My Clients, My Teachers: The Noble Process of Psyschotherapy

By Jennifer J. Goble

Travel with Dr. Jennifer Goble as she and her clients invite you into their world. Smile at their humanity, admire their tenacity and strengths, and cry with their pain. Explore glimpses of yourself, your family, or someone you know in these authentic stories. Through their stories, you might find answers to your own struggles and apply new perspectives to your life.
Welcome to the dynamic world of psychotherapy—it is indeed a noble process!
In My Clients...My Teachers, you’ll:
* Find hope and gain insights from each client’s unique story
* Connect emotionally with the client
* Break down the stereotypes of psychotherapy
* Realize you are not alone in your life’s challenges
* Gain wisdom from the clients and the therapeutic process
* Apply what you learn to enhance your own life story
Enjoy...one story at a time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer J. Goble
• Release date: Apr 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780991471737

Jennifer J. Goble

Jennifer Goble, a rural Colorado native, feels fortunate to have been born and raised with four sisters in Akron, a small town on the northeastern plains. A farm wife for thirty years, she has three children, and seven grandchildren.. She has taught, counseled, and developed educational programs for students from preschool through university graduates, earning a Ph.D. in Counseling Education from Colorado State University. Jennifer has owned and operated her private counseling practice for twenty-three years in Colorado and Arizona. Semi-retired, Jennifer and her husband enjoy traveling. They currently call Estes Park, CO and Bisbee, AZ home. Her weekly newspaper column, “Mental Matters,” can be viewed at www.southplattesentinel.com/health. To contact Jennifer with comments, questions, or to schedule a speaking engagement please visit her website and blog at www.jennifergoble.com

Book preview

My Clients ...

My Teachers

The Noble Process of Psychotherapy

Jennifer J. Goble, Ph.D.

My Clients ... My Teachers

Copyright 2014 by Jennifer Goble

Elefante Publishing

www.JenniferGoble.com

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Smashwords Edition

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ISBN 978-0-9914717-3-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931341

1. Psychotherapy / Counseling

2. Self-Help / Motivational & Inspirational

3. Mental Health

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This book is published in the United States of America.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my clients who courageously shared their stories in the spirit of helping others gain perspective into the world of mental health counseling. They were my true teachers.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Prologue

Introduction

Abuse

Addiction

Anxiety

Depression

Infidelity

Loss

Mental Illness

Parenting

Relationships

Epilogue

About the Author

Discussion Questions

Acknowledgments

My sincere gratitude is extended to: My valued friend, Pam Pauley, who not only edited each page numerous times but was my relentless cheerleader. She loved each story, and without her months of encouragement, my clients’ opportunities to help others would be forever lost in folders deep inside locked file cabinets.

To my daughter Trina, whose suggestions and encouragement continually felt like a supportive, perpetual, warm hug.

To my husband Cal, who consistently conveyed a sense of pride in my goal to reach beyond my office walls, in the form of a book, to promote the noble process of mental health counseling.

To friends, colleagues, and authors, who read my manuscript and contributed quality feedback. I gratefully accepted their expertise and honesty, and I welcomed their counsel and support. All were invaluable mentors as I maneuvered through the vertical learning curve of an unfamiliar industry, book publishing. Each contributed to soothing my wavering belief that my first book, My Clients ... My Teachers, could be truly possible.

Foreword

It is with great pride that Dr. Goble, Jennifer to me, asked if I would write the foreword for her first published nonfiction book...a true page turner.

First, I must share with you the circumstances of our initial meeting. Jennifer was the innkeeper extraordinaire of a bed and breakfast that had once been an old library. It was funded by Andrew Carnegie and is on the Colorado and National Register of Historic Places. She purchased and supervised the remodeling of the library, and it became a charming three-bedroom bed and breakfast as well as a counseling center. I had the privilege to stay there when I came into town to visit my parents. Her professional offices were on the lower level, and I was taken aback by how she was able to juggle running the inn along with serving her clients.

After several years of friendship, I had the opportunity to read the dissertation she had written, which pertained to growing up with only sisters. Having grown up with only sisters as well, the subject matter interested me; however, I was especially impressed with her writing ability. I then tried to encourage her to go ahead and write the book that she had always wanted to write—one that portrayed her experiences in dealing with some of her many clients, focusing on the various themes and reasons individuals, couples, and families come to therapy.

This project came together like slipping on a glove, and instead of writing in detail about how she helped the fifty-eight clients you’ll read about in the following pages, she chose to tell their stories through her eyes. She decided to pen their cases by disclosing what SHE had learned from THEM. What a novel idea, and it worked like a charm.

Like Jennifer, I have learned from these stories and believe you will as well. They are each unique, informative, heartwarming, and offer the opportunity to teach all of us many life lessons. I believe you will want to read this book at least twice, because there is much to take away from each person’s story. And if you are thinking of making an appointment to go to counseling or are considering counseling as a career, then this book is a definite must read.

Jennifer is a loving, caring, and talented professional, intricately wrapped with integrity. I believe all of these qualities come through in the following pages.

May her experiences and those of her clients bring you to a deeper understanding of your own life and the lives of those you love.

Pam Pauley

Prologue

My Clients...My Teachers paints a realistic picture of the profession of counseling/psychology. Because this book reveals the reality of individuals I personally counseled, and the reasons they reached out for help, many of the stories are tragic, sad, and dismal—welcome to my world. People do not usually seek therapy because everything in life is rosy. Rather, they come to therapy because something in their life is causing them distress. Also, some of my clients did not make huge strides to recovery—change takes time and a client progresses at his/her own pace. But, all the stories are testimonies of courage. I invite you to read past what each client endured and search for what you can learn from their experiences.

Most of the stories are unfinished, and you might feel like you are left dangling. Again, welcome to my world. A person walks into my office, and we work for as few or as many weeks as the clients determines; they either gain what they came for or eventually run out of time, energy, money, or motivation. When they decide they are finished, they don’t come back, and that is the end of their story with me. Even though I care deeply for them, or know more about their hearts and souls than I might know about my own family, I am not ethically permitted to become their friends, to go to lunch with them, or to even call and ask how they are doing. Should we pass each other on the street, I am not permitted to initiate contact with them. It is determined that a friendship outside the office could be harmful to the therapeutic process, and I totally agree. But, because I am human, it was at times difficult for me to sever all contact, especially when I had worked with someone for a long period of time.

Counselors, as all people in most professions, have limitations. I cannot do the work for a person, and I certainly do not have all the answers or all the tools I might need to help everyone. The more I understand my own scope of expertise, my own biases, and my own strengths, the more effective I can be with a client. Above all else, I have to always remember that it is not possible to help every person.

Read each story with an open, neutral mind, just as I tried to do in my office. Try to imagine what you might have done in the same situation, had you been the client...or the therapist.

NOTE: The words counseling, psychotherapy, therapy, and psychology are used interchangeably throughout the book, as are counselor, psychotherapist, and therapist.

Introduction

My career as a mental health counselor began in mid-life, after my three children were grown. After earning an MA and Ph.D. in Counseling Education, I initially believed counseling was all about me—me helping others. Little did I know how strangers walking through my door would broaden my scope of perception and become my unsuspecting teachers.

I invite you, the reader, to also learn from my clients. Not only do I want you to read each of the fifty-eight stories and gain insight into your own challenges and relationships, I wish for you to share in the noble process of psychotherapy. I also hope that the stories you are about to read will answer some of your own questions and ease your apprehensions about seeking therapy.

The media does not always provide a true and realistic view into the psychotherapy process nor offer a perspective that encourages people to seek help. I believe that with real-life examples, and knowing what to expect, one might be more likely to reach out for help. Hopefully, My Clients...My Teachers will also serve in a small way to attract men and women into the fascinating career of mental health counseling.

My desire to write this book began as I sat in my first counseling office in 1991 and started a career of listening to incredible stories—each one different and every one valid. It was as if I had chosen a career where a new chapter in a new book began every hour of the day, each with its own characters, dialogue, conflict, and plot.

In 2004, I called the American Counseling Association and asked the legal and ethics divisions if I could write condensed stories about my clients’ experiences, explaining that I believed the stories could be helpful to many adults: people who have, and have not, had the luxury of going to mental health counseling; those who enjoy learning from the struggles and achievements of others; those who are battling personal challenges; and individuals considering Counseling or Psychology as a career. The answer I received was, Yes, you only need to change the clients’ names and identities. The book became a possibility on that day.

This is not a technical book about theories and founding fathers. Nor is it a creative piece to conjure up experiences and dynamic struggles. This book simply and purely contains true stories about real people and actual events. Nothing imagined can compete with the realities of life. Each person came with the hope of something—less pain, more solutions, a listening ear, satisfying the courts, or