I’ll be online in about 75 minutes to present a workshop for the TexChip folks from TAMU-CC. The title of the workshop is: “Tough Kids, Cool Counseling: Strategies for Engaging and Influencing Youth.”
Here’s the link to the workshop . . . where the CEUs are free!:
You may be aware of the irony in the workshop title. . . which is the fact that very soon into the workshop I tell everyone that we should never even “think” the words “Tough kids.” The reason we drop the terminology “Tough kids” is because it blames and labels the young people with whom we’re working, and they may sense that. Instead, all we have are “Kids in tough situations” and one of the tough situations is being in counseling or therapy.
Whether I’ll see you in 75 minutes or not, here are the ppts:
As a part of a virtual symposium offered by Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, this coming Saturday, August 26, I’m doing a 2-hour free continuing education workshop from 12-2pm Mountain time (2pm-4pm Eastern). The cool thing is that the CEUs for this workshop are FREE. The less cool thing is that the workshop is on a Saturday.
My talk is: Tough Kids, Cool Counseling: Strategies for Engaging and Influencing Youth. Even better, I’ll be preceded by Dr. Russ Curtis and Dr. Katie Goetz (9am-11am Mountain time), who are presenting a 2-hour workshop on The Mindset and Clinical Skills Needed to Thrive in Integrated Care. . . and that’s 2 more FREE CEUs.
Below, I’ve pasted the blurbs and Zoom information for these online workshops.
You are invited to join Tex-Chip Virtual Symposium on Saturday, August 26, 2023, at 10am – 3pm (CST).
Dr. Russ Curtis & Dr. Katie Goetz is scheduled to present from 10am – 12pm CST on “The Mindset and Clinical Skills Needed to Thrive in Integrated Care.” In this interactive presentation, participants will learn how to integrate clinical skills with enlightening philosophical premises to expand their understanding of providing inclusive whole-person care. Attendees will develop their clinical voice through lecture, case examples, and discussions to begin asking the right questions about how to provide next-generation integrated care.
Dr. Sommers-Flanagan is scheduled to present from 1pm – 3pm CST on “Tough Kids, Cool Counseling: Strategies for Engaging and Influencing Youth.” Engaging “tough kids” in behavioral health can be immensely frustrating or splendidly gratifying. The truth of this statement is so obvious that the supportive reference, at least according to many teenagers is “Duh!” In this 2-hour workshop, participants will learn, experience, and practice several strategies for engaging and influencing youth. Several cognitive, emotional, and constructive brief counseling techniques will be described and demonstrated. Examples include acknowledging reality, positive questioning, wishes and goals, the affect bridge, the three-step emotional change trick, what’s good about you?/asset flooding, and more. Essential counseling principles, countertransference, and cultural issues will be included.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I have a friend who repeatedly espouses the glories of redundancy. Maybe that’s why some politicians stay on-message, regardless of the veracity of their statements. Of course, George Orwell and Hannah Arendt also commented on redundancy as persuasion, and not in a good way. I should emphasize that my goal for using redundancy and writing about the three-step emotional technique again has nothing to do with shaping your reality through political messaging.
When I presented on positive psychology to a bunch of UM STEM graduate students back in August, 2022, I made it very clear that I was not advocating toxic positivity. Nevertheless, in one of the student evaluations, someone complained that all I was doing was telling graduate students to “Cheer up.” Oh my. Sometimes people just hear what they want to hear. That’s a problem with over-valuing “lived experience.” When we over-value lived experience, then everything is viewed through our own, usually narrow and biased, personal lenses. Adler called this private logic. Too much private logic is too much private logic. Although we should strive to value, learn from, and share lived experiences, we should also have a shared value of this thing called . . . wait for it . . . science!
The next time I presented to the UM STEM grad students (in January, 2023), I made an explicit point of emphasizing my “non-toxic positivity street cred” by beginning the lecture with a short lesson on the three-step emotional change trick (which, BTW, with inspiration from Alfred Adler and Harold Mosak, we created as a youth psychotherapy technique in the mid-1990s). You can even find our (with Rita) original three-step article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J019v17n04_02 and a later book chapter here: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-01308-098 and, of course, I’ve written about it on this blog, and have a youtube video demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITWhMYANC5c, yada, yada, yada.
While presenting the 3SECT (which is what cool people call it) to the STEM students, there was a woman sitting toward the back. She had stationed her 8-year-old son still farther back, where he was sitting, head down, playing on her phone. I did the 3SECT thing, including the famous “And so I put my cat on my head” scene, emphasizing throughout, that the WHOLE reason for the 3SECT existing was because we should NEVER SAY CHEER UP to anyone, anytime!
The next day, I received the following email from the anonymous woman in the back (who generously gave me permission to share it here):
Hi John,
I was at your happiness seminar yesterday and was very disappointed I had to leave early. You may have noticed my son (who is 8) was sitting in the back playing a game on my phone during the seminar. I was delighted to find out this morning, while my 6-year-old daughter was having a meltdown trying to do her hair for school, that my son had been listening and absorbed your 3-step emotional change trick. He remembered the whole thing, and he asked his sister this morning if she wanted to learn it, but only if she wanted to change her own mood. He was clear that it wasn’t because he was trying to tell her to cheer up. He heard it all yesterday! Thought you might enjoy that little anecdote.
A few days later, she wrote:
We have gotten a lot of mileage out of your emotional change trick in the last few days.
I have to admit, I absolutely love it when people listen and get the message, but I truly and deeply love it EVEN MORE when 8-year-olds absorb messages while allegedly playing on a cell phone. I believe this may just be the scientific evidence (or is it my lived experience) I needed to validate that I am not and never have been a proponent of toxic positivity.
One other notable note. When searching (via Google) for my very own 3SECT video, I found that a counselor in Tennessee has copied one of my three-step blog posts and posted it as his own blog post. I was gobsmacked—with annoyance and flattery in equal proportions. If you want to read the blog post worthy of plagiarism (not the plagiarist’s version, which is the same, but my version that was so darn tempting that it literally caused plagiarism, here you go: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2020/04/15/the-three-step-emotional-change-technique/
I’m ending now with a few core messages:
Don’t say “cheer up” to anyone.
Don’t get too over-focused on your own lived experiences, because, after all, everyone has their own lived experiences, and we should complement them all with scientific knowledge.
Don’t plagiarize.
If the person you plagiarized emails you, asking you to stop plagiarizing or provide a citation, don’t ignore that person.
And, whenever appropriate, follow in the anonymous 8-year-old’s footsteps and spread the good mood – without saying cheer-up!
In 1990, when I moved back to Missoula, Montana to join Philip and Marcy Bornstein in their private practice, my goal was to establish a practice focusing on health psychology. I believed deeply in the body-mind connection and wanted to work with clients/patients with hypertension, asthma, and other health-related conditions with significant behavioral and psychosocial components.
Turns out, maybe because I was the youngest psychologist in town, all I got were referrals from Youth Probation Services, Child Protective Services, local schools, and parents who asked if I could “fix” their children’s challenging behaviors.
I’d say that I made lemonade from lemons, but it turns out I LOVED working with the so-called “challenging youth.” There were no lemons! The work led to our Tough Kids, Cool Counseling book (1997 and 2007), along with many articles, book chapters, and demonstration counseling videos. Over the years I’ve had the honor of working extensively with parents, families, youth, and young adults.
In about 10 days, I’ll be in Ypsilanti, Michigan doing a full-day professional workshop on “Tough Kids, Cool Counseling.” If you’re concerned about the title, don’t worry, so am I. In the first few minutes of the day, I’ll explain why using the terminology “Tough Kids” is a bad idea for counselors, psychotherapists, and other humans.
Just in case you’re in the Eastern Michigan area, the details and links for the conference are below. I hope to see you there . . . and hope if you make the trip, you’ll be sure to say hello to me at a break or after the workshop.
When: Friday, March 10, 2023, 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM EST
Where: Eastern Michigan University Student Center, Second Floor – Ballroom B Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Counseling so-called “tough kids” can be immensely frustrating or splendidly gratifying. The truth of this statement is so obvious that the supportive reference, at least according to many teenagers is, “Duh!” In this workshop, participants will sharpen their counseling skills by viewing and discussing video clips from actual counseling sessions, discussing key issues, and participating in live demonstrations. Attending this workshop will add tools to your counseling youth tool-box, and deepen your understanding of specific interventions. Over 20 cognitive, emotional, and constructive counseling techniques will be illustrated and demonstrated. Examples include acknowledging reality, informal assessment, the affect bridge, the three-step emotional change trick, asset flooding, empowered storytelling, and more. Four essential counseling principles, counselor counter-transference, and multicultural issues will be highlighted.
Last week I had the honor of presenting three times at the American Counseling Association meeting in Atlanta. Today, I’m posting the Abstracts and Powerpoints from those presentations, just in case someone might find the information useful.
On Friday, April 8: The way of the humanist: Illuminating the path from suicide to wellness. Invited presentation on behalf of the Association for Humanistic Counseling.
At this moment, counselors are hearing more distress, anxiety, and suicidal ideation than ever before. In response, we are called to resonate with our clients’ distress. On behalf of the Association for Humanistic Counseling, John Sommers-Flanagan will describe how humanistic principles of acceptance and empathy can paradoxically prepare clients to embrace wellness interventions. Participants will learn five evidence-based happiness strategies to use with their clients and with themselves.
Also, on Friday, April 8: Using a strengths-based approach to suicide assessment and treatment in your counseling practice. Invited presentation on behalf of ACA Publications.
Most counselors agree: no clinical task is more stressful than suicide assessment and treatment planning. When working with people who are suicidal, it’s all-too-easy for counselors to over-focus on psychopathology and experience feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. However, framing suicidal ideation as an unparalleled opportunity to help alleviate your client’s deep psychological pain, and embracing a strengths-based orientation, you can relieve some of your own anxiety. This practice-oriented education session includes an overview of strengths-based principles for suicide assessment and treatment.
On Saturday, April 9, Being seen, being heard: Strategies for working with adolescents in the age of Tik Tok. Educational presentation (with Chinwe Williams).
Counseling and connecting with adolescents can be difficult. In this educational session, we will present six strategies for connecting with and facilitating change among adolescents. For each strategy, the co‐presenters, coming from different cultural and generational perspectives, will engage each other and participants in a discussion of challenges likely to emerge when counseling adolescents. Social media influences, self‐disclosure, and handling adolescents’ questions will be emphasized.
Today I’m spending all day with the Youth Homes staff in Missoula . . . talking about strengths-based approaches to suicide. Should be fun, or at least as fun as a day of talking about suicide can be . . . Happy Friday, and here are the ppts!
This past week I’ve been grateful for the many professionals and organizations (including my publisher, John Wiley & Sons) who are providing free guidance and materials to help with the transition from face-to-face teaching to online instruction. In an effort to contribute back in a small way, I’m posting 10 counseling- and psychotherapy-related videos that can be integrated into online teaching. These videos are free and posted on my YouTube channel. The links are all below with a brief description of the video content.
Some of these videos are rough cuts and all of them are far from perfect demonstrations; that’s partly the point. Although many of the videos show reasonably good counseling skills and interesting assessment processes and therapeutic interventions, none of the videos are scripted, and so there’s plenty of room for review, analysis, critique, and discussion. You can show them as efforts to do CBT, SFBT, Motivational Interviewing, administration of a mental status examination, etc., and prompt students to describe how they would do these sessions even better.
These videos are meant to stimulate learning. In an ideal world, I would include a list of discussion questions, but I’ll leave that to you. If you like, please feel free to use these videos for educational purposes. Here’s the annotated list with video links:
I just had an awesome day with about 260 Virginia School Counselors. You know who you are, and you know you’re incredible.
Just FYI, the state of Virginia is making a big investment in adding school counselors. . . which IMHO, is a very smart and reasonable decision. Other states might want to take note and follow their lead. The problem is that many school age youth are suffering from extremely challenging home, neighborhood, and school situations. Having more competent school counselors available to support student success, student mental health, and teachers is a wise move.
For all of the VSCA members I met today, thank you for coming, but more importantly, thanks for the deeply important commitment you make to the well-being of students in your schools. You are amazing!
Here’s the extra handout, with more details than the powerpoint slides: VSCA 2020 Extra Handout
I’m in Baltimore this week for the annual meeting of the National Association of School Psychologists. Although I’m not a school psychologist, I’ve been invited the past 5+ years to offer workshops on “Tough Kids, Cool Counseling.” I’ve also had the good fortune of being invited to present professional workshops for state school psychology associations in California, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington.
I’ve worked many different professional groups (clinical psychologists, mental health counselors, school counselors, teachers, childcare workers, and more). All of these groups are amazing, but every time I work with a group of school psychologists, I walk away thinking that maybe school psychologist are my favorite professional group of all.
Notice I said “maybe.” I don’t want to start an inter-disciplinary competition for my official endorsement.
NASP in Baltimore was typical NASP. An intense group of very smart people who are dedicated to the psychological and intellectual well-being of K-12 students everywhere. They swarm the exhibition hall looking for resources and at my workshop they asked incredibly good questions and made insightful comments.
To be honest (not a bad policy), maybe the fact that I got a standing ovation from 300+ school psychology attendees in Columbus, Ohio (after 6.5 hours of presenting) is part of the reason I love school psychologists. For minor league professionals like me, that’s about as good as it gets . . . and that was pretty fantastic.
The links that follow include my presentation powerpoints and handouts for my workshop sessions in Baltimore. If you were there, thanks for your commitment to improving the lives of children and teenagers. If not, I hope to see you next time around.
By the way, the next big gig is March 1 in Richmond, Virginia with the Virginia School Counselor Association . . . which is just another chance to spend some time with another fabulous group of very cool people.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be at the Stevensville Methodist Church from 9-11:30am for a suicide assessment and treatment planning workshop follow-up. This workshop is co-sponsored by the Bitterroot Valley Educational Cooperative and the Big Sky Youth Empowerment Project. The handout (powerpoint) is short, because lots of what we’ll be doing involves a reflection on how the strength-based model we covered back in August has been working.
John Sommers-Flanagan 