Rita Sommers-Flanagan’s research while affiliated with University of Montana and other places

Boşanma, birçok açıdan zorlu bir süreçtir. Bu süreçte ebeveynler çocuklarını yaşadıkları zorluklardan korumak isterler ancak bu konudaki bilgi kaynakları sınırlıdır. Bu kitap; boşanma sürecinde ve sonrasında yaşanabilecek olumsuz durumlarda ebeveynlerin çocuklarına nasıl yaklaşabileceklerini, eski eşleriyle ortaya çıkabilecek sorunlarda nelere dikkat etmeleri gerektiğini ve çocuklarıyla iletişimlerindeki kritik noktaları işlemektedir. Kitap beş bölümden oluşmakta olup anne babaların hayalleri ile gerçekleri arasındaki farklara, kendi kendilerine nasıl yardım edebileceklerine, çocuklarını nasıl dinleyebileceklerine, eski eşleriyle nasıl sağlıklı bir iletişim kurabileceklerine ve bütün boşanma sürecinin çocukları genel olarak nasıl etkileyebileceğine ışık tutmaktadır. Bir uygulama kitabı olarak tasarlandığı için kritik zamanlarda neler yapabileceklerine dair anne babalara yön gösterecek çok sayıda etkinlik içermektedir. Adında içerdiği gibi çocuklarını seven anne babalar için en iyi boşanma kitabı olmaya adaydır. Aile danışmanlarına, psikolojik danışmanlara, psikologlara, okul psikolojik danışmanlarına ve boşanma davalarında çalışan uzmanlara yardımcı olacaktır.

Tough Kids, Cool Counseling offers creative techniques for overcoming resistance, fostering constructive therapy relationships, and generating opportunities for client change and growth. This edition includes a new chapter on resistance busters and updated and fresh ideas for establishing rapport, carrying out informal assessments, improving negative moods, modifying maladaptive behaviors, and educating parents. Suicide assessment, medication referrals, and therapy termination are also discussed. John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan clearly enjoy working with kids-no matter how tough-and their infectious spirit and proven techniques will help you bring renewed energy into the counseling process. © 2007 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

This chapter orients counselors toward working sensitively and effectively with young clients who are typically described as difficult or challenging. It describes common problems that adult counselors experience when working with young clients. The chapter highlights a few therapeutically relevant, basic developmental differences between children and adults. It proposes that by becoming sensitive to the culture of childhood/adolescence, counselors can become more user-friendly and more effective when working with youth. Strategies and techniques that improve and deepen the counseling relationship will translate into greater youth cooperation with both nontraditional and empirically supported procedures. Effective counselors strive to know and understand differences between themselves and their clients at all levels, whether differences stem from age, gender training, or cultural background.

Establishing rapport and developing an alliance are crucial to counseling success in any context and from virtually all theoretical perspectives. This chapter describes how counselors can break down initial resistance, gather information, and get to know difficult young clients, while at the same time establish rapport and develop a therapeutic alliance. It focuses on initial connection, informal assessment procedures, and other ways to build rapport while beginning counseling. Young clients are more likely to crave novelty, rapt attention, authenticity, and entertainment. The chapter offers suggestions to enhance the counselor's rapport-building efforts. The purpose of informed consent and role induction or an explanation of assessment and counseling procedures, is to help clients understand how counseling works and the role they play in the process.

A major problem at the outset of counseling with difficult young clients involves how to get them to participate in potentially therapeutic activities when they're in a lousy mood. Many cognitive-behavioral strategies for mood management require high levels of client motivation, interest, and cooperation, which turn out to be ironic requirements for youths who feel nasty and irritable, and are uncooperative and appear unmotivated to change. This chapter focuses on strategies and techniques that may help counselors manage and solve the irritable mood conundrum. It specifically focuses on techniques that have a good chance of rapidly changing young clients' bleak or nasty moods. Rapid emotional change techniques can be useful in pursuing several counseling goals such as increasing client involvement and interest in counseling by improving in-session mood. Techniques described in the chapter may help increase the pace of treatment with children and adolescents.

Many parents do not necessarily want to control their children, they just want to channel some of their children's energy and motivation into more constructive activities. This chapter focuses primarily on behavioral and cognitive techniques for redirecting children's motivation toward potentially growthful and therapeutic activities. Additionally, several techniques in the chapter have an interpersonal focus, designed to shift interpersonal attitudes and behaviors. It is important for parents and counselors to be sensitive to children's questions about why they should or should not engage in particular behaviors. This is because "why" questions are questions about contingency and motivation. The purpose of using redefinitions in counseling is to help young clients let go of maladaptive erroneous beliefs that restrict their ability to resolve personal problems and conflicts. Similarly, redefinitions are useful with parents whose beliefs and definitions of particular situations are restricting their ability to creatively solve family problems.

This chapter provides information on medication treatment alternatives within the context of nonpharmacologic (counseling or psychotherapy) treatments. It reviews strategies for discussing medication issues with young clients and their parents, determining when and whether a medical referral is necessary or appropriate, and understanding the relative safety, efficacy, and appropriateness of various psychopharmacologic agents. The chapter provides general guidelines regarding how to talk with parents and children about medications, discusses methods for exploring parental feelings, and focuses on coping with feelings associated with medication use. It presents a medical model, and explains the reasons why the medical model is especially appealing to parents. The chapter also discusses specific problems in diagnosing young clients, and examines the empirical support for medication treatments for a limited number of psychiatric diagnoses. Finally, it offers some general guidelines to assist with referral decision making.

The prospect of a young person committing suicide is one of the most emotionally wrenching realities we face as mental health professionals and as human beings. This chapter presents a review of major issues associated with adolescent suicide assessment and management for three main reasons. First, suicide attempts are among the most common of all psychiatric emergencies, with around 7%-9% of high school students reporting a suicide attempt in the past year. Second, suicide ideation, attempt, and completion are even more likely within the population of difficult or challenging youth. Third, there appears to be little systematic suicide assessment and treatment information provided within most professional training programs, including counseling programs. The chapter focuses on primary components of professionally competent adolescent suicide assessment interviewing and brief intervention approaches. It helps increase counselor's awareness of essential professional behaviors when working with suicidal young people.

When counseling young people, termination can occur without warning for a number of reasons. It is difficult to establish a trusting, collaborative relationship with many young clients, partly because they seem to cultivate distant and defiant relationships with adults. Sometimes the youth disappears, only to reappear, then disappear, and then perhaps, reappear again. Other times, parental impatience or impulsivity drives termination. This chapter describes and discusses a variety of termination situations and a range of emotional reactions counselors and clients may have during counseling and termination. Additionally, it explores guidelines for attaining the highly elusive optimal termination. Finally, the chapter discusses methods for potentially salvaging atypical terminations or less-than-optimal counseling terminations.