Ron, I would consider verbalizing a different opinion to a client if I had a "good" rapport already established with him or her. By "good" I mean that I doubt I would challenge his or her thought processes or philisophical reasonings during my first treatment session. It is important to me to let the client show me his true self (positive and negative sides)... and I feel to interject with alternative ways of thinking before I have a good feel for how the client actually sees things could be detrimental to our therapeutic relationship and in turn, the entire process. My reasoning for this comes down to a matter of trust. It takes time for a clients to trust therapists and I think once that trust is developed my clients will be more inclined to receive different opinions from me. Now, when it comes time to offer different opinions I do just that...present "different" ideas and not necessarily the ones I personally follow myself. In other words, when I have an idea or philosophy that is different than a client's I present it as a "what if" rather than, "well, this is what I would do" type of approach. One of my clinical rotations was in a psych setting and we did this all of the time when talking about coping skills, for example. When discussing ways to change negative coping skills (eg. drinking, violence, etc.) to positive ones (eg. journaling, exercising, talking it out, praying, etc.) I wouldn't necessarily say to the clients, "this is what I do to cope positively", but I would present a variety of positive coping skills to them and let them choose which one(s) they would like to try out. That being said I would have to agree with Mike when he said and I quote: <<If there is a need to inject another philosophical viewpoint it should be selected from all those available not just our own, based on a balanced consideration of what is appropriate. To rely on our own philosophy would be prejudicial.>> Sheila <<Hello Shelia: While it's quite obvious "arguing" with clients is non-therapeutic, would you consider that verbalizing different opinions than the clients can also build rapport? Ron>> __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ******************** Unsubscribe by sending a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message's body, put the following text: unsubscribe OTlist ------ OTnow messages are archived at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] (and) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ********rC***********
