ll be checking in on progress at your next meeting and that although it would be very nice if the strategy has been implemented, it’s also a success to just be thinking about implementing the plan.

Close the session by thanking your client for engaging in this process with you.