Think Outside the Box:

Essential, Creative
Techniques for School
Counselors
Ed Jacobs, Ph.D.
West Virginia University
 The Brain Likes Novelty

 What did you learn?

Talk / Listen Counseling
Focus on Feelings
 How Creative Are You? 1—10 Scale
 What Advertisers Know
 Talk to the Student’s Eyes
 Common Mistakes of School
Counselors— Your BOX
 Reflect more than necessary
 Listen to too many stories

 Rarely interrupt student

 Take too long to focus the

session
 Is not theory driven

 Is not creative

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

The Four M’s of Impact Therapy
 Multisensory

 Motivational

 Marketing

 Maps
 What Kind of Player Are You?
Friday Night Player

Saturday Player

Sunday Player - has courage

and thinks outside the box
 Essential Creative Techniques:
Props
 Cups
 Rubber Band
 $1
 Shield
 Eyore and Tigger
 Fuses
 Essential Creative Techniques:
Using Chairs Creatively
 To represent goals
 Holding on to chair
 To represent choices
 To represent people
 To represent parts of personality
 Essential Creative Techniques:
Using Small Chair
The small chair is the prop that I use the most.

Sunday players will get a small chair (elementary

counselors already have them).
Using Chairs for Gestalt Technique
 There is tremendous power in presentizing a
discussion about someone.

 Clients benefit from dialoging with themselves

(changing seats).
 Essential Creative Techniques:
Creative Use of Writing
 Ratings—1-10 Parents, Effort in School,
etc
 The power of the sentence:
Thoughts cause
feelings..
 Not True----------True Grid
Not True ______ True_______
I am a failure I made a B which
I am never going to which means I have
amount to anything. to study more.
One B does not
determine the rest of
my life
_______________________________________
Bad Better
 WDEP
W—What do you want?
D—What are you currently doing?
E—Evaluate –How is what you’re doing
getting you what you want? (This is always it
is not.)
P—Plan—Let’s work on a plan to get you what
you want.
 WDEP
 W—I hope to be a doctor.
 D—I’m smoking dope, skipping, school, not
studying, and I don’t turn in assignments. I hang
out with people who have no college aspirations.
 E—It’s not working for me. I’m failing.
 P—Plan—Go to school; hang out with positive
people; do homework right after school.
 Creative Use of Drawings
 Small box—Big Box
Enmeshed Circles
 Timelines

10

x
x
x
x

2yrs 1yr 6 mo 3mo now

 Essential Creative Techniques:
Creative Movement Techniques
There is value in getting students to move out
of their seat.
 Being held back

 Moving to other (better) seat

 Going in circles

 Counselor stand in chair

A KEY FOR EFFECTIVE LIVING

Get
your
expectations
in line
with reality
Questions Regarding Thinking
Outside the Box
 Are you a Sunday Player? Do you want to
be? It takes Deliberate Practice
 What are you going to do differently next
week?
 What keeps you from being more creative?
 What will be the hardest thing for you to
overcome regarding using some of the ideas
presented.
 More Information
To contact me for workshops, information, etc:
 Ed Jacobs, 457 Broadway Avenue, Star City,
WV 26505; 304-599-0109
 Ed.Jacobs@mail.wvu.edu

 edjacobs@impacttherapy.com

 Book/CD’s orders—www.impacttherapy.com

 Summer workshop—
www.impacttherapy.com
 What You Need to Know
 Grief Counseling
 Stages of Change
 Parenting models
 Drugs and Alcohol
 Counseling theories
 Panic Attacks
 OCD
Which Kid Are You?