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From: Donna Cooperman & Charleen Bloom
Date: 07 Oct 2004
Time: 15:05:54 -0500
Remote Name: 24.105.199.61
Maureen, It sounds like you are getting some excellent counseling experiences with families of children who stutter. To answer your questions: We draw from several theoretical models in our counseling. We believe that it is very important to understand the various theories before determining which model or models to use in your work. We often use rational-emotive theory, gestalt theory, and person-centered approaches in our work depending upon the situation. The bibliography at the end of our paper includes a number of references that we would recommend to those interested in learning more about counseling theory (Bloom & Cooperman, Corey, Ivey, Crowe, Luterman, Manning, to name a few). We use the EcoMap and Genogram with most of our clients, but we do not give them to the family members to fill out. We do this together with the parents and ask them to answer from the perspective of their children. We also use a modified EcoMap for children which we fill in with the child. This modified EcoMap might be a flower or some other visual representation that the child can understand. We then put the child's name in the middle of the flower (or trunk of the tree) and write the names of people with whom the child speaks and places where the child speaks on each of the petals of the flower (or leaves on the trees). Once the child has identified communication partners and environments, we then identify the people with whom it is "hard" to talk and the places where it is "hard" to talk. We color the "easy" places and "easy" people green, and the "hard" people and places red. This then leads to a discussion about what makes someone "easy" to talk to and someone else "hard" to talk to. The same goes for places. Once we have finished this process, we have made great headway in understanding the child's communication environment from his/her perspective. We hope that we have answered all of your questions. Thank you for taking the time to respond to our paper