Abstract
One of the problems of being a student of psychology is they learn everything in modules and pass examinations in separate areas of the subject. These can lead to disjointed opinion – a failure to connect the dots. This paper is an attempt to marry the insights of Social Psychology and Counselling practice. Can counsellors learn some wider insights from social research? I will gape an example of classical research and try to glance how it can back the counsellor in practice.
Introduction
Most psychology students even after graduation cannot always inspect the connection between one set of psychological knowledge and another – even well known psychologists manage to approach up with "original" ideas which clearly are not – but where their subconscious has dragged two facts together to compose a correlation that note a unusual belief – not that one may cause the other. For example Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is venerable by many counsellors, psychiatrists and medical counsellors yet few understand that its principals lie squarely with Freudian thinking.
Counsellors are not always educated in psychology and many learn their knowledge in short courses designed by colleges and universities to one standard or another. What ever arrangement you view at it their knowledge is often chunky of gaps. This is mainly because of the tendency to whisper in only one school of understanding, i.e. CBT, psychodynamics, psychotherapy and other areas – but minute often to a particular theory or school of belief. This leads to the same set as our learned friends re-inventing the wheel. Many counsellors on my fill seminars are surprised when you point to something new and then protest them who actually came up with the conception – then they all explain – oooohhh! I would like here to demonstrate some samples using social psychological research and how we can marry the knowledge to attend us become better counsellors and even better researchers of our beget practice.
Social Psychology – an conception!
What is Social Psychology anyway – it is the scientific discover of how people mediate about, are influenced and narrate to one another in a social world (Myers 2005) . It investigates three areas of our being, one is our social thinking, how we gawk ourselves in the world, the second how we are influenced by society, its culture and traditions, within and without groups and third by our social relations, in prejudice, aggression, attraction also altruism towards other people and from them to ourselves. This then is the social world we live in. Most psychology is based on what the individual is doing, learning, thinking and feeling, but we are not alone in this world – we are portion of a family, a community, a city, a country, a culture and all this creates a reality for our daily lives.
Counselling – a diagram!
Of course the purpose of counselling has always been focused on the individual (except Transactional Analysis – the only therapy based on relationships directly) . This mean that in counselling sessions it is the individual's problems being addressed and dealt with in a therapeutic environment, leading to a resolution for the client, but not for the world he has to deal with when he leaves the comfort of the therapists office.
Social Psychology – thinking outside the box!
We all earn our enjoy reality – no two people will agree on a shared understanding even when witnessing the same event. This is because we advance to every event with preconceptions about the world – we often call this current sense. However celebrated sense is often untested and can be interpretated many ways. Paul Lazersfeld (1949) asked some subjects to understanding some current sense statements and asked if the subjects agreed with the notions stated.
1.Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than did less-educated soldiers. (Intellectuals were less prepared for battle than stresses than street-smart-people.)
2.Southern soldiers coped better with the hot South Sea Island climate than did Northern soldiers. (Southerners were accustomed to hot weather) .
3.White privates were more keen for promotion than were gloomy privates. (Years of oppression rob a toll on achievement motivation) .
4.Southern Blacks preferred Southern to Northern officers (because Southern officers were more experienced and skilled in interacting with Blacks) . (Myers 2005)
Many of Lazersfelds' subjects stated that the above statements were definite and found no effort in agreeing with them. As you might have guessed the reality was actually the opposite in every case. Lazersfeld in fact reported that the less educated soldiers suffered more, there was no valid inequity in climate adjustment, Blacks were more keen for promotion etcetera. In everyday life we experience listening to others people's popular sense and never really inquire of it – this is often because they are stated as hindsight (after the event has happened) . We remove the attitude of "discover I told you that is what it would be like" but before the event this is not so easy. In today's society we like to salvage scapegoats for political mistakes, industrial accidents, car crashes – someone has to be blamed – they should have known. It is easy after the facts are known to attribute blame to someone – who at the time probably were no wiser that anyone else. In the 9/11 pains, the security forces had intelligence that could have stopped the terrorists but it was amongst the millions of other bits of useless information. After 9/11 people were surprised this information was ignored.
Social Psychology informs Counselling – 1
From the above example how can we consume this information in our counselling sessions? How can we reflect that our client's sense of reality is just -that they are not talking about favorite mis-sense or even using hindsight to explain a past event? We could try the following questions to the client to try and elicit a sense of what went before.
1.What were you thinking prior to the event?
2.Did you always enjoy this?
3.Do you mediate others agree with your opinion?
4.How has this event changed the plot you might act in the future?
Case Study: -1
Mary is raped; she has been through the court process and seen the man convicted. A year later she is unable to get modern relationships with men. She makes the following statement:
"Men are all the same – takers, liars, untrustworthy and brutal. I always knew they would injure me one day, lift my dignity away from me, and discontinuance me from living my life with-out scare. Since I was a microscopic girl I have feared men. They are all the same when you net legal down to it – sexual dirty beasts."
Therapist: stammer me Mary, what were you thinking prior to the event?
Mary: Well, I was overjoyed, enjoying the party, dancing with some guys, having friendly fun. I guess I was thinking I was superior here and impartial glad to be with such moving people.
Therapist: You say that men are all alike – when did you originate believing this?
Mary: perceive what happened to me! You give them a chance and they betray you. He said impartial a kiss outside, unbiased a hug, I wanted that too, but when you give them that prance they acquire a mile. I knew then I should have said no.
Therapist: Do you feel other girls feel the same about men?
Mary: Perhaps they should, and then fewer girls would suffer like I did. However most girls are wearisome and reflect they can handle men in any circumstances. comic fools.
Therapist: If you go to a party or similar now – how might you behave towards men?
Mary: Well never be alone with any man – no matter how nice he is. design definite you voice you friends where you are and who you are with. Better tranquil do not go to the party in the first site.
Summery: – 1
You can perceive from Mary's answers to our site questions she has taken up a novel global understanding of men, a unusual map of behaving, she has weak hindsight to perform a recent memory of the event. Prior to the event Mary had no such cautious thinking about men; she certainly did not have a global ideation. Her statement about, I should have known, is pure hindsight after the event, she even finds a reliable saying to confirm her thinking, an meander over a mile, the opposite could be, one diminutive step is all it takes to your desired goal. Prior to the rape she was more than trusting to go outside and bask in this man's company and wished to be kissed and hugged. (This is not a justification for her rape merely looking at her gain thinking) . When asked how others might feel – she hasty adopts a "I know better arrive", she is really talking about herself prior to the rape, her personal idea in the ability to handle men, but now in hindsight seeing herself as the funny girl. Mary comes to therapy because she is finding it hard to develop unique relationships yet in reply to the last put a question to – she effectively answers her fill plight. She has created a fresh reality for herself in which no man can be trusted and therefore safer to be alone and avoid situations where she might meet similar men to her attacker (or any man) .
After this session our counsellor can think on Mary's fresh perspective, her modern well-liked sense understanding, her horror of future relationships and the exact matter of trust. Maybe she will need many titillating session before she can return to some semblance of the delighted girl she once was but in trauma this of course takes time.
The purpose of this exhaust was however to expose how we can exercise some notions from Social Psychology in our counselling practice.
Social Psychology – Who am I?
Central to social psychology is the belief of the "self" in a social environment. Our social identity is our sense of who we are in our private thoughts and in a community – our group identity for instance. When asked the inquire, "who am I? ", we tend to list our opinion about our appearance, so we may acknowledge, a man, a woman, large, short, stout, thin, dismal, white. We may then talk of our social self, doctor, housewife, engineer, unemployed, these are our social roles. We then espouse our achievement, graduate, and wonderful laureate. Then we may talk about our knowledge of ourselves in the sense of our character, kind, ecstatic, clever, superstitious. Finally about our feelings of self-worth, am I well-behaved person, do I relieve others, do people like me?
As we do not live in isolation (unless you are a hermit) we are constantly adjusting ourselves to our situations, we may have some enduring traits across many situations such as, patience, kindness or risk taking and self-interest. However we do change our thinking and image to more often fit the set we collect ourselves in at any one time. Culture can effect a great disagreement to a place and how we consider and behave. Markus and Kitayama (1991) investigated the notion of the independent Westerner and the interdependent Easterner. The Westerner is surrounded by people such as mother, father, siblings, friends, co-workers and those who they wait on or are serviced by, (shops etc) . In the West they retort the relationships with others but in the East they glance themselves as deeply embedded in the lives of others. This has a sizable impact on the opinion of yourself image. The independent person is defined by individual traits and goals that are personal to them; the interdependent person is socially defined by connections with others. When asked what matters in life the independent will retort – me, my personal achievements, the interdependent will respond – we, the family, the group. The independent disapproves of conformity while the interdependent dislikes egotism in people. One group may feel they are controlling the world and the other is being controlled by the world (or events) .
Social Psychology informs Counselling -2
If the self is central to our thinking, our behaviour and our feelings then counselling should try to net out the core of a clients being in order to understand his station in society and life. How can we truly understand the client and their need for growth or resolution without gleaming more about their starting point? Our therapist needs to ask some fundamental questions to elicit an overview of a person's site. Here are impartial six examples:
1.boom me how you stare yourself – physically.
2.vow me how you own others witness you?
3.What roles do you have in society, work, home etc?
4.If I met you for the first time – what would my impression of you be?
5.Do you reflect you are a pleasurable person?
6.If you observe a beggar in the street how do you react?
Case spy – 2
John has approach to therapy to effect some personal growth. He is fundamentally blissful in life, has a salubrious job, nice family and has few dramas in his life beyond the normal stressors of money and mortgages. However he is feeling unfulfilled and wishes to notice his potential for growth as a person.
Therapist: If I came from Mars and saw you – how would I relate benefit to my superiors what you looked like in comparison to others I met?
John: That's a tough ask, I do not normally assume about how I ogle beyond being suitably dressed for the occasion, i.e. for work or going out. If pushed I would say substantial, maybe too thin, balding but composed not repugnant, retain smart and I am soft spoken. I guess as a Martian if you compare me too others I may be seen as tedious, routine type and not very spirited.
Therapist: So if I was to enlighten your best friend that description would they recognise you?
John: hahahah I doubt it. When I am with my friends I am more casual, more relaxed and maybe even a itsy-bitsy outgoing – choose a risk now and again. I remember lots of jokes and amuse my friends with the telling. They always kid me I'm in anguish of being blown away as I have no weight and preserve eating all the time to preserve on the ground.
Therapist: What is your role in society – what do you watch as notable?
John: I am a father first and foremost and then, of course equally, my wife's husband. I assume family is critical more so than work although you have to have both in order to survive. I am an engineer by trade but now-days I mostly work in an office using a computer to develop obtain papers. The work is genuine and essential but not considerable to the well-being of mankind. I mentor at a children's club once a week, you know the sort of thing, keeping them off the streets and occupied. I luxuriate in the map they inspect up to me as their advisor in so many areas of teenage danger.
Therapist: If my assistant walked in here now and said hello to you what impression would she execute of you? If I asked her later to allege me what might she say?
John: She might say who was that monotonous guy you were with? It damage my neck to glance up at him. If I had a ladder he might be ok?
Therapist: Are you a ample person John?
John: Well I have never intentially harm anyone as far as I know. I contemplate I do more than most for my local community. So, yes I would say I was agreeable over-all.
Therapist: There are many beggars in the streets now-days, if you saw one outside what is your reaction to them?
John: I have to be objective here and say I do not always sympathise with them. I feel they may not be as terrible as they pretend to be. You know a day of collecting then wait on to the car and home to the wife. I saw a beggar rep $5 from a bus cue, I worked out in a day he could salvage maybe $200, that is $1000 every five days, $4000 a month – most people have to work really hard to accept that sort of money. So now I only give to the ones I can be really positive about.
Summery: – 2
First we should re-examine the purpose of the questions;
utter me how you stare yourself – physically.
This expect helps to breakdown the person's self conception -their mirror image of themselves. What does it allege us? In our example John is a conformist; he dresses to expectations of others, and cares about his impression on others as in his thunder about being shapely.
bellow me how you acquire others leer you?
This is a checking put a question to about the first. You can peruse here John does not inform the first description but his more social self when relaxed and surrounded by those he trusts. Outside of his circle John conforms to expectations.
What roles do you have in society, work, home etc?
This put a question to is to inspect how he fits into the world he inhabits. John clearly exhibit a preference for valid roles, father, husband but when he talks about his outside roles he is clearly not so elated and fulfilled by work or his professional self.
If I met you for the first time – what would my impression of you be?
Here we are testing out the self-image again. John self-abases himself as he believes women react to his tallness and being thin. He gain he may glimpse like the target of humour especially women.
Do you deem you are a suitable person?
In this quiz we are looking for character traits, here John emphasises his contribution to the community, over exaggerates his role and minimises that of others. He wants to be seen as the gracious man.
If you glance a beggar in the street how do you react?
This again is the checking request for the previous one about being top-notch. Here John justifies what being excellent is – that it is situational for him. The beggar makes too powerful money therefore I do not have to give. I'm mild a capable man though? Self justification gives rise to thinking and behaviour to suit our prejudices.
John came for personal growth to be able to be more in his world than impartial the normal person. John feels he is unfulfilled by life and from our questions we can look the image he holds of himself and his personal reality. Now the counsellor is not dealing with a plight of growth but a pickle of image and self interest. From the findings of social psychology the counselling can be better informed and have a better unsuitable from which to suggest change and insight.
Conclusion:
This paper spot out to indicate how a survey of social psychology could succor counsellors become better questioners and more informed about how people study themselves, their personal reality and conception of worth in a social world. In the two example case studies we can gaze the practical application of the findings from research in this location. Of course social psychology is a grand status of seek and in this paper we have only scratched the surface of social thinking. Social influence and social relations can also utter us – such areas as obedience, conformity, conflict resolution and many other areas where people influence people either by the plot, or by the traits and characters of others, in transactions of our social world.
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