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Impact Therapy is an approach to counseling that shows respect for the
way clients learn, change, and develop. The emphasis is on making counseling
clear, concrete and thought-provoking, rather than vague, abstract, and emotional.
Impact Therapy is a multi-sensory approach which recognizes that change
or impact comes from not only verbal, but also visual and kinesthetic exchanges.
It is a type of brief therapy although it is different from the work of
Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch who have developed a school of therapy called
"Brief Therapy." Impact Therapy is a form of therapy that combines creative
counseling techniques and certain counseling theories. It provides the counselor
with ways to frame the counseling process as well as ways to assess the progress
of a session. This approach is action and insight oriented and often resolution
oriented. I call my approach Impact Therapy because it emphasizes helping
the client as much as possible in each session. The therapist is always
trying to get to the core of the problem by cutting off unnecessary details,
irrelevant stories, and unfocused discussions. The impact therapist sees
the goal of any therapy session as creating change or setting in motion
the process for change.
Impact Therapy is a very unique approach to counseling, integrating concepts
from existing theories. Much is drawn from the theories of Rational Emotive
Behavior Therapy (REBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), Gestalt, and the
creative counseling techniques that I discuss in Creative Counseling
Techniques: An Illustrated Guide (Jacobs, 1992). The impact therapist
combines REBT with creative props, drawings, analogies, and Gestalt therapy
in a very different manner than the way this theory is traditionally taught.
The impact therapist uses the ego states from TA with chairs, drawings,
movement, and in combination with REBT in clear, concrete, and effective
ways. Therapists who subscribe to Systems theory, Adlerian counseling, Reality
Therapy, and most other theories should find Impact Therapy to be compatible.
Impact Therapy serves as a solid bridge between theories and techniques
and provides a clear way to understand the process and progress of a therapy
session.
Impact Therapy is an empowering approach to therapy that shows great respect
for the client. Impact Therapy calls for the client to be active, thinking,
seeing, and experiencing during the session. Impact therapists try to help
clients help themselves by getting the clients to think rationally about
their issues. Challenging clients' self-talk and using analogies, props,
movement, and additional chairs help make Impact Therapy sessions engaging
and beneficial. Dependent relationships are rare in Impact Therapy since
the counselor is always involving the client in many different ways.
Why Impact Therapy
Too often in my training workshops, I find that there is something missing
from the "toolboxes" of counselors and therapists. Though counselors may
be familiar with various theories and techniques, they do not always succeed
in being effective with clients; they do not always have impact. Many counselors
use a rather slow process of counseling where much time is spent building
rapport and responding with reflections and clarifications. I see the benefit
in this for some clients, although I believe that for the majority of clients,
a faster and more active approach to counseling can be more beneficial.
Too often clients are frustrated by the pace of their therapist. I hear far
too many stories of clients who experienced counseling that was slow, not
focused, and, most of all, not helpful. Impact Therapy offers the practitioner
ways to get more accomplished in a session. and frees the counselor to be creative during the session.
Many
counseling situations in mental health centers, drug and alcohol
settings, and school settings demand that the counselor be able to
engage the client rather quickly. Impact Therapy is an approach that
calls for the counselor to speed up the counseling process by following
some basic steps. Impact Therapy gets clients thinking for themselves
thus promoting confidence and independence instead of dependency which
is sometimes found in other therapies. Insurance companies are also
demanding that therapy not be a long, drawn-out process. Certainly I
acknowledge that there are many counseling issues that require a number
of sessions--such as, resolving sexual abuse, grief therapy, or
recovery from an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Even with these kinds
of cases, Impact Therapy can speed up the process since there is an
emphasis on clients moving through their issues rather than "wallowing"
in them. Also the use of creative multi-sensory techniques tends
to speed up the counseling process.
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