Are T's taught what to say??

In school are they taught phrases or do they just come up with stuff on their own?

Sometimes I am like "Heard that one before" and other times I am like "Wow, that's smart."

I think they are taught HOW to word things in a way to make you draw conclusions yourself. Though I have known people and T's who use cliches

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Riptide said:
In school are they taught phrases or do they just come up with stuff on their own?

Sometimes I am like "Heard that one before" and other times I am like "Wow, that's smart."



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There are "cliche" phrases.
Some things may sound repetitive or unoriginal when talking about the description or defenition of a disorder/symptoms/etc.

Today when my T said, "how do you feel about that?" I laughed at her. Sometimes shes so clinical but other times I can see her true personality shine right through in her words.

I have often wondered this same thing. Are there any therapists or students around who can explain how one goes about learning how to be a t.? Meaning, are you taught certain phrases, to look for certain body movements or eye movements etc.? I can't imagine how you "teach" somebody to do this.

tulips

I'm majoring in social work and minoring in psychology.
We are not taught exact phrases, but taught techniques to work on client's strengths - how to take the situation and toss it back to the client with a positive spin on things.
In social work we are taught to look at non-verbal communication cues of all kinds - and how to react to them.
It takes a lot of case studies, role playing, feedback sessions, case analysis of pretend clients/sessions, to learn how to react appropriately to whole range of situations that come up in a counseling session.
When doing a role play, and having 30 social worker students critiquing and the teacher doing the same, it helps mold you on what you did right, wrong, and what could have been better.

I know my T has gone through her own psychoanayst so its not just what shes been taught, its part of her own experience that she uses. A couple of sessions back she said to me "and how does that make you feel"? and I started to laugh and said that is such a clique question, and she laughed and said " i know thats why I dont use it much" but I think the point was, I was drifting and she was just using a gentle question make me aware of myself...its not something she uses often...

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stormyangels said:

When doing a role play, and having 30 social worker students critiquing and the teacher doing the same, it helps mold you on what you did right, wrong, and what could have been better.

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I suppose no one has thought about including clients in the critique.

Not sure if this is the kind of info you're looking for, but the link will bring you to Marsha Linehan's book on how to do DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) if you want to read more. Some pages are missing but you'll get the basic idea.

Here's a sample.






READ MORE HERE

It's impossible to be taught what to say because you never know what's going to come at you. Sure you can be taught techniques and of course the occassional, "How do you feel about that?" or "Wow, that's must be really hard" is going to slip out, but for the most part what we are taught is how to respond in the moment-- and that varies unmeasurably. Responses, both verbal and non verbal, are limitless in therapy.

There are so many ways to learn to do therapy, and so many different ways of doing it. We learn various theories and how therapy is done in each of those theories, and practice in role play with other students, and get feedback on that. In my program we finished all of the classes first before ever seeing actual clients, so there aren't clients to get feedback from at that point. Now that I'm an intern, I have gotten actual feedback from clients. It's not a bad practice for any therapist, student or experienced, to check with the clients and ask if they are getting what they need, or if there is anything the client would rather was different.

Therapy is based on real conversation, and while there are some phrases that tend to be used over and over, and sometimes bits and pieces of theories and techniques are going to come up, there really is no way to memorize responses for every client or situation. The first thing we learn is how to listen to the client and how to help the client feel that they are being heard. There are specific techniques we are taught even for that, but we practice them all the time and incorporate them into our conversation skills, I think.

ooo thats intersting stuff blossom. shamesome o the pages are cut off.
when i become a T i will try not to use cliche phrases. ill juust stick towhat comes out. that seems to not upset people too much i hope
dot

This is very intereresting. Can somebody talk about body language? What does the different body language tell you? I usually sit on the edge of the of the couch, I don't sit back and relax. T sits across from me. I can tell him about anything, but I usually starr at the coffee table next to him. I just can't seem to look at him. What does this tell you?