Advanced Counseling Skills

Catalog description

Through experiential and theoretical exercises, students learn how counselors apply somatically based counseling skills to advanced counseling theory. Developmental theory is explored through the lens of attachment theory and its implications for clinical practice. As an extension of these theories, the ethics, strategies, and practices for the use of touch in somatically oriented sessions will be introduced, as well as working somatically with developmental trauma. Students refine their skills in identifying and working with resistance and psychological defenses, develop greater facility in tracking transference and countertransference in the therapeutic relationship, and cultivate greater skill in applying theory-based clinical rationale for their therapeutic interventions. Furthermore, students hone their skills of guiding clients into therapeutic process, creating and maintaining a secure therapeutic container and therapeutic boundaries, as well as continuing to explore their own professional identity and boundaries as counselors. Prerequisites: CMHC-601, CMHC-604.