Allen E. Ivey: Transforming counseling theory and practice
Journal of Counseling & Development2001
Allen E. Ivey discusses the major influences on his life. He
delineates and comments on his contributions to the counseling
profession in the areas of microcounseling, developmental counseling
and therapy, and multicultural counseling. He explores spirituality,
social activism, and professional activities. The interview reveals
Allen Ivey the person as well as Allen Ivey the professional.
As a new counseling student at Indiana University in the fall of
1971, I entered a small counseling lab to practice my counseling
skills with a fellow student. A huge reel-to-reel Wollensak tape
recorder stood ready to record our every word; my supervisor and
classmates observed us from behind the one-way mirror. My anxiety ran
high. The instructions about what to do had seemed simple enough: be
warm, genuine, and empathic. As I began the 30minute session, I
fantasized that I understood my teacher's instructions and knew how
to translate them into effective helping. Afterward, a kind and
gentle supervisor helped me realize the gulf that stood between my
theoretical understanding and its practical application.
Four years later, as a new assistant professor, I began training
my own students in counseling skills. Luckily, by that time, Allen
Ivey's pioneering work Microcounseling and his textbooks and tapes
for Basic Attending Skills and Basic Influencing Skills were readily
available. My own students read about specific counseling skills,
such as appropriate eye contact, verbal following, open and closed
questions, and directives. They watched as Allen and Norma Gluckstern
modeled each skill. Then my students practiced as I had practiced,
but they did so with a distinct advantage. Although their anxiety was
probably as high as mine had been, they were unquestionably benefiting from
Ivey's written and oral explanations and his modeling of each counseling
skill. Ivey's work in microcounseling revolutionized the teaching of
counseling skills. No longer was it a matter of learning by trial-and-error
to imitate master practitioners. Ivey made it possible to learn counseling
skills both effectively and efficiently.
If Allen Ivey's pioneering and innovative work in microcounseling had
been his sole contribution to the counseling profession, he would be
recognized as a major figure in the history of counseling. But he did not
stop there. Since the 1960s, Ivey has continued to make groundbreaking
contributions in two other areas. He is the originator of an approach to
counseling called Developmental Counseling and Therapy (DCT), a synthesizing
of the best of diverse counseling theories and practices into an influential
and potent developmental framework. His third significant contribution has
been his relentless incorporation of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and
competencies into the practice of counseling.
Ivey has been tireless in promoting his well-reasoned ideas that are
based on solid research. He has written 25 books and over 200 additional
articles, chapters, or monographs. His books have been translated into 14
languages. Since the late 1960s, his small company, Microtraining Associates,
has produced videotapes focused on basic attending and influencing skills.
More recently, his training videotapes have featured leading experts in
multicultural counseling and development, groups, youth and violence,
children, and brief counseling.
For over a quarter of a century I have been significantly
influenced by Allen Ivey's contributions to our counseling
profession. I considered it an honor to interview Allen because for
years he has served, albeit at a distance of many miles, as a
professional role model for me. (Thinking of a legacy to leave to his
grandchildren, Allen arranged for Bruce Oldershaw to videotape our
interview.) I began the interview with the hope that Allen would
clarify for us, and for future generations, his contributions and the
ways in which he has gone about making those contributions. I also
hoped that the interview would shed light on Allen Ivey the person,
in addition to Allen Ivey the professional. My hopes were realized.
ROOTS AND CHILDHOOD
John Littrell (JL): Allen, as I was reviewing for this interview, one
of the things that I noticed on your Web page was a section that refers
viewers to Cornwall in England. I am wondering if you could talk about your
early years, family of origin, and what it was like growing up.
Allen Ivey (Al): The first thing I have to say is that Kernow
[Cornwall]is not in England although the English would like to think
so. I prefer to use the native language word "Kernow." My father's
family came from Kernow; they immigrated around the turn of the
century. The whole family came over to the United States and Canada
and struck out in new directions. I'm basically second generation and
I went through the classic issues of that generation. My dad tried to
assimilate. It's not too important to him when I tell him of my
involvement in tracing my family's roots. Actually, I am a member of
Mebyon Kernow, the nationalist party of Kernow/Cornwall, Greater
Britain. I've gone over to Cornwall and conducted consciousness-raising
groups and other types of activities to support those who would like to see
what they call devolution, which will mean more power to the people of
Kernow, like the other Celtic nations of Scotland and Wales.
My mother's side of the family is a classic example of Manifest
Destiny. It has positive and negative consequences; my own reading is
more of the negative. We can trace my mother's side of the family
back to 1631 when the ship Lion arrived in New England. My ancestors'
general pattern was taking land from native peoples in Massachusetts,
taking native land from people in Albany and Hartford, then moving on
to Adair county in Missouri and again taking land from native
peoples. Part of the family fought for the North, while part fought
for the South. Then they moved out to the town of Mount Vernon,
Washington, in about 1885. 1 have on my office wall in Sunapee, New
Hampshire, the original statement of the land grant signed by
President Ulysses S. Grant transferring land of the Swinomish Nation,
without compensation, to our family. Since I've been involved in
multicultural studies, I've thought about the Swinomish farmland
that's been in my family for generations. How that land was initially
acquired is a classic example of Manifest Destiny, and, to me,
Manifest Destiny occurred because our government trampled on native rights.
JL: So reflected right there in your own background are many of
those same issues that you're teaching about even today.
Al: Yes, it was the multicultural movement that finally got me looking
at my own roots-where I came from and how I got to be here. Along with the
Civil Rights movement, I picked up a real interest in multicultural material
in about 1966. Someplace along the line, probably in the 1980s, I said to
myself, "Well, what about me?" and I started retracing where I came from.
And in that process, I began to see myself as a White individual. McIntosh
(1989) was correct when she coined the term White privilege and I know I
benefit from White privilege. At the same time, I discovered that I am at
least bicultural. The cultural messages that come from the people of Kernow
are represented by these three mottoes: "Be where you are," "Education is not
that much of value," and particularly, "Don't put on airs." That would be
more or less the message I got from my father's side of the family. I
remember going back to Kernow and being asked by the family there, "Why are
you flitting all over the world doing these things? Why don't you just come
home and be?" I think the concept of being within Kernow's culture is
central and necessary for survival under, I would argue, centuries of
English- Norman oppression. Institutional racism, prejudice, and so forth
exist in many parts of the world outside the U.S.
JL: So there is the being part of your generation, and yet it
seems like there is the aspect of doing.
Al: And basically it's very American. We greet each other by saying,
"How do you do?" and "How are you doing?" We are getting constant little
reinforcers in U.S. culture that you better be doing something to be
worthwhile-it's not who you are in terms of being, but it's what you do.
Well, my mother came from this particular Anglocentric pattern.
Her grandparents-both in different ways-had relative wealth but lost
it. And so one of my lifetime tasks I wondered about was: "Why is my
mother pushing achievement so much? Why does she always want me to do
something and do it so well?" I began to realize that one of her
targets for me-this is my interpretation-is to regain what the family
lost in various depressions. And so the struggle inside me often is
that I am supposed to achieve (Mother's family message), but I am not
supposed to achieve (Dad's family message). As I look at my body now,
I do less of this back and forth motion [Allen moves his shoulders
back and forth]. And, John, I carried that same double messaging body
language into my doctoral program and early professional life. If you
would have looked at me 20 years ago, this ambivalent body language
was almost my basic motion in dealing with double messages from my
family. I am beginning to realize now the extent that those double
messages were based in their cultural experience.
JL: remember one of your early videotapes in which your body was
literally moving back and forth. At that point, I thought I
understood that more from a decision-making dilemma, but it sounds
like there is that conflict even at the core of who you are.
AI: I don't know if it is true or not, but I think one of my minor
contributions to the field is my approach to the microskill of
confrontation, that is, confronting a discrepancy. I'll say, "On the
one hand this, and on the other hand that," but that is kind of the
way I grew up-on the one hand this and on the other hand that. I
recall a lot of confusion and mixed messages as a child.
JL: But it's now coming together more for you than in the past.
Al: And I think part of it was getting in touch with myself I went
through periods of blaming the family, the classic "Blame the
mother." But then finally I started to understand her history. Both
of my parents grew up in poverty, and I think maybe even extreme
poverty. My dad, I need to ask this-in fact, I have almost been
afraid to-but I think he actually grew up with hunger. At one point
after my Dad's father died-my Dad was about 11, perhaps even younger-
his mother almost put the children in an orphanage. She simply
couldn't keep things together. She was taking in laundry and she was
making her underwear out of flour sacks. I mean real serious poverty.
My mother came from a generation that had a lot of money, but my
grandfather on her side of the family was a compulsive gambler. He
was the owner/editor of the paper in Mount Vernon, Washington, and he
gambled the money away at cards. He ended up being a Linotype
operator-but the gambling addiction continued. My main recollection
of my mother's childhood stories is her not having shoes for school
and teachers getting after her because she didn't have the books she
was supposed to have-there was no money.
JL: What difference has this background made in your life?
Al: I was born in 1933 at the very bottom of the depression, so I
am a real depression kid. I basically was conditioned from a
mentality of poverty rather than a mentality of abundance. A lot of
kids born at that particular time had parents who experienced real
severe difficult economic issues-like my dad lost his job 2 days
before he was married. Those are stories I grew up with-like the
stock market crash. So you end up, I think, being a little more
anxious about the world and a little less trusting than perhaps you
should. On the other hand, I've looked at my own confident kids and
thought to myself, "Shouldn't they be a little more mistrustful?" I
also wonder how much of that mistrust I passed on in different ways.
If you were to do what I call a community genogram, you'd see my
dad's folks down the road just a quarter of a mile-my dad had a small
grocery store-and a quarter of a mile down the other way were my
mother's aunts and family. The two farms joined. So it's a very small
and closed world-in that sense very family centered, but then very
different families because they didn't have anything to do with each
other. They had different conceptions of themselves. "I am just
Cornish, and I can't do much" is a very common thing in my Cornish
roots, and the other one is "We are English, and we are better than
others," so I was literally getting both those messages. At that
point, I had the idea that the Cornish people were English, and I got
the same scrambled message and it puzzled me.
JL: What were your earliest influences?
AI: I'd focus on a preschool period which was incredibly family
centered and certainly mixed messages were there, but it was
wonderful in many ways. I can still see my grandmother singing her
Methodist hymns as she was baking bread. It's a prominent image and
aroma. I remember visiting my aunts' farm down the other way and
every time going out-they still had horses when I was a kid-and being
with them plowing the fields was wonderful. Developmental Counseling/
Therapy (DCT) talks of the importance of a sensorimotor foundation. I
sometimes wonder if those powerful visual images of the farm, the
sounds of my Grandmother's singing, and the aromas of the fresh bread
weren't influential in bringing this area to equal prominence with
concrete and formal thought patterns.
To complicate things, my dad ran a small grocery store in a rural
area. All the other kids in the school (two rooms and approximately
25 kids in the entire school) had parents who were farmers. I grew up
with endless racist epithets. The kids called me virtually every anti-
Semitic, anti-Jewish name you could think of It was more or less a
day-in-andday-out thing and I didn't understand what was going on; I
didn't know who Jewish people were. I'd never met one. I never met a
Jewish person until I went to college, and yet I was called anti-
Semitic names. Of course, I immediately felt affinity for Jewish
kids. Later, I shared this experience with some of my Jewish friends,
and some have experienced similar things, particularly if they were
minorities in their communities.
So I felt a day-in and day-out pressure. I knew that these
children's comments were learned around the family dinner table from
their parents-the talk about the owner of the grocery exploiting the
farmers. So these same people/ parents would come to the store. I
would be working in the store and I would have to be nice to them
even though I saw them as my persecutors. Small wonder I am a little
bit distant and can appear overly cool at times. You learn that you
have got to keep to yourself and listen to what is going on-that is
one of the reasons I got into listening skills. You have to watch
what the other people are saying. I did the classic thing that kids
do in that I never shared any of this with my folks-like the adult/
child protecting the parents. I internalized some of that anger and
frustration, directing it at me rather than outward, as it should
have been. A lot of Jewish kids have done this to protect their
parents from prejudice and pain experienced at school.
JL: So early on you experienced prejudice even though it wasn't
accurate; at the same time, you were still on the receiving end of it.
Al: Oh yeah, and that's kind of my basic model of growing up.
Never really being able to trust. It's not a great way to be in the
world. Small wonder I focused on doing in my early years.
JL: And yet when I have watched you working with people over the
years on the videotapes, it seems like you have a tremendous trust in
people, at least in other people's ability to be able to work on
issues and to deal with those issues.
Al: Yes. Maybe we can figure out exactly what is going on in the
process. Actually, I think of those who experience negative stuff
There are a couple of ways that you could go. One is that you
continue the oppression yourself, you continue to scapegoat; or maybe
you can sublimate. Personally, I still get really angry with people
being mistreated unfairly. Whether it is gays, lesbians, people of
color, or poor people-it becomes a real internal experience for me. I
don't show it, but I rage and sympathize inside. So I don't want to
treat other people as I feel I was treated.
JL: What are key words that summarize your early schooling?
Al: I think the theme that comes to me is survival and alienation
and feeling very much alone. Finally, moving out of that grade school
and into the eighth grade, I finally got to the point in eighth grade
that I was the only remaining person in the class. So finally my
parents said that was enough. They sent me off to town and I actually
developed some friends who were fun, and I enjoyed high school. But
coming from that closed environment, it was tense, but my mother
pushed, pushed, pushed-whether to become an Eagle Scout, go to the
national jamboree, take music lessons, pushed me into a speech class,
which is probably the smartest thing she ever did. I was-I still am-
shy and could hardly speak at all to people. Coming from that petty,
small, rural background, the speech class was marvelous in opening me
up. Bless the teacher, George Hodson.
COLLEGE YEARS
Allen Ivey was strongly affected by his undergraduate and graduate
school experiences. In this part of our interview, he discussed key
people and experiences that shaped his career choice. Stanford
University, 1951-1955
JL: You mentioned even in the early 60s being aware and even
starting to do some thinking and possible writing about that.
Is that what was happening at that point?
Al: I had an incredibly traumatic freshman year at Stanford. I
should mention also I came from a fundamentalist Baptist orientation,
and I held the idea that if a person drank one beer they would fall
off the roof drunk. That is the way I started college at Stanford as
a freshman. JL: Which probably meant some adjustment.
Al: That's some adjustment! They picked the two best roommates for
me to adjust to because both of them flunked out in one quarter. Both
flunked all courses. That doesn't happen very often, even then. They
were doing everything that was miserable, but I survived. Stanford
was a wonderful intellectual experience. I had to go through the
phase of the "Fundamentalist Baptist Encounters Evolution"-Evolution
wins. A little bit painful, but the professors were outstanding.
JL: How did you come to counseling?
Al: When I was a sophomore at Stanford, I wanted to figure out
what my major was, so I went to see a counselor. He asked me what I
wanted to do. I said, "Well, I think I might like to have your job."
The counselor totally discounted it. I think I was supposed to be a
journalism major. I should say, though, that before I thought about
counseling, I didn't know what counseling was because they didn't
have counselors in my high school. But I thought what the counselor
did in the counseling center there in Stanford looked pretty fun and
pretty interesting. Iam a failed music major. I started at Stanford
as a music major-didn't make it and looked for something else.
Ernest Hilgard, a most distinguished past president of the APA American
Psychological Association] taught my introductory psychology course.
Dick Alpert, also known as Baba Ram Das, was one
of his teaching assistants. It was a grand intellectual and personal
experience. Hilgard was extremely advanced for a traditional
psychologist at that time, and we spent time on usually taboo issues
such as meditation and hypnosis. He opened the door for me with his
ideas-it was quite marvelous.
I loved all the psychology courses as an undergraduate. I even
liked statistics, and I took advanced courses. Sid Siegal, the
founder of nonparametric statistics, was a teaching assistant. The
Psychology Department at Stanford was just so outstanding. I mean the
greats were up and down the halls at Stanford and you could talk to
them.
Stanford just felt like home. I suspect, like everybody else, that
my searching for myself is how I dealt with this confusion. I think a
lot of us go into counseling or psychology to find ourselves. This
was made clear to me years later by Alice Miller's (19 81) book, The
Drama of the Gifted Child. I think anybody who goes into counseling
should read her book, which helps explain how we meet our needs
through helping others. I was seeking a way to sort out my cultural
family confusion in the counseling field. There is no doubt that I
was working on my issues. I wish we did more to help students become
aware of things such as Why are you becoming a counselor? What is
your motivation?
I remember one incident at Stanford. I was moving on campus my
senior year, and it was one of those defining moments that enraged
me. My friends came to me and said, "Well, the only room we can
locate for you is with this fellow," and they said, "He is Jewish,
you know. Would that be okay for you?" It was like three or four
students came to me to ask if I minded moving-honestly-I think it
says a lot for the mentality of the times, and I don't think those
times have totally left. Anti-Semitism remains an important issue for
me to combat. Needless to say, I enjoyed living with my Jewish
roommate.
When it came time to graduate, I turned down a law scholarship to
Stanford. I look at that decision now and say, "Oh, well." Diane
Feinstein, U.S. senator, was on the Executive Council at Stanford
with me and was a cheerleader while I was in the Stanford band. I
said, "Hey, I could have been a lawyer and gotten rich fast." I
turned down law school and accepted a chance to work with Ralph
Berdie and that whole wonderful group in Minnesota. Technically, that
is where I should have been except Stanford had an attitude-and I
mean an attitude-toward what they call "dust bowl empiricism." So I
ended up not going to Minnesota, but rather I went to Denmark for a year.
University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Fulbright Grant (1955-1956)
JL: What happened in Denmark?
AI: I received a Fulbright grant after graduating from Stanford in
1955 and that was critical in my developing a contextual approach to
counseling. I traveled to Denmark and did my Fulbright on the topic
of "Social Work: Deinstitutionalization." I learned there was another
culture, another way of thinking. I came from an individualistic mode
of thinking and found myself working in socialist Denmark, seeing a
high standard of living and the absence of the poor. My advisor, Paul
Perch, was a major figure in the Danish social ministry. Perch wrote
about the psychological educator in the mid- 1950s, which led me in
the 1970s to propose psychological education as a major aspect of the
counseling field. It is a delight to see it now so well established.
Perch's spirit, I would like to say, lives in me to some extent.
Denmark was and is a very important place-a country we in the U.S.
continue to ignore at our peril.
Boston University (1957-1959)
Al: Then on to Harvard with professors like David McClelland and
Clyde Kluckholn. It was incredible. Harvard was very difficult but an
incredible intellectual experience. I had the pleasure of working
with Dave Tiedeman. While I was doing my doctorate at Harvard, I did
a 2-year stint as director of student activities at Boston University
and also was an instructor in guidance there. Of course, it was
totally insane. I finished my doctorate at Harvard in 3 years. I
worked full time in the guidance office at Boston University 2 of
those 3 years and still finished exactly on target in 3 years, but
that is the ultimate doing.
PROFESSIONAL CAREER
The social activism and excitement of the 1960s and early 1970s
are reflected in Allen's professional life, as he became actively
involved in outreach programs and groundbreaking research that led to
microcounseling. Bucknell University (1959-1963)
Al: At the age of 25, I went to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and
founded the Counseling Center at Bucknell University, serving
as
director of counseling. Too young? No way? But that was what I was
doing! I had a wonderful position there and enjoyed it completely. I
also visited Don Ford's Bureau Division of Study Council at nearby
Pennsylvania State University. He had this incredible staff including
Sam Osipow and lots of other wonderful people. He had started what he
called the Division of Study Council, and he was starting to do
outreach. I admired his work. It was the Bucknell period when I
settled into the profession. I learned many ideas of outreach and
prevention from Don Ford during that time.
Colorado State University (1963-1968)
AI: And then I went to Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort
Collins, Colorado, as director of the Counseling Center from 1963
through 1968. I think CSU was the high point of my career. I worked
with Burns Crookston, setting up with him and Eugene Getting, Weston
Morrill, and Jim Hurst, the first student development center in a
student personnel program. It seems particularly impressive to me
that three Division of Counseling Psychology presidents have worked
at the CSU Counseling Center and that Richard Suinn, President of the
American Psychological Association is associated with their PhD
program in counseling psychology. CSU's program has not been noted
enough. Why? Because they are not publishing in the Journal of
Counseling Psychology. I don't know why counseling psychologists
can't publish in some other journal to become a good department, but
that is the way that Division 17, Counseling Psychology, seems to
want to construct it.
JL: You mentioned before our interview began that even in the
1960s you were aware of and even starting to do some thinking and
writing about activism.
AI: During the time I was director of the Counseling Center, we
discovered a government agent (we think the CIA) had come in as a
client into our Center. I got a sense of the government's fear of
change and the value of the whole social change movement of the
1960s. This was in the very early stages of Vietnam, and it was very
clear to me that a frightened government was out there looking in
every corner at what was going on. I said, "Geeze, if they are
visiting our Counseling Center ......
When I got to CSU, I pushed the outreach dimension learned in
Denmark and at Penn State with this wonderful staff we brought in. I
think that perhaps the Counseling Center at CSU was the first to
bring outreach to married student housing. We helped place
psychiatric patients as they were released into the Denver economy.
We had many outreach programs focused on prevention. Banff, Alberta,
in 1965 was the location of the Counseling Center Directors'
Conference and I proudly presented our innovative outreach program.
However, Barbara Kirk, Counseling Center Director at the University
of California-Berkeley, and Clay Gerkin, Counseling Center Director
at the University of Iowa were national leaders at the
time and
attended my session. Both came at me with a sharp attack saying, "You
should be sitting in your office seeing students one-to-one." And
that is kind of the theme of my life-many professionals have asked me
and criticized me with questions, such as "Why aren't you sitting in
your office in the traditional way?" "What are you doing out in this
community trying to be a social activist?" So it's been there a long
time. Even today many still attack my interest in prevention and
social action saying that counselors should sit in their offices.
I had a grant for developing a behavioral objectives curriculum
for training counselors in 1966 while at CSU, and I picked racial
understanding as a central dimension of the curriculum. We put this
curriculum into practice for the first time in 1968. So I guess I
must have been influenced at that point by the Black Liberation
Movement, the Black Power Movement and the "system." I asked, "What
does counseling need to do to speak to those issues?" So as early as
1966, I started asking those questions. That would have been in an
all-White atmosphere. It's kind of shocking to go back, John, and
realize I don't recall a single African American in undergraduate
school or graduate school-not one. I didn't recall any Latinos. I do
recall a very small group of Asian Americans at Stanford. None at
Harvard.
Don Ford at Penn State was clearly a model for community
involvement, but then why would I grab onto that rather than sitting
in my office and focusing on the interview? Although, God knows, I
had spent plenty of my time focusing on the details of the interview.
I mean that has been the other center point of my career-the small
details.
JL: So you are an activist in the community, and at the same time
there is still the "you" who sits and analyzes for long periods of
time.
AI: Long periods of time. I don't think there are many people
running around the world who have looked at as many interviews in as
small a detail, or classified as many interviews in asmany different
classification systems as I have. The whole language process and the
interaction that goes on in the interview fascinate me. The
microcounseling framework has been very central to that
investigation.
JL: What brought you to that? How did microcounseling evolve? What
were the influences? It's clearly revolutionary in terms of the
counseling profession to be able to have that.
Al: In one sense, it's real luck, John. A couple of things came
together. It was 1966 when we got a small grant from the Charles F.
Kettering Foundation, bless their hearts. They were interested in the
idea of identifying the specific single skills of counseling. The
Kettering Foundation had worked with Dwight
Allen at Stanford in
helping set up microteaching. We visited Stanford and viewed the
microteaching framework in operation. At the same time, we also
visited Albert Bandura, then doing his early work in social learning.
These social learning roots became important throughout the whole
process of discovery of microskills.
As we researched counseling skills, we had what I call the "boat
anchor" Ampex machines with 2-inch videotapes. You could never get
those machines to run more than 15 minutes without calling a
technician to fix them. The whole project was a very cooperative
endeavor involving Cheryl Normington, Dean Miller, Dick Haase, Eugene
Getting, Weston Morrill, and later, Max Uhlemann. The so-called
discovery of attending behavior was very much a mutual process
involving me, our secretary, whom I credit a lot, and the whole team.
JL: As you worked with that team, it sounded like you also spent a
large number of hours watching videotapes. What was that like?
Al: Well, we began that project by the classic method of first
looking at the literature. I looked at W U. Snyder's work at
Pennsylvania State University. Snyder had done a lot of interview
analysis. We studied many videotapes, but 6 months into this project
we hadn't identified a single skill. Finally I said, "Well, let's
just try teaching it." We brought our secretary in to act as a
counselor trainee. She was marvelous because she sat there as the
interviewer with a "client" doing all the wrong things. She looked
down, she topic jumped, she broke in, and she started talking about
herselfvirtually anything a person could do wrong in an interview,
bless her heart, she did. Then I think it was Weston Morrill and I
who entered the interviewing training room-we were feeling good
because finally we had something to work with. And I said to her,
"Now what you need to do is look at your client and lean forward a
bit." And the whole specific behaviors of attending behaviors were
generated right there on the spot as Weston and I taught her. Our
secretary then redid the interview and she did a very good job of
interviewing. Her talk time was reduced; she maintained contact and
listened. All wonderful stuff She came in the following Monday and
said, "Allen, my life has changed. I went home and listened to my
husband and he listened to me and we had a beautiful weekend."And I
said, "Hey, we have really got something here!" I think "here!" is
what we felt.
Dean Miller on the team came up with the word "attending
behavior." Max Uhlemann and Dick Haase were there as graduate
students making important contributions. Later on, Eugene Getting
helped put microcounseling into a broader context. It was very much a
team type of effort. It just kind of grew from then on. Those days at
CSU were a marvelous experience. It was an exciting intellectual and
personal environment.
University of Massachuseus-Amherst, School of Education (1968-
1997)
JL: What have been other intellectually exciting and challenging
things that you have been involved in over the years?
AI: The first one that crosses my mind, which is influential in my
thinking, took place here at the University of Massachusetts. I
shifted my emphasis to the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan, and developmental therapy first came out of his influence. I
took three courses in comparative literature on Jacques Lacan. It was
incredibly important for me to reframe Freud, psychodynamic
counseling, and the process of unconscious thought-particularly as
related to multicultural issues. I do not write much about Lacanian
thought, but I hardly go a day without thinking about Lacan and the
philosopher Hegel. So that philosophical framework of very complex
thought is there as backdrop to all my work over the last 15 years.
I also shifted my emphasis more to multiculturalism. When I first
came to the University of Massachusetts, I began teaching the
antiracism course-we called it "Black and White in Helping"-with
Norma Jean Anderson. That was an incredibly valuable experience in
learning for me. It reformulated and started to help me further
understand the role of context as it influences people's lives.
JL: You are "scanning" the environment constantly. I get a sense
that you're continually asking, "What is the cutting edge? What are
things out there that somehow are going to make sense that I can
incorporate?"
AI: Yeah. I have always pushed the edge, but tried not to get over
the edge too much. I think that's probably true. I puzzle about that.
I think it ties to my interest in listening skills. One way to be
safe personally and psychologically is to anticipate trouble down the
line. I seem to be incredibly skilled in getting myself into
controversy. It's that dimension that gets me in trouble sometimes.
But a lot of time it says, "I need to know it all to be safe." So
whether it's an individual interview, a context, complex Lacanian
thought, Freud, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or Viktor Frankl,
I try to know pretty much what each of these people or areas are
saying and doing.
JL: am hearing an immersion. If I am getting into an area, I
immerse myself in that area or I get so involved that I somehow
understand the depth and breadth of that area.
AI: Yeah. I started out as a rabid Rogerian [Carl Rogers], but
very quickly I learned about Frederick Thorne who said directive
counseling was a little more practical for working with vocational
counseling in colleges. Basically, that is all you had in 1959-you
chose between directive counseling and nondirective counseling or
became a Freudian. But I was always interested in the outreach from
my Danish experience. Later, I became a thoroughly committed
behaviorist along the way and tossed away all the other ideas-
"Rogers is wrong" and so forth-and I was into this stimulus/response
and a very scientific approach. This was a useful phase. Then my
boss, Burns Crookston, who is one of the great contributors to the
student development area, sent me out to Bethel, Maine, for an
encounter group, and I became an encounter group "freak" for a number
of years.
JL: This would have been when?
AI: It would have been in the 1966-67 era out at Esalen Institute
in Big Sur, California, with Will Schultz and his "Joy" movements. I
got involved with alternative therapies very early and I immersed
myself in that for a few years. Along comes microcounseling, and I
said to myself, "Allen, you have been into Rogers; you have been into
F. C. Thorne and E. G. Williamson; then you tossed that away and
became a straight behaviorist." Also in that period I got into
psychodynamics.
But then in an encounter group I said, "Hey, what is going on
here? Why are you constantly changing from one 'best' theory to the
next?" At that point I said, "Well, they all have value and rather
than trying to find the right answer, I better start looking for some
synthesis of understanding." At that point, I started moving slowly
toward using microskills to break down sequences and skill strategies
and various types of theories. One of the great things in
microcounseling is breaking down skill strategies in Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy or some other theoretical framework so people can
learn not just the skills but also how to manage specific strategies.
I have found it pretty effective in my own teaching, but in terms of
getting it out in the profession, it hasn't been too successful.
Can't do it all. The idea of skill-based sequences for complex
counseling and therapy strategies has not yet caught on.
JL: You have talked about the social activism from the 1960s. It
sounds like that theme continues in a variety of different contexts.
Al: I was a very happy camper in the 1960s as students and
professionals were much more aware of social contextual issues. But,
along with that came considerable anger and frustration with the
system. I loved the students of the 1960s; I loved their attitude. We
were doing what is called "popular education." I would raise an
issue, the students would raise an issue, and we started generating
new ways of thinking about it together. I also had some wonderful,
even nasty challenges from students. They could attack me and I would
try to listen to them. For the most part, not always, we could come
to an accommodation-particularly if I changed.
JL: How do you challenge yourself?
AI: One thing I have always done is tried to take one or two
courses a year. I took a great course in Piaget with George Foreman,
President of the Piaget Society, that was helpful in developing the
DCT framework (Ivey, 1993, 1986/2000). I always try to learn. Also, I
learn from students. Every time a student asks me a question, I learn
something new. Probably for the last 10 or 15 years, I have realized
that no matter what I talk about, there is somebody in that class or
workshop who knows more about the topic of the moment than I do-very
humbling. That means I can listen to them. So it's that scanning
again. When students would raise challenging questions, rather than
sitting there with my opinion, I'd listen. Some students get very
frustrated with this professor who changes his mind in front of them,
while other students find this particularly energizing and
respectful. But if you ar\e the person who wants the correct answer,
then I am not the person whom you want to listen to because I might
change my position tomorrow based on new data.
JL: Well, I saw that openness yesterday in your classroomyour
willingness to explore and to look at new perspectives.
AI: Yeah, I was thinking about it. My current new thing is
poverty. I have done the multicultural stuff, but this term for the
very first time I am trying to put a major emphasis on poverty as it
interfaces with race and gender. I find that very exciting, yet I
say, "Why am I changing my course the last time I am teaching it?" I
am getting ready to retire. Ridiculous, but it's more fun that way.
RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Religion, spirituality, and liberation theology are topics seldom
acknowledged or explored in counselor training programs. In this
section of the interview, Allen reveals how these three areas have
affected his life both personally and professionally.
JL: One of the topics you talked about in yesterday's class was
the issue of spirituality. I am wondering where or when that started
to become prominent? Also, what's happening for you that suddenly you
are exploring spirituality in much more depth?
Al: Once a Baptist, always a Baptist. I argue that some Baptists
don't understand what being a Baptist is. A Baptist makes a highly
individual choice about spirituality and life. Being a Baptist is the
individualist Roger Williams who sat there in the middle of Plymouth
Colony and said, "You guys from Plymouth Colony are crazy. I am going
to walk in the snow down to Rhode Island and think my own way."
Clearly Roger Williams's ability to go against the herd mentality
makes him a hero to me. How people can call themselves Baptist and
then try to impose their ideas on someone else infuriates me. To me,
the Baptist tradition is not imposition of external ideas, but rather
encouraging each person to find their own beliefs.
So I have that individualistic Baptist tradition even though it's
of fundamentalist origins. I think that most Baptists today would
consider me a fallen Baptist. But when I was at Harvard, I did go to
the Baptist Church where the minister was Sam Miller, who later
became Dean of Harvard Divinity School. This Baptist Church
represented a real liberal tradition. Liberal is a word that is often
smeared now. It is a concept based on freedom of the individual and
respect for all. At Harvard we had people such as B. F. Skinner speak
to our youth group. So I learned a whole new orientation to the
faith.
The Baptist Church in Amherst, Massachusetts, was a little more
fundamental, more in tune with the one I grew up with, and a couple
of things happened. It also says that sometimes I ask for trouble. I
was teaching a Sunday school class of high school students, and one
day I brought in a lesbian couple to talk about the lesbian/gay world-
this was in the early 1970s. And the whole church went into a big
uproar over this. The kids did fine, I did fine, and the lesbian
couple was delighted that somebody in the church would listen to
their story. I found this church not as liberal as my one at Harvard.
The second issue is that I was doing a line-by-line reading of the
Gospel of Mark, and I am a theory/practice person. If there is a
theory, how do you do it? So we are doing a line-by-line reading, and
I am doing it with the adult Sunday class and I say, "Well, Christ
gave away all His money, and if you are going to follow Him, let's be
true to the poor." It didn't bother me that they didn't want to give
away their funds, but it bothered me that this group of adults,
fundamentalist adults, would not talk about the issue. They went so
far as to comment that the Bible here was irrelevant. At the same
time, they were doing a literalist reading of the Bible in other
areas. That was when I gave up on the Baptist Church in Amherst. I
said, "If you are not going to walk the talk, this Church is not for
me."
Then along comes Mary [Bradford Ivey]. We are in a second
marriage, and I see this person I value so much with her relationship
to spirituality. She models this for me and despite my negative
attitudes and so forth, she finally won. She served as a wonderful
model. I am certainly nothing like her, but I'm listening more. She's
a spiritual inspiration to me.
Professional work also led to spirituality. John, you've done
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and I've done NLP as well. I do a
lot of live interviewing demonstrations when I go around speaking to
groups. I like to use positive images. I like to anchor these
positive images in the body to use as resources for the future. I
began to notice when people were generating these positive images
that about one third to one half of the time they were spiritual in
nature. I said, "Hum. Interesting." Whether I was in Japan or Hong
Kong or Australia, or during a live demonstration class, people
without asking would often generate a spiritual image. So I had to
understand that.
There is also an important multicultural issue that led me to
examining spirituality in helping. Particularly important in this
movement has been Native American Indian epistemology and counseling
issues. The major characteristics for counseling Native American
Indians are spiritualholism, connection, the nature of the person as
related to spirit. Suggestions for counseling ideas rest in
spirituality. The counseling issues of African Americans, Asian
Americans, Latinos, and Jews also related closely to cultural
spiritual traditions. I began to realize the multicultural counseling
requires an awareness of spirituality even though the client may not
be active spiritually. The spirit tradition remains in the culture
and the person.
Continuing this further, I began to realize that the
individualistic orientation of counseling also rests in spiritual
dimensions. Freud, Ellis, and others may fight the spirit, but
religion and spirituality are very much in their construct systems.
George Kelly reminds us that when one is opposed to anything, that
issue is still a very important part of the construct and belief
system. This has led me to the position that I say that all
counseling is spiritual. I would argue that Albert Ellis does
spiritual counseling, even if he doesn't talk about it, as he comes
out of the Judeo-Christian individualistic construct system.
For me personally, I am struggling to continue to value my
individualistic Baptist tradition, but I am also learning to value
the relational and earth-centered spiritual traditions as well. I
find I am enriched as I learn to respect and participate in other
spiritual orientations.
And then, of course, we just plain have the data, such as that
from Herbert Benson at Harvard or the Gallup polls, which says 80% of
the people have a spiritual orientation and 10% of the people have
had a profound encounter with the transcendent. I have not had a
profound encounter with the transcendent, but if 10% of the people
say they have and 80% of them have spiritual orientation, how can we
leave this out of the counseling movement? So just plain professional
logic says that spirituality is an important area we must consider.
The third dimension is liberation theology. South American
liberation theology focuses on walking the talk and focusing on how
are you going to live your religion in the present world. How does
your spirituality relate to life? Liberation theology is a major
challenge, which most Americans choose to ignore.
I've co-taught a spirituality course with Mary [Bradford Ivey] and
also with Sister Rita Rabouin. Sister Rita is a member of the Sisters
of Notre Dame who has lived liberation theology by going barefoot
into the community. She works with people to help them become aware
of how their issues are "related to" external context and oppression.
Rather than saying, "It's my fault that I am poor," Sister Rita and
liberation theology focuses on helping the poor understand social
relations, power, and domination.
So we are back to the issue in the Gospel of Mark of how do we
work with the poor? I am thinking about my parents being poor; I am
thinking about Sister Rita working with the poor; and I am thinking
about liberation theology. One of my Irish students gave me Frank
McCourt's (1996) memoir Angela's Ashes-I could not recommend a book
more firmly that describes the conditions of poverty. Angela's Ashes
describes conditions of poverty and context well. This led me to
realize that we have got to look at social class and economics more
in the counseling process. Which again may mean more walking the talk
and community action. It becomes quite a challenge when we add issues
of spirituality, poverty, and social liberation to the counseling
process.
ADDITIONAL PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES
In the remainder of our interview, Allen candidly reflected on
five additional themes: (a) his wife Mary Bradford Ivey, (b)
previously unmentioned influential people and events, (c) involvement
with professional organizations, (d) assessment of his professional
contributions, and (e) his retirement and looking ahead.
Mary Bradford Ivey
JL: When Allen Ivey is not an educator, a counselor, a
psychologist, and a researcher, who is he? How is that for a broad,
open-ended question?
AI: My immediate response is: Lucky enough to be married to Mary
Bradford Ivey. That relationship has certainly been central and
wonderful and stabilizing. I sometimes say, "Well, Mary makes me
laugh." I am not real great at laughing. I wish I had your sense of
humor, John. And the grandchildren are really special and important.
JL: I remember seeing your grandchildren on your Web site.
AI: They are on my Web site.
JL: You've said of your wife Mary, "She makes me laugh." How has
that changed you? How does that help define who you are?
Al: I think it has moved me to a little more time for being-a
little more orientation to being-although Mary has h\er own set of
achievement needs, that's for sure, but more time for fun such as
skiing. In the old days I would go out and do a lecture and come
home. Now I try to set it up so that she and I can go out and do it
together. When we are there we can celebrate and explore the area so
we can have a nice time in that way.
And whether it is skiing or walking or talking or endless
discussions about professional issues, Mary is wonderful at forcing
me to be clear. She'll ask, "What are you really saying? What do you
really want to have happen?" She has taught me how to apply concepts
to children. She also has a wonderful contextual background in terms
of not including just an individual or group, but also including
larger systems stuff We work together on a variety of multicultural
projects as well. She has been central, and I just am delighted to
have her as friend, scholar, lover, and a person just to be with.
Influential People and Events
JL: Allen, you've already mentioned a number of people as we've
talked. Who have been the most influential people in your life?
AI: Well, variety is in the middle of that. I think about my dad
and his courage-coming from such poverty and living through near
total deafness plus blindness, caring for my mother when she had
cancer-he kind of represents an impossible hero model for me. Very
impressive. So he is clearly one.
JL: How does that theme play out in your life?
Al: Well, I think it leaves me striving because I think his model,
in so many ways, is more than I can be. In that sense, I have to say
my mother was quite wonderful and an inspiration multiculturally. We
grew up about 8 miles from the Swinomish Nation, and people from
there would often stop in at our store. A Swinomish child was named
after my mother. My dad and mother were invited to several powwow's
and given gifts and positions of honor. Their relationship with the
Swinomish is a clear model. To the best of my knowledge, my parents
were the first persons to hire a Mexican American to work in
something other than the fields in that area. They hired him to work
in the store with them. So they modeled openness to cultural
difference-not a perfect model by any means-but that was clearly
there.
These personal examples are part of what has led me to a more
activist multicultural stance. Studying in Denmark taught me that
counselor and therapists need to take action to prevent problems, not
just sit and counsel victims in a cozy office. We have a major
responsibility to think and act contextually and move into the
community.
JL: It also sounds like some early multicultural examples in your
life.
Al: Yes. I think a real critical person was Tandy Wilbur, who was
a manager of the Swinomish Nation. He was the only guy who came in
our store wearing a suit and tie. He was about the only person that I
thought was really nice to me, so he ended up being a hero for me as
a preschooler. It was kind of like, "Isn't he special," and that was
an important thing. His son was an activist and was killed in the
Seattle airport in a washroom. I am quite sure it had to do with the
Bolt decision, a decision supporting Indian fishing rights in
Washington State, which many Whites opposed. White people have
difficulty in understanding the need to meet requirements of treaties
with Native American Indians, even if demanded by law. For example,
Slade Gorton, Senator from Washington State, has actively fought
Indian rights and many believe that he has promoted a climate of
divisiveness. Of course, he had nothing to do with the murder, but
politicians without courage are dangerous. Another friend, Dan Jordan
of the Baha'i faith was killed when he came into Kennedy airport and
he was found stuffed in a garbage can. It's a small piece of trivia,
but I am terrified when I go in an airport or public john-just
terrified.
Tandy Wilbur was clearly an early hero. Also David Tiedeman, this
wonderful model of scholarship. Robert R. Sears, the well-known past
president of APA, was a hero when I was an undergraduate. As I
learned more about the field over time, I discovered that he was not
fully aware of contextual issues surrounding research and practice.
E. F Dowley at Stanford and Burns Crookston, the Dean of CSU. Burns
is a hero to me, and when he died earlier of a heart attack, I think
we lost one of our greatest people. I've taught the multicultural
course with Norma Jean Anderson and with Ernie Washington-both have
been really important in my life. And Mary Bradford Ivey is a special
hero. Those are some people who stand out.
JL: You have been alluding to them, but what are major milestones,
events, or choice points in your life in terms of what you have
accomplished professionally. You have alluded to many, but are there
any others that we haven't covered?
Al: Moving is a general theme that has always been useful. I think
I have always liked moving. I could leave the old mistakes, but I
always recreate the problems where I go. Moving to a new setting has
been wonderful, although I found, and still find, very painful
leaving CSU and Fort Collins, a special place to me. Nothing will
ever match those years at CSU. Other milestones were getting to
Stanford, Harvard, CSU, and Denmark. So physical spaces,
international travel, and the wonderful contacts we had in Japan,
Hong Kong, Australia, and Hawaii have been incredible. I want to say
locations and geography. I get concerned about people in counseling
who just don't plan international, cross-cultural experiences.
Denmark may be very White but it contains a new set of cognitions
that will open your way of thinking. So it is movement and space that
have been most important for me in terms of change.
JL: You used the phrase, "I sometimes get into trouble . . ." What
have been some of the crises in your career and how do you resolve
them?
Al: Basically, John, I have been very lucky. My crises have all
been minor. I think one crisis was when I was working with a gay
student-this was a point long before we saw gay as an alternative way
of living. I was counseling a gay student, and we made the decision
to bring in his parents to work with him as a support. Bringing the
parents in turned out to be a disaster. I wish I could have been more
helpful. I always felt badly that I wasn't. I can sit here
intellectually and say I wasn't prepared and so forth, and how are
you going to handle parents who come in like that. But I would like
to have been better prepared so that scene went better.
JL: What was the time?
Al: That would have been 1961-62. Back in the days when being gay
was considered a pathology. I go back so far in living history that
when I took a summer job as a social worker prior to graduate school,
they had gay kids locked up at SedroWoolley State Mental Hospital
trying to "cure" them. I mean there were horrendous things in the
history of the psychology profession. Shocking! At that point, I wish
I could have helped more and known more. Heterosexism (gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered oppression) really bothers me. It is an
important multicultural issue that we all need to address. The
helping fields of counseling and psychology have been all too often
more problem than solution.
At CSU, there was kind of an amusing crisis. I was making lots of
things happen, and I remember this little turkey of an administrator
saying, "You can't administer." And I'm bringing in literally over a
million dollars worth of grants and developing a nationally known
staff I am quite confident we had the first so-called student
development center in the nation doing proactive community outreach-
and he's saying I can't administer. But, I'll admit I'm sometimes a
little short on details and can frustrate others at times. It wasn't
a crisis, but it is a thing that will happen as I will get into too
many things and not pay attention to details. My crises are pretty
minor.
I was divorced from my first wife, a very able and committed
scholar/administrator. While she is an elegant person, we somehow did
not fit. Anything that is not counted as trauma by DSM-rV was not a
critical issue-it was all there-night sweats, guilt, etc I think that
right now I am facing a life crisis as I move toward my last term of
teaching. I find myself more stressed, grabbing onto things, taking
on more than I should, and I realize people are asking more than
usual of me. So it's kind of like hanging on when you ought to be
letting go. I have been lucky in terms of crisis, and I consider
myself exceedingly fortunate. I would do the same things again if I
had to start over.
Professional Organizations
JL: Tell me about your involvement in professional organizations.
Al I have been President of Division 17, Counseling Psychology, of
the APA 1979-80]. My involvement has been in phases. During my first
15 years as a professional, I went to every American Counseling
Association (ACA) convention and suddenly I decided I wanted to do
APA, and I did nothing but straight APA conventions until I became
president of Division 17. Then I got elected to the APA senate, and I
saw the horrendous politics as the APA split into practitioners and
scientists forming the American Psychological Society. The real sad
stuff that went on there soured me on APA. Then I moved to a primary
commitment currently to ACA, although I still attend and try to stay
alert within APA. Recently I was elected to the Executive Board of
The Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic/Minority Issues.
JL: In looking at your involvement in counseling as a profession,
you have mentioned both ACA and APA and your experience with the
profession. What has that relationship been like for you?
Al: I think the highlight of my presidency of Division 17 was my
appointment of Derald Wing Sue to head the Professional Standards
Committee. He and his committee came up with the multicultural
competencies. It was truly frustrating when the Division of
Counseling Ps\ychology "accepted" rather than "endorsed" the Sue
Committee's important report. After almost 15 years the Division 17
Executive Committee has finally approved them. It has always been a
sore point in me as to why they would approve this, that, and the
other thing, but why not these multicultural competencies? Finally,
approval has happened.
Another thing I am doing currently is on a special assignment from
Jerry Stone of Division 17 looking at ways we can implement those
multicultural competencies. Having had a small part in the
multicultural competencies was an important thing. When I was on the
APA senate, Paul Pedersen and I worked toward inclusion of
multicultural issues in the Guidelines for Mental Health Providers.
Some of the language in there reflects the idea that counseling
without knowledge of the culturally different is unethical. But
still, the APA doesn't want to look at those issues. They would
rather use the professional practice model; the cultural frame is
still uncomfortable for APA. I believe this despite a lot of verbiage
to the contrary.
I have certainly enjoyed ACA. I find it a very comfortable place
to be. But I think a lot of people with their heads on straight still
need to consider multicultural issues more seriously. It's nice to
have those professional homes. Best of all for me is North Atlantic
Regional Association for Counselor Education and Supervision
(NARACES), which is a small group. I can go to a meeting and listen
to somebody and learn and not be pulled in 15 directions.
JL: What are your thoughts on where the counseling profession is
going? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
Al: In terms of direction, I think what has happenedagain at
NARACES-it was a wonderful feeling to hear and see young people-at
least young to me-assistant professors from various schools talking
about multicultural work, cross-cultural work from a very centered
frame, a very confident frame, and to see more people of color at
NARACES, which when I began was all male. Now to see women and people
of color and these young people taking over, and they can say things
about multicultural, etc., studies which are obviously important to
me. But they say it from a more centered and natural frame of
reference, whereas I kind of struggle and work to get there. I like
seeing these young professionals come in-I guess the profession will
survive.
Professional Contributions
JL: Shifting gears. You've written lots of books and articles over
the years-real professional contributions. What do you consider your
most outstanding contributions? What may we have missed that you
think is significant and meaningful?
AI: In terms of missed, I was doing work at the VA in the 1970s as
a consultant with in-patients and started to apply skills training to
psychiatric patients. That would be called "assertiveness training"
now. I was doing it with videotaping patients, then identifying the
skills, and then role-play the skills until they learned them. I
found out they were using a lot of the microskills in the process,
but we tailored it to their language. We developed a "Me Kit" for
patients to learn microskills. We applied microskills to the
therapeutic process. I was taking people who had been in the hospital
2 or 3 years and coming in once or twice a week, getting people out
of the hospital in 4 or 5 weeks. It was an incredible project. I made
the mistake of not calling it assertiveness training. That would have
been a wonderful thing to call it, but teaching patients skills is
enough to get them out of the hospital. You don't need all this
Lacanian, psychoanalytic, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy stuff All
they need are skills. But, different in this project was that each
individual patient decided his or her own path. We did not impose a
framework on them.
I called that early article, "Media Therapy" (Ivey, 1973)for which
I definitely picked the wrong title-in some ways it may be the best,
most comprehensive piece I've written. I go back and reinterpret that
now theoretically in a variety of ways because we did concrete skill
training. We also used the sensorimotor level. Every time a patient
came on the ward, we had patients running relaxation training teams
and tapes. So we were doing body stuff and we were doing reflection
on self and meaning at the formal level. Then it came time for the
patients to get out of the hospital. I began to see that unless we
involved the patient's family in the process, that the hospital would
have a revolving door of admission, discharge, and readmission. I
started working with families by bringing them in for therapy and
education as well. The hospital didn't like that.
I also began to realize that you have to work on context as well
as the individual. This was changing hospital methods. We saw Vietnam
vets before we had the concept of posttraumatic stress, and I say
posttraumatic stress (PTS) rather than posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). I wanted to encourage the veterans to get together and talk
about their experiences. I wanted the African Americans to get
together and talk about their experiences in groups that I called at
that point "consciousness raising." The hospital didn't like that
either and finally closed down the project in the middle of data
collection and moved me to another ward. They didn't want to change.
I think it was the most exciting work I've ever done because I was
doing at that point clinically all the work I have been writing about
ever since. Because I still emphasize outreach and prevention...
©Copyright 2001, Journal of Counseling & Development
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