Week 9

Each of the previous weeks were designed to provide you with the necessary knowledge and skills to successfully complete Assignment 3 , which you will now be working on for the next four weeks. The “feel” of these weeks is decidedly different from those that came before. There will be no assigned readings or structured learning process. Rather, you will engage in a very rigorous, intellectually stimulating, and hopefully enjoyable, critical analysis of a wide variety of common counselling models set across four domains of human functioning (one domain per week). The emphasis for this assignment, and corresponding forum discussions, is more intellectual in nature than practical, insofar that you will not undertake activities such as applying counselling models to client problems (fictional, or otherwise). Rest assured that you will learn about the application piece in your program, just not in this course.

Why do we serve up this hearty dose of critical analysis? Good question. If you were to scan other graduate level counselling models, or theories, courses you would likely find very few, if any, that emphasize critical reflection. Most would endeavor to teach you a theory a week, culminating in a final week that addresses psychotherapy integration. Depending on the predilection of the course instructor, the theories each week might be further narrowed to those that emphasize a particular domain of functioning, such as cognition. We think that such a limited offering, devoid of careful and broad critical analysis, serves to breed the sort of “model wars” that have hindered our profession’s intellectual development since its inception. And the real losers in such wars are not the combatants, but our clients who in most instances care a lot more about how they are treated than the “treatment,” per se. Of course, we absolutely need our counselling models (no one is arguing otherwise), and you will certainly use them during your time with us. But before we get you to do so, were going to ask you to pull them all apart to see how they have been constructed (i.e., critically deconstruct them), and then have you put them back together. This ability, taught and honed in GCAP 631, can fruitfully be used in all your other coursework.

Diligent completion of this week’s readings and learning activities for Assignment 3 will enable you to more competently enact the following attitudes, knowledge, and skills:

1. Link counselling models to the major domains of human functioning (e.g., cognitive, affective behavior, relational).
2. Situate counselling models relative to their respective historical contexts.
3. Situate counselling models relative to various cultural and developmental contexts.
4. Identify assumptive underpinnings of each model (prescriptive, causal, paradigmatic).
5. Evaluate the evidentiary base for various counselling models.
6. Assess various counselling models according to their ability to promote common factors.

These learning objectives are met through both the wiki and class discussion components of this assignment.

1. Working with thoughts and beliefs (group activity + wiki)

In this week, your group is required to add to your wiki page the required content from Assignment 3 for working with thoughts and beliefs. Please post this by the first day of the week, midnight (MST) Wednesday. Otherwise, your group will receive a late submission penalty on the assignment.

2. Working with thoughts and beliefs (class discussion)

Upon completing your required content and reading your peers’ wikis you are required to respond to two of the discussion questions in the designated class discussion forum in Moodle.