This was a blog entry at the Adolescent Counseling Services blog on 2/13/2012
By: Ildiko Ran
On-Campus Counseling Program Intern at Menlo-Atherton High School
“I feel so much better that I got all that off my chest. I can go back to class now” – said one of my clients after a session when she unloaded the overwhelming stress that surrounds her everyday life. She keeps up the appearances, her impeccable school performance and her friendships, yet she appreciates the oasis, the safe place where she can be truly herself, which she found in this unexpected place: my quiet office nested among the busy guidance counselors’ offices.
I started as a trainee at Menlo Atherton High School in 2010 and returned for a second year as an intern. I love working with teenagers and the diverse population of this school has given me ample opportunity to see and work through many different problems and circumstances with teens and their families.
Working with teenagers is a challenge that can be greatly rewarding: their everyday experience is on the verge between childhood and adulthood – if they feel lost, it can be devastating for them and their families. When counselors listen to them without an agenda other than keeping them safe and helping them finding their own way, it can be an empowering experience for teens. I appreciate the opportunity that I can provide this service to my clients day after day.
As an ACS counselor, I fill up most of my days seeing clients, who come weekly for several months, some for the whole school year. In fact I have two students who decided to continue with me for the second consecutive year. There is also ample opportunity in our on-campus work to check in with students who are in various crisis situations – suicidal thoughts, angry outbursts, urge to run away from home, or being devastated over a loss of a loved one– are among situation I have dealt with in the past year.
As part of the teens’ treatment I usually meet with their parents a couple of times. These meetings are very different from the sessions with the teens: it includes psycho-education and parenting information. In exchange for their insights about their children, I encourage them to continue parenting with the love they feel, armored with some understanding of their adolescents’ needs.
Our ACS office doors are always open (when we are not sitting in session with clients), so students are familiar with the ACS counselors. “No, it is not mandated. No, it is not punishment. It is your decision to show up. Once you commit to it, the only way to make it work if you are serious about it.” – I often repeat these cautions and clarifications.
I enjoy seeing my clients engaged in their sessions, taking it seriously, appreciating the time they spend thinking about their own feelings, thoughts and actions, in an honest, open way. Teenagers call us adults out on our phony behaviors and in return they really appreciate when we do the same for them. Not only am I happy to see that I can be helpful for my students but sometimes I sense an inward smiley feeling that I have honored my own high school teachers and counselors who did just that for me – genuine, respectful relating. Teens can do wonders with it.
Ildiko interns with Adolescent Counseling Services’ On-Campus Counseling Program. Through this program, ACS provides free counseling to students and their family members at 9 schools in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
For more information about the On-Campus Counseling Program, please visit our website: http://www.acs-teens.org/programs/campus_counseling.php
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Core work
The Pilates and yoga world talks about the core as a fundamental element of the health of the human body. In yogic tradition the bandhas are the energetic equivalent to the core, and in Pilates one focuses on the inner muscles that underlie the superficial ones and have essential role in the healthy holding of the body and containing the inner organs. The whole body’s alignment and ability to move in an effective and sustainable way depends on this core. When you work out, practice asanas in yoga or strengthen your core muscles in Pilates, you are working on this core.
In psychoanalytic therapy there is something very similar happening. Dependent on the health of the structure of the psyche- - just as dependent on your body’s health in physical exercise – you will need to recreate the structure by recognizing, finding, strengthening and maintaining your core, your inner self. Throughout our lives we have gone through many experiences that have had strong impact on us. These impacts shape our core understanding of who we are. Who we are is in relation to others. Thus others, or the outside environment affects who we are at our core. This core develops throughout our lives, some stages of life having more permanent effects and some less important or less lasting ones.
About the psychic core it is said that it has been influenced a great deal in early childhood when our original interpersonal patterns were shaped, formed, molded and established. This can happen later in life as well, especially if we go through some traumatic influences. These traumas - whether in the word’s most often used sense, when something traumatic happened to us, but it is also true for other, major influences that leave permanent marks on us.
Again, the parallel with the physical body, we can say that our physical build gets created and recreated by such events as playing a certain sport or musical instrument for an extended period of time, or using our body regularly in a certain way, like driving. For women pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding can have similar long lasting effects on their bodies. The examples are endless and they surround us all the time.
The same way it happens to our inner psychic core as well. It gets molded and shaped throughout life’s interpersonal experiences. We internalize and process those experiences and some of them stay with us as our own.
The process of psychotherapy – as I see it – is a process similar to a Pilates or yoga training. The instructor – or the therapist – looks very closely at the minute manifestations of the person’s inner workings. We listen, or look, and observe. Soon a picture of manifestations clarifies a view of the inner core, and the therapist takes that inner core and helps the client rearrange their view of reality in a way that will be healthier, will induce less suffering and will clear the way to free flow of psychic energy, libido – as some call it – or the person’s capacity to live a fuller life.
The core of the personality is that inner container that needs to be strong enough to maintain its essential ingredients, on which the outer manifestations depend. These are not only the person’s behaviors, thought and actions, but their very details of their personality and interpersonal communications. The work is done at this core level. When it is out of alignment, it causes many unhealthy manifestations, and the process of bringing it back to alignment needs to be very gentle, precise and nonjudgmental. That is the only way that its well established ways will allow to loosen up, to shift and to heal.
In psychoanalytic therapy there is something very similar happening. Dependent on the health of the structure of the psyche- - just as dependent on your body’s health in physical exercise – you will need to recreate the structure by recognizing, finding, strengthening and maintaining your core, your inner self. Throughout our lives we have gone through many experiences that have had strong impact on us. These impacts shape our core understanding of who we are. Who we are is in relation to others. Thus others, or the outside environment affects who we are at our core. This core develops throughout our lives, some stages of life having more permanent effects and some less important or less lasting ones.
About the psychic core it is said that it has been influenced a great deal in early childhood when our original interpersonal patterns were shaped, formed, molded and established. This can happen later in life as well, especially if we go through some traumatic influences. These traumas - whether in the word’s most often used sense, when something traumatic happened to us, but it is also true for other, major influences that leave permanent marks on us.
Again, the parallel with the physical body, we can say that our physical build gets created and recreated by such events as playing a certain sport or musical instrument for an extended period of time, or using our body regularly in a certain way, like driving. For women pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding can have similar long lasting effects on their bodies. The examples are endless and they surround us all the time.
The same way it happens to our inner psychic core as well. It gets molded and shaped throughout life’s interpersonal experiences. We internalize and process those experiences and some of them stay with us as our own.
The process of psychotherapy – as I see it – is a process similar to a Pilates or yoga training. The instructor – or the therapist – looks very closely at the minute manifestations of the person’s inner workings. We listen, or look, and observe. Soon a picture of manifestations clarifies a view of the inner core, and the therapist takes that inner core and helps the client rearrange their view of reality in a way that will be healthier, will induce less suffering and will clear the way to free flow of psychic energy, libido – as some call it – or the person’s capacity to live a fuller life.
The core of the personality is that inner container that needs to be strong enough to maintain its essential ingredients, on which the outer manifestations depend. These are not only the person’s behaviors, thought and actions, but their very details of their personality and interpersonal communications. The work is done at this core level. When it is out of alignment, it causes many unhealthy manifestations, and the process of bringing it back to alignment needs to be very gentle, precise and nonjudgmental. That is the only way that its well established ways will allow to loosen up, to shift and to heal.
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