How Wearing a Social Justice Lens Can Support You, Your Clients, and the Larger Community: An Intersectionality Workshop With a Twist

Counsellors may not comprehend fully the impact of their blind spots as a result of unconscious cultural encapsulation. The authors propose a self-reflective method by which counsellors can self-examine their assumptions about diversity and intersectionality. They invite readers to engage with the contents of this article to identify their blind spots, biases, and assumptions through self-reflective exercises. This article summarizes an intersectionality workshop with a twist that was offered by Melissa Jay, Jason Brown, and Rebecca Ward at the 2019 conference of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. The intention of the workshop was (a) to raise consciousness about systemic oppression, (b) to explore Collins’s (2018c) culturally responsive and socially just case conceptualization as the framework for the workshop, (c) to bring client intersectionality to life using four vignettes they created, (d) to reflect on client intersectionality and cultural identity, and (e) to propose a method by which counsellors can self-examine their assumptions about diversity and intersectionality, leading to more culturally competent counselling.

University Students Who Overcame Learned Helplessness: What Helped or Hindered?

Learned helplessness in an academic environment often affects educational performance and mental health in adverse ways (Ciarrochi et al., 2007; Hu et al., 2015). Using a modified version of the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique, this study aimed to develop a better understanding of what helps or hinders university students in overcoming learned helplessness. Analysis generated 14 categories of helping incidents and seven categories of hindering incidents, most of which were consistent with previous research. This study identified the category Being in the Spotlight, which had not been noted at all in past research. Examination of the results contributes information about reported interactions between hindering incidents and the importance of autonomy in overcoming learned helplessness, topics neglected or understudied in past research on learned helplessness in university students. Overall, the results of this study provide additional direction for counsellors working with university students who experience learned helplessness and highlight the need for further research to understand in more detail the helping and hindering factors outlined in this study.

Book Review of Frisbie's A Therapist’s Guide to Treating Eating Disorders in a Social Media Age.

Eating disorders and other “sub-clinical” problems such as disordered eating and body shame/dissatisfaction grow more prevalent in our society. This is particularly true since the advent of COVID-19 changed our social landscape, leading to increases in isolation and anxiety and in the use of technology to work, to connect, and to live. Social media in this age present both barriers and possibilities for mental health and identity development, particularly for individuals who suffer from eating disorders and related problems. In her seminal first book, Shauna Frisbie deftly weaves through each of these topics, creating a tapestry for both novice and expert clinicians to view and understand how social media consumption can be assessed, dismantled, and harnessed to help clients who struggle with disordered eating. Guided by the central topics of selfhood and identity development and by the techniques of phototherapy, Dr. Frisbie creates a compelling story that draws on both research and case studies from her practice.

The Influence of a Self-Compassion Training Program on Romantic Relationship Conflict: An Exploratory Multiple-Case Study

Separation and divorce are common occurrences in the Western world. Given that a transition out of a marriage can increase psychological distress in the members of the couple as well as in their children, preventive interventions are crucial for avoiding serious ruptures and for increasing relationship strength and resilience. A potential option for clinicians is to use interventions designed to increase self-compassion. This multiple-case study explored the influence of a self-compassion intervention on conflict within romantic relationships. Three women completed a self-compassion training CD, six sets of online questions, and two semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to construct detailed accounts of each participant’s experience. Participants perceived that self-compassion helped them to de-escalate conflict, increase self-awareness and self-acceptance, and facilitate perspective taking. This study may help inform future relationship interventions.

Intergenerational Trauma: A Scoping Review of Cross-Cultural Applications from 1999 to 2019

It has been over 20 years since the publication of Danieli’s (1998) International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma, a seminal cross-cultural compilation examining the generational effects of mass trauma and intergenerational trauma (IGT). In the years since this book appeared, research on IGT has continued to be applied to many cultural groups, including those who have survived the Indian Residential Schools, the Khmer Rouge regime, or the Rwandan genocide. Previous reviews of IGT research have focused mainly on survivors of the Holocaust, which limits the cross-cultural application of this field of study. The purpose of this article is to provide a scoping review of scholarship published between 1999 and 2019 that aims to understand how IGT has been studied in cross-cultural applications. Overall, 29 articles were identified and reviewed. In light of the fact that cross-cultural perspectives on IGT are still emerging (Sirikantraporn & Green, 2016), the methodology and the cultural considerations described in this review can inform future cross-cultural IGT research.

Conceptualizing Service-Related Trauma: Controversies, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Canadian Context

This article considers three perspectives that have figured prominently in the conceptualization of psychological trauma related to military service in the Canadian context—that of military institutions, that of military members, and that of counselling psychologists. A closer examination of these views reveals points of contention regarding the origins, terminology, and cultural relevance of conceptualizations of service-related trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder By drawing from theoretical, empirical, critical, and anecdotal literature, this article highlights the need for counselling psychologists to continually evolve their understanding of the broader contexts in which service-related trauma occurs and to honour military members’ knowledge of diverse sources of traumatic suffering.

A Review of Cook-Cottone's Embodiment and the Treatment of Eating Disorders: The Body as a Resource in Recovery

Embodiment and the Treatment of Eating Disorders: The Body as a Resource in Recovery by Catherine Cook-Cottone provides over its 13 chapters a theoretical framework and practice recommendations for infusing embodiment in eating disorder treatment via her Embodied Approach to Treating Eating Disorders model. Part 1 of the book provides an overview of the model and Part 2 provides a framework for integrating the model into treatment, using several aspects of embodiment. Cook-Cottone includes numerous resources in the book to support counsellors in integrating this model into practice. For clinicians working with clients struggling with disordered eating or eating disorders, Cook-Cottone’s book provides an engaging addition to eating disorders treatment.

Possible Selves in Emerging Adulthood: A Comparison of Two Group Interventions

The present study provides a pilot examination of two types of possible selves group interventions. The study evaluates emerging adults’ satisfaction with and outcome following participation in groups that were oriented on interpersonal-experiential and didactic-task interventions and that focused on possible selves. Analyses used data from 85 emerging adults who were randomly assigned to one of these intervention types and who completed pre- and post-intervention assessments. Overall, participants indicated a high level of satisfaction with both types of group intervention. Results indicate that significant improvement in personal growth initiative was achieved across both interventions, but only the interpersonal-experiential intervention was associated with an increase in participants’ efficacy to pursue relational possible selves. Change in hope across both interventions was not statistically significant, and participants did not improve in their efficacy to pursue vocational possible selves. Follow-up analysis found that group engagement was associated with improvement in participants’ efficacy to pursue relational possible selves through interpersonal-experiential intervention. While both interventions appear to be beneficial, interpersonal-experiential groups may be particularly useful in fostering emerging adults’ sense of future relational selves.

Metaphysics of Counselling History on Colonized Land

We offer a conceptual analysis of how Canadian counsellor education and counselling psychology can respond to colonial history through the teaching of its own history. Drawing on literature in counselling, education, and decolonial Indigenous scholarship, we work toward a positive and practical way to teach history that addresses power, colonization, and Indigenous intellectual traditions. Those in the fields of Canadian counselling, counsellor education, and counselling psychology are invited to expand their focus on epistemology into an appreciation of being. This focus on being leads to a broadened horizon of counselling as healing education, and a shift towards a place-centred pedagogy of history. It yields a radically different and markedly more humble and pluralistic pedagogy of the history of our field—one that is grounded within the reality of the land.

Seeds of Decolonial Practice: An Autoethnographic Study of Settlers Working in Indigenous Communities

This autoethnographic study explores the process of cultivating a culturally safe and critically reflexive counselling practice in Indigenous contexts, an orientation that is imperative for settlers to work ethically with Indigenous clients, families, and communities. Any other approach risks recreating experiences of colonial violence in subtle or overt ways and eroding the therapeutic relationship. Research data generation included reflexive writing and interactive interviews with one female counselling therapists (aged 28) who, as a settler, has worked in multiple Indigenous communities. The analysis involved triangulation and using critical reflection and an understanding of cultural safety to interpret and learn from the data. Becoming unsettled is an emotionally evocative experience, but reflecting critically on discomforting emotions, reactions, and experiences is an essential component of personal transformation. Settlers cannot engage theoretically in decolonizing but rather must experience it first as individuals and then as ethically responsible citizens willing to challenge dominant cultural narratives and to help foster a more just society.