Getting to Good Long-Term Outcome

There is an ongoing battle for your soul that plays out in real time, most dramatically during moments of crisis.  Will you follow your path of greatest advantage? Or, will you yield in the direction of least resistance? 

Our task is to get you through a difficult and important developmental passage: From dependence on a substance or activity to the capability of acting in accord with your interests and principles. 

Like athletic or artistic performance, the ability to perform well when the stakes are high is the by-product of preparation and practice.  The measure of our work together is how you actually perform during your high-risk situatons.  I won’t be with you at these moments, so we must use the time we have between now and then to its best advantage:

During our therapy sessions we will work together to conceptualize the nature of your challenge and develop strategies and tactics to solve the problems and achieve your goals.  This may involve:

• Cognitive-Behavior Therapy – This perspective and set of practical principles about how the soul works will enable you to appreciate the relationship between your beliefs [often acquired during childhood and quite illogical], your emotions, and your subsequent reactions that often confirm the original pathogenic belief.  [See Avoidable Suffering]
  
• Experiential Invitations – Subjective phenomena can be influenced by others (e.g., hypnosis), and by the self (e.g., meditation).  With practice you can learn to alter subjective phenomena such as your motivational state.  This turns out to be a remarkable power that can enable you change the course of your life for the better. A wide range of hypnosis, meditation, and other trance formational protocols will give you the opportunity to practice influencing your reactions to events that happen. The goal is for you to develop the ability to respond effectively during crises of stress and temptation. We can explore these methods together during therapy sessions.  It is particularly important for you to utilize these methods in natural and high-risk settings. 
  
• Existential Psychotherapy – This is your life, so you get to select the goal of our work together.  My job is to give you the tools that are most likely to get you what you say you want.  The critical questions is: What do you really want?  Needles tosay, you are going to die.  Does that realization change anything, or make you want to change anything? 

During the interval between sessions [Inter-Session Interval], you can use the thought experiemnts and trance formational media to exercise your mental faculties. Perhaps even more important is to use the high-risks situations you encounter as opporutnities to practice your coping skills and learn about your foe. As your counselor, I will need feedback on what you experience, what is working and not working, and how you are holding up.

Before each session

• Complete Feedback Form

• Complete Mood Screen [if this is an issue for you]

Before, during, and after real-time crises, use the tools!

• Trap Detector.  Your computer will score it and produce 6 scores.  We are interested in which ones are the highest as that will tell us which traps to focus on.

• Reminder Card.  Bill will give you two during the first or second session.  You may also call the office for additional copies 

• Audio Scripts.  The Path E-book contains a wide variety.  Please discuss the order of play with Bill

 

E-mail Bill or call the office when

• You are approaching or in a High-Risk Situation

• You detect an early warning sign of slipping of motivation

• You have an idea relevant to our collaboration

• You are seeing things differently than you did when you were in my office

 

 

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