Jeffery Binder recommends five questions for clinicians to “conduct a reconnaissance” in an area of a client’s life. I think of these questions in every counseling session I conduct. Writing them here is one more way for me to keep them clearly in mind… and I believe anyone who wants can use them in their [...]

In an earlier post I talked about an interpersonal model with four parts.
 

What did I do?
What did I expect?
What was my interpretation of what happened?
How do I react to that, both toward myself and emotionally?

 
In the second step, what we want is to have people respond in ways that we expect. Getting the reaction we [...]

Assertiveness is a very powerful approach to interactions with other people. Frequently people get trapped in old ways of interacting that do not work in an adult world. Without thinking about doing something different or getting some training, they continue to do what worked, or at least seemed to work earlier in their life. Pouting [...]

Aimée over at The Reality of Anxiety copied the following bill of rights from Edmund Bourne’s book The Anxiety & Phobia Work Book. Thank you Aimée.
The book is very good and one I have used as a reference in my counseling work. The bill of rights has helped me think about all of [...]

This is a good article on an important emotion. It seems to me that it works nicely with emotion as information.
 
5 Tips for Dealing with Guilt
by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
November 27, 2007
It’s amazing how quickly guilt can kick in for the smallest, most meaningless things in our lives.
 
Pasted from <http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/11/27/5-tips-for-dealing-with-guilt/>
 

At the center of understanding the interaction between two people is a four part interpersonal model described by both Binder (2004) and Levenson (1995). I have used this model extensively with clients who have anger issues. In this post I will explore using the model for gathering information in any situation between two people.
The basic [...]

I have included the following ideas about emotion in several posts. But remember, repetition, like that used by our coaches and teachers, is a good thing. This is the short version of emotion that more easily fits in a tool bag:
· Emotion is a mental state in [...]

Re-framing is a tool used by counselors and other therapists to help a person see the same situation in a different way. When someone gets stuck in a situation, they sometimes need help to accomplish a re-frame. However, it doesn’t hurt to try the exercise on your own.

OODA Loop: Observe- Orient- Decide- Act
The other day I decided to use the OODA Loop to describe what we were trying to accomplish as I sat in my Chicago office, counseling a client for anger. As the article says, OODA was developed by Col. John Boyd for air combat and warfare. I am not suggesting [...]

One way that emotions go astray is they become disconnected in space, time, or direction. This seems to be especially true with anger and anxiety, although, I am sure it fits for other emotions as well.
Emotions can be thought of as providing information (I will post more on this idea later). The information provided by [...]