Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Any therappist types out there that use aikido in practice/studies?
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Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
I worked in a child and adolescent day treatment setting for a few years and tried to incorporate aikido into the program. Worked somewhat with the elementary school age group, but one of the adolescents kept groping staff members. While I had some support to keep it going, I stopped because some of the basic themes of aikido did not fit in well with the logistics of the behavioral system they had in place.
While not strictly aikido, they also started a dance program that some of the boys did not want to do, so we choreographed fight scenes instead, like from a Jackie Chan movie. While we didn't expand on it much, I think this had some real possibilities in terms of scripting and role playing concepts of mercy and forgiveness, if done correctly. If you have any other questions, you are welcome to PM me. |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Paul Linden in Columbus Ohio.
http://www.being-in-movement.com/ He has a number of very good articles on his website. |
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Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
While I think Aikido training has some therapeutic value and opportunities, I do not consider it treatment by a competent professional.
Why? |
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http://www.itp.edu/currents/editorials/aikido.php Best, |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
I think it's a great practice for therapists. I don't see it or use it as a treatment modality. Me too - why do you ask?
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Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
I think that Lynn and Steven make very clear and important points that need to be kept in mind. I finished serving a decade on my state psychological associations ethics committee. I cannot tell you how few licensed psychologists genuine understand the ethic, laws and state rules governing the practice of psychology/therapy.
California is one of the most "open" states in allowing some hybrid body and therapy work. However, the impetus is clearly on the provider to demonstrate the efficacy and appropriateness of treatment if questioned. Mixing two distinct things, such as Aikido and therapy, raise a whole bunch of ethical and legal dilemmas for the therapist to have to face. The most salient being the physical contact and then providing treatment that does not have a substantial body of research behind it. The issues surrounding interpersonal relatedness and conflict resolution have some significant commonalities that can be transferred from each area. Blending them opens the provider up having to defend one's self against license and ethics problems. Neither one of those problems is a place that anybody should go. State awareness is another area that both arenas can learn from the other. In my own opinion, the areas of crossover can be safely explored without mixing the two venues. Mixing the venues is asking for more problems a person can imagine. Marc Abrams |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Yeah, probably not best to call it therapy or counseling, but then again, in a state like Colorado where you can get a license as an unlicensed psychotherapist:freaky: , you can probably do just about anything you want as long as you aren't trying to charge an insurance company or the government and aren't outright harming anyone.
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Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
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But perhaps the more interesting question to ask is, are there "aikido-like" principles embedded in some of the major therapeutic schools of intervention, even though those forms of psychotherapy have no direct connection to aikido? There, I think the answer is almost certainly yes. It's not hard to find echoes of aikido concepts in a range of clinical intervention types, including Rogerian therapy, humanistic psychology, systematic desensitization and relaxation therapy (for anxiety disorders), dialectical behavior therapy (for borderline personality), interpersonal therapy, various flavors of psychoanalytic theory... the list goes on and on. Certainly, the idea of approaching a patient through some combination of irimi and tenkan verbal maneuvers, in order to achieve therapeutic gain in some form, seems to me to be implicit in lots of therapy situations. But in thinking about the relationship between therapy and aikido, a lot depends on how willing we are to reduce physical concepts like "irimi" and "tenkan" to abstractions, and whether the analogies to a clinical setting are particularly useful in adding to insight or effectiveness in psychotherapy. |
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Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
I'm going to throw out an example of a parallel between aikido and therapy, in case of interest to anyone. (I'm sure that Lynn can offer others.)
I recall years ago doing a family therapy rotation while training at a large teaching hospital. Typically, the families who came in to see us were locked into some kind of conflictual and maladaptive behavior pattern, so that family members were in a lot of tension with each other, and also frozen in place. Loosely speaking, the interventions involved nudging the "family system" off balance, partly via the introduction of the therapist to the room, and then gently rearranging the family dynamic (while off-balance) into a more harmonious and stable orientation. I realize that's an abstract description, and there's a lot of details involved in actually trying to do something like that -- but the conceptual language for that kind of family therapy really does involve the analogy of a complex physical system with a bunch of competing forces and vectors locked against each other. And the "therapy" was conceptualized as deliberately drawing or pushing the system out of balance, and then rearranging it to achieve something more adaptive. Now, there's no direct connection between any of that and aikido -- the guys who developed that school of family psychotherapy were not connected to aikido in any way, so far as I know. But are there some intellectual similarities? Seems like it to me. |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
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I only quoted part of this here in an attempt to keep this brief. I appreciate your perspective and would like to describe a class that I have taught, and will likely teach again. As some of you are familiar, I have been working with 'youth-at-risk' in education settings using aikido as a form of New PE: PE that emphasizes cooperation and self-body awareness, and nutrition. But, I have also developed courses that integrate therapists into the events of the class. For example, a two hour class was broken up into 2, 1 hr , sections. The first hour being a group therapy circle conducted by the school psychologist, where I was also present. The second hour being an aikido exercise class where the psychologist was present. We would coordinate our focus so that the talk therapy group topic of exploration was then supported by aikido class focus of exploration; thereby creating a somatic experience without muddying the two by one person. ( I'd love to answer any questions anyone has about this, so long as it's a respectful dialog.). One topic covered was boundaries. The psychologist led a talk therapy circle with the students and then I taught an aikido class focusing on the same topic. We dove-tailed our disciplines but did not have one person attempt to combine them. A number of students came to me or the psychologist and asked for help in dealing with boundary issue problems they were having. I'd recommend aikido ma-ai esque solutions and the therapist talked about emotional and mental issues. Many students reported that the aikido helped them to calm down after tense or intense discussion, and some students reported that they had felt more clear, physically and mentally, as to their personal power and rights to be safe when confronted with poor boundaries. The kids liked the change-up. The level of participation was very high, and even staff members wanted to join us. As you may be able to exact from my language, I myself a not a therapist. I personally believe aikido is a form of therapy, but the skill set of therapists and psychologists opens more windows when combined with working together with expereinced aikido instructors. And, likely, vise-versa. Hope that helps the discussion. Best, |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
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This is where it becomes a dual-relationship and a professionally unethical boundary violation. If these were students, IMHO the psychologist probably did more psycho-education then talk "therapy". I have done a lot of these too incorporated and integrated into women's self-defense. Those in attendance were not my clients and what I did was not "therapy". |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Jennifer,
Lynn described the ethical dilemma very precisely and I do not need to repeat it. I have run programs at a psychiatric hospital in the past in which I WAS NOT in the role as a psychologist, but only in the role of an Aikido instructor doing some energy and space work with teenagers. My current dojo is in the same building as my professional offices (saves on the commute time :D ). Despite the similar nature of some of the work and the ease in which an overlap could possibly be "helpful", I would NEVER violate those boundaries. I served for a decade on the NY Psych. Ass. committee on ethical practices. I have seen too many instances were good intentions crossed ethical and legal lines and things did not turn out so nicely for others. Besides, I genuinely enjoy having two distinct and separate business lives. Regards, Marc Abrams |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Play too close to a boundary and eventually you fall across/over it.
I think we have been discussing that violation in other threads too. Thoughts? |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Hi Lynn,
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And the answer to your question is, no, to the best of my knowledge no one in attendance was a private professional client of the psychologist. I apprecaite your' psych-eduaction' phrase and I'll consider using it in the future when I describe such classes. I can't recall what else your post said looking at this particular screen, but I apprecaite that you took the time to respond. Domo Arigato ( this is where my language skills are just a little better.) Thanks and good luck with your endeavours, js |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
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I did not, nor did anyone else overlap roles. Me, Aikido instructor. She, counselor. Class based in practical issues for teens. Location: students high school. As for all the details of your post, I am colleagues for many years with aikidoist/therapists who operate their phsych practices in their dojo's, so I'm familiar with the structure and distinction. Good idea/ bad idea? Not my idea. Hope that eases your mind, Jen |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
Found a better way to see your post and answer more fully. Apologies for redundancy.
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Does that make sense? I believe the classes you and Marc are both describing are ones in which you were the sole instructors. And while both of you are aikido sensei and therapists you did not attempt to do both at the same time.To do so would be a violation of boundaries. That structure is different than doing the two 'classes' I described. One in psycho-education lead by a counselor. One in aikido lead by an experienced aikido instructor. Does that IYO constiutute an ethical violation? I apologize if my initial language was confusing. Thanks |
Re: Any counselors/psychologist/social scientist out there?
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As long as what I am offering is not counseling or psychotherapy, anything covered by my license, I an pretty free to babble on. In these context, I tend to think of them as just sharing and babbling a bit. Check with your coleader about boundaries, legal, and ethical restrictions. Everyone appreciates being thoughtful and protected. |
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