My Philosophy and Approach

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Disclaimer: I am not claiming these ideas as my own: they are concepts I have learned from studying various modalities and counseling theorists.  This is merely what speaks to me and the lense through which I look at, and approach, counseling.

-Zachary Sheeley, MA, ALC

Associate licensed counselor under supervision of John Thorington, LPC-S

Theoretical Orientation
Background Information About Theories and Modalities

Counselors’ theoretical orientation is the lens through which they view counseling based on various counseling theories.  There are many counseling theories, such as the cognitive model, which emphasizes the power of changing our thoughts to indirectly change our emotions and behaviors, or behavioralism, where we change behaviors to influence changes in thoughts and emotions. 

Another example is humanistic theories, which focus on clients’ potentials, rather than focusing on their problems.  Karen Horney, a leading humanistic theorist, compared clients to acorns, stating they already have everything they need to reach their full potential but just need counselors to help them address obstacles, all the rocks and mulch (poor self-esteem and self-love, toxic relationships and workplaces, etc.) blocking them from growth.

Counseling theories are used to create modalities, which is a fancy way of saying “methods/types of counseling.”  This is what counselors do with the theories, how they actually apply them to their work with clients.  For example, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) uses both the cognitive model and behavioralism, focusing on the connection among thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, so in this type of therapy, counselors help you challenge your thoughts and change your behaviors. 

Theories I utilize vary depending on the clients I am seeing and their wants and needs.  I am generally eclectic, pulling elements from multiple types of counseling (‘modalities’) as they suit clients’ needs, although some might benefit from focusing on one modality; e.g., someone whose main goal is to work on their emotional regulation abilities might benefit from focusing on dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), a modality that focuses on emotional regulation, social skills, distress tolerance, and mindfulness.  

In short, my theoretical orientation varies widely depending on the client.  However, I tend to lean person-centered, as I believe the solutions to your problems often lie within yourself, that you are the expert and leader of your own journey, and that the counseling relationship itself is often the most healing aspect of counseling.  This is a non-directive approach where clients speak freely, largely leading sessions (as long as they stay on-track with our goals), the counselor’s role being to treat clients how we would like to treat ourselves, with empathy, unconditional positive regard (accepting you as you are, no matter what you have said or done), support, and encouragement, facilitating an environment for self-discovery.  Then, I incorporate elements of other more directive modalities as I see opportunities organically appear. 

For example, a client discloses feeling like a failure due to losing their job, so I walk them through a thought-challenging exercise regarding this “all-or-nothing thinking,” an intervention from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). 

Or perhaps you finally got the job you wanted, a goal you had been working toward for the past decade and don’t know where to go from here.  I might then break into an exercise to help you determine your core values, a concept from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you find new meaningful goals.

However, as previously discussed, I am flexible and will work with you to set goals then find the best approach to help you meet them.  Sometimes, a more directive approach is required, such as using cognitive processing therapy (CPT) to help a client process trauma, or using primarily cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis (CBT-P) when working with a client with schizophrenia.  It all depends on what they are seeking help with.

1. Confront problems from multiple angles.

As Marsha Linehan, founder of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) said, when faced with a problem, you have 5 options:

  1. Fix it.  Pay off that traffic ticket; quit that job; end that relationship; repaint that room; etc.
  2. Challenge your thoughts about it.  This results in emotional change.  For example, maybe your boss’ micromanagement bothers you because it makes you question your competence, but you come to realize this is the result of their own fears and insecurities.  Realizing this might result in feeling better about the situation: maybe you’re still annoyed, but it hurts less as you realize it isn’t a personal attack.
  3. Radically accept both the problem and your emotions regarding it.   Maybe the problem can’t be fixed, and maybe when you try challenging your thoughts about a problem, you realize there’s no distortion: you were absolutely right, and the situation is just as bad as you thought it was.  In this case, your best option is to accept it.  This does not mean liking it, but rather realizing that this is how it is, that you have to play cards with the hand you were dealt.
  4. Do nothing and stay miserable. I don’t condone this, but it is an option.
  5. Make it worse.  Drink, gamble, text your ex, drive recklessly, go on a mindless spending spree, etc.  Again, not a good option, but it is an option.

Let’s avoid options 4 and 5, but as for the first three options, it is best to go down the list in order:

  1. Can you fix it?  Then do it.  
  2. Is there no way to fix it?  Or perhaps there is no way to do anything about it right now.  In that case, challenge your thoughts about the situation, an exercise I would walk you through.
  3. Did you find some or all of the distressing thoughts were accurate?  Now it’s time for radical acceptance, another exercise I could walk you through.

However, sometimes it isn’t that simple.  Sometimes there are pieces from each strategy you could use to hit the problem from multiple angles.  

For example, maybe you’re working a job you hate.  Your ultimate goal is to quit and find another, but maybe you can’t do that right now: maybe you need the money.  So we’d work on an exit plan (1, “fixing it”) and outline the steps for doing so while also looking at thought-challenging (2), and work on radical acceptance (3) of the current situation.  Often, we are faced with complex problems like these, where some nuance and multiple angles of attack are required.

For our purposes, there are four main areas of the brain responsible for emotions, and I believe most clients benefit most when we address all of them, whether directly or indirectly.  They are as follows:

  1. Primaries.  This is the part of the brain you’re aware of, where your conscious thoughts and emotions are.
  2. Secondaries.  These are more in the middle, and they regulate emotions from lower regions (discussed next).  They either make them more or less powerful.
  3. Tertiaries.  These are your core brain regions at and around your brain stem, such as fear.  
  4. Somatic nervous system.  This part isn’t in your brain at all, but rather throughout your body!  Believe it or not, there are collections of neurons (brain cells) in several of your major organs, such as your heart and liver (that’s why you hear about people having weird things happen after organ transplants, like craving foods the donor craved).

When you consciously experience an emotion, it must be powerful enough to travel all the way to your conscious mind (the primaries).  E.g., when you feel afraid, it starts in your tertiaries, is increased or decreased by your secondaries, then enters the primaries so it enters your conscious mind.  So yes, you can be afraid without being aware of it, and that emotion will affect your words and actions despite your not even knowing you are feeling it!

This is why I believe in an eclectic approach (combining counseling approaches): each modality targets different brain regions, and my goal is to target multiples, and if we get stuck with one, we can go a different way.

For example, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on the primaries, the conscious parts of the brain.  We use logic to challenge your thoughts.  This alone can be helpful for many clients and could benefit most to some extent, but I do not think it is the cure-all it is touted to be, and I believe most clients would benefit most from adding parts of other modalities to it.

Person-centered therapy mainly interacts with the tertiaries, repairing attachment wounds and building self-esteem and self-love.  

Somatic therapy (a broad term for types of therapy that focus on the physical body) focuses on, of course, the somatic nervous system.

Combining these (and other) modalities results in a more comprehensive and individualized approach.

I believe in the following priorities for problem-solving:

  1. External change.  When faced with a problem, I think the first thing you should consisder is ways to solve or improve it.  For example, quitting that job, applying for that new job, leaving that relationship, starting college, changing your diet, etc.  In other words, the first thing to consider is ways you could change your environment or behavior in ways that improve or solve your problem.
  2. Internal change.  If external change is not immediately possible or practical, the second step is to consider internal change.  This takes two main forms: either challenging your thoughts about the situation or radically accepting your emotions.
  3. Coping skills. I list these as the last thing to consider because contrary to popular belief, coping skills can be harmful if overused.  While they can be helpful to get through whatever slips through the cracks after addressing the external and internal steps above, they are often misused in ways that result in people staying “stuck.”  This occurs when you use coping skills instead of taking the above steps so you stay stuck in the same situation, with the same mindset, i.e., treading water indefinitely instead of getting out of the pool.

However, as with everything on this page, these are only my general philosophies.  Life is messy, and it is impossible to create a universal problem-solving strategy for all the unique problems life throws at you.

For example, one major exception to the problem-solving order above is situations where your emotions are overwhelming to the point where you cannot think of ways to change the situation, act on those steps, challenge your thoughts, or engage in a radical acceptance exercise.  In such cases, it is best to skip to using coping skills to get yourself into a place where you can take those steps.

This ties into my last point: coping skills should be used to help you sit with your emotions and get through the natural ups and downs of life in healthy ways. When they become ways to avoid problems or stay in the same bad situations, they become part of the problem.

When people hear “acceptance,” they often imagine rolling on their backs and giving up, but it is quite the opposite.  You can’t change anything without accepting how things are right now.  The alternative is living in denial, a defense mechanism that keeps you paralyzed and miserable.  

Acceptance is not approving of how things are, just acknowledging them, saying, “This is how it is, at least for now.”  Like many things when it comes to mental health, this is a very simple concept, but it is not easy to actually do.  Acceptance is a decision you make over and over again, and it takes practice: it’s a skill like anything else.