Stress Management Tips: Stress and a Counseling Session
Channel: Dr. Marvin Marshall's Video Insights
Date: 2018-06-26

[CORRECTION: AT 53 SECONDS THE SPELLING IS "Collaboration" NOT "Collabertion"]

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Want to change a young person's attitude and behavior?
Here is an example of how to have a student change both attitude and behavior. 

What I will be describing is not a mock school counseling session but an actual individual counseling session when I took the role of a school counselor in a counseling session to demonstrate essential counseling skills. The school counselor observed how I implemented counseling theories and counseling techniques in practice with a middle school girl who was the school's most challenging student.

The counselor sat in the session and observed how I used noncoercion and collaboration to prompt a change in the student’s attitude and behavior.

I started the meeting by asking the student, “What was the situation that brought you to the office?” Alicia (not her real name) replied that she had called someone a bad name.

I mentioned that it seemed to me that her impulse of being unkind to a fellow student controlled her behavior. I explained that if a person cannot control an impulse then the person becomes a victim of the impulse. I asked her if she would like to be in control of her life, rather than being a victim of her impulses. She answered in the affirmative. I then asked I her if she would be interested in learning how to control herself so she wouldn’t repeat the same kind of behavior. She said, “Yes.”

I asked what options or choices she could have chosen when she had the urge to call another student a bad name. She said that (1) she could do nothing, (2) say something nice, (3) tap a toe, or (4) draw something.

After this discussion of possible choices, I asked her to stand and take a deep gasp. I gave her an impulse card that looks like a traffic signal with three colored lights. I explained that the red refers to taking a deep gasp of breath in order to stop and take a moment to reflect. The yellow represents thinking about her possible options, and then choosing one as indicated by the green for “go” with your choice.

I explained that the only way she could avoid being a victim of her thoughts or her feelings would be to redirect her thinking. After she practiced this procedure of gasping, thinking of her possible options, and then choosing one, Alicia asked if she could keep the little impulse card. “It’s my gift to you,” I told her.

(I had previously visited a math class where Alicia was sitting in the back of the room drawing cartoons. Also, an administrator had told me that she had hacked into a computer account, which indicated to me that she was academically very capable.)

I wanted to assess her reading, so I gave her something to read, which she read very well. I complimented her on her reading skill. Since the incident happened during her math class, I asked her if she liked math. She said that she did not. She also mentioned that she did not like the “advisory class” that she had to attend because she preferred to be with her friends during this time. (The “advisory class” is a flexible program taken by all students in the early part of the year but devoted to remedial work with students as the year progresses.)

I asked her what she would like and, of course, she wanted to get out of the “advisory class” because she wanted to be with her friends. I asked her that—if this could be arranged—would she be willing to be tutored for two weeks in math? I also asked her if she would practice impulse control during these two weeks. She said that she would...