Creative Counseling Should Never Be Boring -
Creative Counseling Techniques
by Andree Johnson
Mark your calendars for Thursday, April 20th! The South Dakota School Counselors Association in conjunction with the SD Mental Health Counselors Association will be sponsoring a preconference at the SDCA state convention. This year, Dr. Ed Jacobs will be presenting: Counseling Should Never Be Boring - Creative Counseling Techniques.
Ed Jacobs, Ph.D. is a professor in the Counseling, Counseling Psychology and Rehabilitation Department at West Virginia University, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He currently serves as the coordinator of the masters program at WVU. As the founder and director of Impact Therapy Associates he offers private counseling and 30-40 presentations a year. Dr. Jacobs has also been a national presenter for the American Counseling Association.
What can you expect in this workshop? Dr. Jacobs will train participants in Impact Therapy, an active approach to individual and group counseling that he developed. This multi-sensory approach to counseling is a form of brief therapy that emphasizes making counseling clear, concrete and thought provoking. Impact Therapy encourages counselors to combine creative counseling techniques with various counseling theories. Common mistakes of counseling and how to avoid these mistakes will be discussed. Participants will also see and understand how to use many of the creative counseling techniques developed by Dr. Jacobs. The creative techniques to be demonstrated include the use of props, chairs, movement, writing, drawing, analogies and fantasies.
Dr. Jacobs completed his undergraduate and masters work in psychology at the University of Texas in Austin and his doctoral work in counselor education at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Dr. Jacobs has written four books: Impact Therapy, Creative Counseling: an Illustrated Guide, Group Counseling: Strategies and Skills and Group Counseling in Correctional Settings.