Successful Social Media for Marketing

Well, if ever we needed proof of the power of social networking - I posted my last blog about online counselling on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. What it has produced is a long and interesting discussion on Linked In about the value of online counselling ....

... and new applicants to the course that Online Training for Counsellors has added to their usual tri annual intake for the general certificate in online counselling!

Find more information about it here

http://www.onlinetrainingforcounsellors.co.uk/

This new course will run from 17th May to the 24th July - so still time to apply and get an early bird discount up to the 10th May, and still be finished the course in time for summer holidays. What's not to like!

The general course lasts for 10 weeks. In that time you learn about language, basic legal issues, using technology, user friendly approaches online, difference and diversity - because online work increases opportunities and equality for those who can only use this method to have counselling at all, and beginnings, middles and endings and how they can be effective in therapy online, among many other things.

You will do a weekly practice task online to consider individually and in groups the most ethical and effective ways of working will clients with diverse issues and do role play to practice your new found skills.

You will learn how to present yourself and your work to clients and other counsellors online.

A weekly registration task offers great opportunities for self reflection and CPD, in addition to a learning reflective journal.

The greatest opportunity of course is to learn along with others in a group and build relationships, professional and personal, with other counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists from all over the world who will become a valuable peer group for your future online work.

The general certificate will help and support you in building the basic skills for taking your counselling work a step further towards working online but you may well become as committed to this way of working as we all did who work for OLT and take the diploma course next. This really is the future and opens so many doors in counselling both for clients and for us as counsellors.

CPD wise - what better and more interesting way to get 80 hours for your BACP reaccreditation ... 200 hours for the diploma. Consider that and what it will cost you for those odd daily workshops to build up your hours. Workshops are great too - and extremely diverse, but this is an opportunity to learn a whole new skill set, and one that is really worthwhile.

And the power of social media ........

Well you're reading this aren't you?!

Come and join everyone else who has found out about us this way. We look forward to meeting you :-)

Louis Theroux's Extreme Love

Ok - so I went into this expecting to hate it, and yes I do have one or two ....... or maybe three gripes, but actually that is all, so maybe we should get those out of the way first.

Firstly, and the one that had me shouting at the TV was the use of unnecessary restraint. There is very, very rarely a need to restrain another person. If they are going to seriously harm themselves or someone else (and I'm talking life or death here) then perhaps - unless you'd like to use the calmer and significantly more effective technique of distraction. However, restraint often does - and did - make a difficult situation considerably worse. It's bad enough using it on Neuro Typicals - restraint is a punishment and a humiliation - but to restrain and increase the anxiety of a person with autism who already is in sensory overload, often made worse by touch, is pretty unforgivable.

Secondly, was the talk of removing behaviours. What do you mean remove?! Working from first principles here, behaviour is a form of communication. People with autism have enough problems with frustration trying to express themselves - and you're going to try to take that away?

Thirdly is Applied Behaviour Analysis. I probably made my opinion on this pretty clear yesterday, but training a person is nowhere near getting to a bridge and crossing it to be in their world. There wasn't as much focus on this as I had dreaded and actually you had to know what they were using to recognise the principle anyway.

I'm also still confused as to why it was necessary for a UK presenter for a UK programme to go to the USA to make a documentary on Autism.

However on the whole the issues were sensitively approached - and it was good to see Louis himself put on the back foot by the beautifully verbose star of the show - Nicky - for whom I wish every good thing in life. He was wonderful!

It was good to see parents who, in the main, were coping admirably with difficult and challenging lives (and I've been there too) - if only some of them would learn to be a little slower, calmer and not wind their Autistic offspring up to panic pitch.

Not too bad Mr Theroux - but can we look at the UK next time please? We have people with Autism here too - and we don't feel so much need to modify behaviour and communication, as instead to work with them and celebrate the diversity of Autistic Spectrum Conditions.

Teaching Online Counselling Skills

Why train online for counselling? You already are a counsellor or psychologist I guess and working perfectly well f2f. Surely working online is no different - it just takes a computer instead of being in the same room?

Well, no - not really. You will benefit, and your clients will benefit even more, if you take the time to learn how to transfer your current skills and work effectively and ethically online.

Firstly, there is all the legal and ethical stuff to consider. Making sure you are insured for a start - your current company may not cover you for this. Considering where and how you can work - there are limitations, especially in the USA and you don't want to be caught out. How are you going to maintain confidentiality?

How are you even going to know who you are talking to? - with online disinhibition and anonymity what are the effects of this? - what will you do in an emergency situation? - what about the increased power of transference and counter-transference?

Lots of people might contact you to work online because they cannot cope with working f2f.

How will you demonstrate core conditions of empathy, acceptance and congruence when the person you are talking to cannot see you and you cannot see them? Consider just how much of our language is based on what we can see?

What about other ways of working that you can incorporate - narrative and creative therapies. What about immediacy, editing, reflection and mirroring?

How will you manage the beginning, middle and ending?

What about when clients contact you later via Facebook, follow you on Twitter, pop up on Skype? - It's a small world in counselling and smaller still online.

And then there is the lovely Mieke - all round online multi-tasker - tutor, counsellor, trainer, coach and marketing guru - she will teach you things about marketing your online business you didn't know that you didn't know!!

Training online myself and then being a tutor for www.onlinetrainingforcounsellors.co.uk, I have possibly learned so much - and then as much if not more than the students I have taught.

Firstly teaching the concepts and skills of online counselling, instead of being the student, put much of my work into a different context - offering opportunities for new thoughts, reflections and learning. The students also have such a lot to bring to the course of their own lives and work - the online group experience enriching the learning for everyone.

Convinced yet? Counselling online is not just deciding to use a computer instead of sitting in a room with someone. You need to know how to make your online environment into your personal counselling room - and lots lots more.

The BACP will certainly appreciate you for it - there will soon be a specific accreditation division for online counsellors who have trained on a BACP recommended course.

So come and join us for the general 10 week certificate in May 2012 (September if you can't manage May) and perhaps you will be as convinced as to the future of online counselling as we all are and carry on with the diploma next April - A fantastic online experience and opportunity to build an online peer group.

http://www.onlinetrainingforcounsellors.co.uk

Magic Box

The Magic Box

I will put in the box

the swish of a silk sari on a summer night,

fire from the nostrils of a Chinese dragon,

the tip of a tongue touching a tooth.

I will put in the box

a snowman with a rumbling belly,

a sip of the bluest water from Lake Lucerne,

a leaping spark from an electric fish.

I will put in the box

three violet wishes spoken in Gujarati,

the last joke of an ancient uncle

and the first smile of a baby.

I will put in the box

a fifth season and a black sun,

a cowboy on a broomstick

and a witch on a white horse.

My box is fashioned from ice and gold and steel,

with stars on the lid and secrets in the corners.

It's hinges are the toe joints

of dinosaurs.

I shall surf on my box

on the great high-rolling breaks of the wild Atlantic,

then wash ashore on a yellow beach

the colour of the sun.

Kit Wright

I used this poem many times when I was a primary school teacher and the children always loved it and made good use of it to develop their own imaginative poetry and metaphor and simile work.

Metaphor and imagery are such powerful tools in Counselling.

I was introduced to the idea of a first aid box during personal counselling once and have used it to good effect with clients since, so now I'd like to share it with you.

Close your eyes and relax.

Imagine a box - give it a shape, colour, texture, material, size ...

but it is a magic box - like Mary Poppins bag - and will hold anything you need to put inside.

Start to fill your box with things that will help you when you feel low ...

they may be real things and people, or they may be metaphors for these ..

... if you would like to accept it - I will start you off with an acorn - a seed that contains all it needs to grow and flourish within itself - and will grow into a strong and mighty oak tree.

You can add anything to your box whenever you find something that makes you feel good ...

and you can open it and look at the things inside anytime you like or need to ...

Enjoy!