The aphorism “Don't speak ill of the dead” is attributed to the philosopher Chilon of Sparta. The expression De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, first written in Greek and later popularized in Latin, perpetuates a social taboo against criticism of the deceased.
Centuries after the first utterance, counseling clients may still hesitate to “speak badly” of someone in their life who has died. It goes without saying, however, that human grief involves a number of thoughts and feelings, not all of which put the deceased in a positive light. This is even more true as the person who died had an abusive, stony, strained, unsupportive, toxic, or absent relationship with the client.
"Conflicts with the deceased occur more frequently than discussed," says Elizabeth Crunk, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in helping clients with grief and loss of social expectation in her private practice in Washington, DC that we don't speak ill of the dead, and I think that can sometimes even deter people from seeking advice. "
This hesitation can be exacerbated if the client is concerned about how a counselor might react to his situation. It is not uncommon for clients to assume that a practitioner will judge them negatively or expect them to forgive the deceased when they have mixed feelings about the person's death, explains Crunk.
“It is important [for counselors] to confirm these coexisting feelings. It's possible to feel both sadness and joy, ”says Crunk. "It is also important to [a client’s] acknowledge feelings of numbness or non-sadness. Assure them that they do not necessarily have to conjure up sadness if they are not really feeling it."
It's complicated
The emotions clients experience in response to the death of someone with whom they have had an unhealthy relationship are certainly complex. However, the term complicated grief is a specific psychological diagnosis (also known as prolonged grief disorder) that involves protracted, widespread grief, often accompanied by intense emotional pain and longing for the deceased, as well as poorly adjusted behaviors such as disbelief that the person is actually died. (For more information, see our article "The Complicated Mourner" from 2014.)
It is possible for clients who have lost someone they have mixed feelings for to experience complicated heartache. However, according to Crunk, the experience is more likely to fall under the definition of disenfranchised grief – a type of grief that is not supported or recognized by society or culture.
Customers who do not feel “sad” about death in the traditional sense may believe that their experience is socially unacceptable. Such mixed feelings can be especially common when there is stigma attached to death, such as deaths from suicide or overdose, says Karin Murphy, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who specializes in grief work in her Doylestown, Pennsylvania has, private practice. Counselors working in the field of addiction or with clients whose family members are battling addiction may hear clients express these kinds of feelings, she notes. Regardless of specialty, counselors can encounter clients using language that will minimize their loss (even if they are experiencing the loss acutely) when they sense a stigma related to the person's death.
“It is really important that counselors do not maintain this disenfranchisement. [A client’s grief] is supported, recognized and valid, ”says Murphy.
These clients' disenfranchised grief "leaves them no room to express the range of their feelings – especially relief," added Crunk, a member of the American Counseling Association and a courtesy assistant in the counseling department at George Washington University in Washington, DC
Such circumstances can cause conflicts even within family networks, says Crunk. One or more family members may have had a good and loving relationship with the deceased, while other family members may not. In these cases, family discussions about how or whether the deceased should be remembered and remembered can be fraught with tension.
The death of a parent, spouse, or other person who abused, neglected, or invalidated a client can lead to a grieving process that is difficult for others to understand or accept, says Mark Tichon, an LPC who Is an associate professor and director of the advisory program at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee.
"The relief that can come with the death of an abuser is difficult to discuss without being persistent," says Tichon, a member of the ACA. "In these cases, strong conflicting feelings of longing for a [healthy] relationship and the burden of guilt in the sense of relief can lead to a grieving process that is marginalized and not socially validated."
Related emotions
Clients seeking advice on a range of topics could struggle with this type of unprocessed grief without being able to name or disclose it at admission. Counseling clinicians can listen for and pay attention to a range of emotions that are often associated with battles over the loss of someone with whom the client has had a complicated or unhealthy relationship.
In Murphy's experience, shame, relief and guilt are most commonly expressed by these clients. The feeling of relief that a person is gone often leads clients to wonder what that means for them.
“It feels liberated, but [clients] it is very difficult to name it. "What does that say about me when I'm relieved that this person has died?" And with that relief comes a shame, "says Murphy. Customers may have problems with," What's my part in it? What have I done to add to that feeling of business unfinished? And they would have, could have, should have that arise from it. "
Additionally, Crunk notes that these customers may express self-guilt, anger, deafness, or ambivalence about the loss. You may have trouble feeling unsettled or unresolved about certain aspects of your relationship with the deceased. You might experience grief focused not on the loss of the actual person but on the loss of a relationship that never was or could never have been, Crunk adds.
Murphy urges counselors to remember that complicated feelings can also arise when clients are not suffering from losses, such as B. a change in someone who is no longer themselves due to dementia, addiction, chronic illness or other illnesses. A conflict relationship doesn't go away when the person begins to change due to an illness, she emphasizes. In fact, clients' emotions can be heightened when they are put into a caring role.
“Understand that loss cannot be associated with death. Life is really a series of losses, but often we don't think about grieving or giving ourselves permission to grieve unless a person actually died, "says Murphy, who is certified in thanatology and has a past Experience as a bereavement coordinator in the hospice. "Often times we have feelings for things, but we aren't actually told or given space to understand that not only is it okay to feel that way, but that we can expect us to feel that way." This is where the separation happens – feeling too much or too little. And that brings [people] into the consultation. "
In one session, Crunk begins to examine the client's feelings about his loss with questions about the client's relationship with the deceased. She asks the client to describe what life was like with the person. If there are signs of conflicting feelings on the part of the client, she conducts a gentler interview.
“I ask you early to speak about your relationship with the person [who died]. I try to open the door a bit so they can share it if there is some ambivalence. I don't want to push this too hard, but [simply] open the door. I want to assure them that they don't always have to speak positively, ”says Crunk. "Even with deceased relatives with whom we had a good relationship, there are always aspects that we did not like or that we did not agree with. I always try to leave room for this side of the coin."
"Sometimes it also comes up that we are starting our work and the customer thinks they had a pretty positive relationship [with the deceased] but as we go deeper into the story, other more complicated aspects emerge," adds Crunk. who co-authored an article in the Journal of Counseling & Development with Laurie A. Burke and EH Mike Robinson III in 2017 entitled “Complicated Grief: An Evolving Theoretical Landscape”.
This was the case of one of Crunk's clients who grew up with a mother who was abusive. In the counseling session, the client needed help in dealing with her father's death. At first, the client identified her father as a protective figure, but as she worked through the loss in counseling, she began to be disappointed that her father had not done more to remove her from an abusive situation. At that point, Crunk recalls, her counseling shifted to processing the client's newly discovered feelings toward her father.
Grief has many layers, but this is especially true for clients who have conflicting emotions, says Tichon. "One thing clients may have to do with a compassionate and humanistic counselor is the loss of an ideal parent that many clients hope for as they age, or the loss of the hoped-for reconciliation that will never occur."
Tichon once worked with a man who was acutely struggling with the loss of what could have been. The client's father, who had narcissistic personality traits, died "just as their relationship became more of an adult friendship in which [the son] could exercise healthy boundaries that enabled him to truly enjoy their time together," says Tichon. The client's father had died suddenly, so there was no way to say goodbye or find a deal.
"It took a long time to reconcile the conflicting feelings of sadness about his father's death with the feeling of freedom from parental judgment and punishment," says Tichon. “An important goal of the therapy was for this client to relieve guilt at the relief that his father was no longer in his life. At the end of our time together, this client could thoughtfully say, "I still miss him, but I am also relieved that he has finally disappeared from my everyday life" with a sense of peace.
“The tension between feelings of loss over a potentially meaningful adult relationship, anger and resentment over emotional neglect during his childhood and adolescence, and guilt over feelings of relief that the relationship had finally ended, had dissipated … More clarity and Peace as he better accepted these intense and conflicting feelings. "
Unpacking
Bereavement work should always be tailored to the specific needs of the client, but this becomes especially important for those who have mixed feelings about the deceased. As a counselor specializing in grief and loss, Crunk can have five clients who experience the same type of loss – the death of a parent, for example. But as Crunk points out, each customer will have different aspects of the loss to contend with and deal with.
To narrow the focus, Crunk encourages customers to find out what “worries them most” about the loss. If the loss was traumatic or unexpected, that could be the aspect that worries her most, she explains. But for other clients, feelings of guilt or shame may be related to a person's death.
One of Crunk's clients mourned their grandchild. The client had experienced a difficult upbringing herself, but as an adult she had struggled to create healthy and safe family dynamics for her own children and grandchildren. In the course of her counseling work it became clear that the client mourned both the loss of her identity as loving grandparents and the death of her grandson.
“I assumed that the loss of your first grandson was the worst. But when I asked her what was the most painful, she said, "I worked really hard to have a healthy, stable life, and now I'll never have the perfect life again." She had lost that part of her story: She no longer had a “perfect” life, ”recalls Crunk. "It is important [for counselors] to set personal assumptions aside. What you are assuming may not be the most troubling [aspect]. Let the customer dictate and spend most of your time doing it."
Helping clients express the complicated feelings that come with loss is one of the most important things a counselor can do, says Tichon, who is asked to present a session: "Complicated grief: treatment stories and Experience Exercise, ”At ACA's April Virtual Conference Experience. Tikhon has a history of geriatric counseling and sometimes heard clients express a range of feelings that they had held onto for years about loss.
A client, a woman in her eighties, had lost her husband two decades earlier but was still upset because he had been emotionally criminal, controlling, and physically abusive at the beginning of their marriage. In the counseling, she had to deal with both the loss of her husband and the pain he had caused her.
“She grew up in a time when people often didn't discuss their marital problems outside of the home. At the beginning of the treatment of this topic in therapy, she felt a lot of guilt and shame about "speaking badly about him" because she had a certain religiousness about having to honor her husband, "remembers Tichon.
As the counseling work progressed, the client's ability to verbalize her feelings of pain and sadness and in return to process the abuse that her husband had committed grew. Only then could she focus on some of the more positive feelings she had about her husband, says Tikhon. As a result, her depressive symptoms subsided and her life narrative became much more positive.
“He had been dead for 20 years, but her unspoken resentment had built up in her over the years. … She made a breakthrough in the grieving process when she was able to say that even though the physical abuse ended at age 30, she maintained contempt and emotional distance until the end of the marriage [for her husband]. At 83 she had her own part in a bad marriage and asked for forgiveness in a faith-based, spiritual way for not accepting his repentance and confirming that he was in some ways a changed man [while] he was still alive, "says Tichon . "In short, grief has to happen, and if we allow the depth of the process to be worked through in what is often long-term therapy, we heal deeply."
Make sense
Expression therapy can be particularly useful in helping clients understand mixed-emotion loss. Exercises like writing a letter to the deceased can be especially helpful when clients feel that things in the relationship are incomplete or unhealed. However, the work should be led by the client and interventions should only be used when appropriate.
"Writing a letter to the deceased – highlighting the happy moments, resentment, anger and sadness that caused the relationship, and unrealized dreams and hopes – and reading this letter being able to work with empty chairs help to integrate these emotions into the personality, "says Tichon." I find that when using the empty chair technique, the experience is particularly effective if the client carefully visualizes the person sitting there until he adapts to the mannerisms and clothing of the object Sadness reminds me. I would, however, exclude this depth of visualization if the deceased were particularly abusive. I would not include the client in this level of visualization of the perpetrator because the intervention is very deep. In such cases, it is very cathartic in itself to let off strong emotions and express unresolved anger and hurt. ”
Bernadette Joy Graham, an LPC specializing in grief and loss in their private practice in Maumee, Ohio, uses a similar technique and encourages clients to use their imaginations to create a space in which to imagine able to meet the person who died and talk to them close. This can be a real place, e.g. B. a room in their parents' home or an environment that is important to the customer. Graham lost her mother when she was a teenager and she uses this technique herself, envisioning a porch where they can sit down, see their mother and talk to her whenever she feels the need to.
Crunk also uses various correspondence exercises with her clients, including letter writing, journaling, the empty chair technique and other imaginary dialogue techniques. She says this work enables clients to say things they would like to have said while the person was still alive, to apologize when they think necessary, to process complicated emotions, and to process unresolved conflicts.
"The end goal is to rewrite her self-narrative and her narrative of relationship with this person, which will do a little more repair and help make things feel a little more integrated," says Crunk. "I use many attachment-informed meaning reconstruction techniques to create a coherent grief narrative."
In meetings, she also looks for non-verbal cues that could indicate that a customer needs to research something further. For example, if a client shows signs of restlessness, she will ask them to say what they are feeling.
“When I see tears, I ask, 'If these tears could speak to you, what would they say? & # 39; If they say, 'I feel a heaviness in my chest when I talk about this person,' I could ask them to put a hand on their heart and I could mirror that with my own hand “Says Crunk. "Then I will ask you to describe this severity. Does it have a form? Does it have an image? Everything with the aim that you can tolerate it."
Crunk is using tele-behavior health with its entire case load during the coronavirus pandemic, recognizing that it can be more difficult to capture non-verbal cues from customers. However, she believes that "it is all the more important to show that I am there, that I am with them, and offer a place to cry or feel anger or relief, whatever it is."
Some grief counseling techniques may need slight adjustments when used with clients who did not have a good relationship with the deceased, notes Crunk. This is the case with empty chairs, writing letters, and other expression techniques. The goal of these techniques is not to get clients to reinterpret their narratives about the person – for example, by pretending that the abuse never took place or that the person never became addictive. Rather, the goal is to help them reconstruct their narrative of their relationship with this person and possibly incorporate new knowledge about the person who died or their relationship with that person into their current consciousness or schemas. Sometimes, Crunk explains, while “talking” to the deceased person, the client comes across a new insight about that person or their life that helps the client see their relationship with that person from a different perspective – one that the client may have can help make more sense out of their loss or bring them some rest.
These techniques are designed to provide customers with a way to “rework the relationship so that they can carry it with them, but not put pressure on the customer to turn it into something unrealistic or fictional,” explains Crunk. "It helps the client imagine a world where there is an opportunity to apologize or to hear words they longed to hear the person say."
Customers sometimes express doubts about whether the deceased loved them or struggled with things that were unsaid or undone during the person's lifetime, Murphy notes. She urges counselors to help clients find creative ways to express or complete what has "not been done". For example, counselors can use anything a client likes as a hobby – writing poetry, painting, making collages – to help them communicate unpleasant thoughts or explore things that have remained unfinished between them and the deceased.
The simple act of jotting down a thought, even if it's hidden in a desk drawer or journal, confirms how the customer is feeling and acknowledges that they are working on it, says Murphy. She sometimes recommends clients read Progressing Through Grief: Guided Exercises in Understanding Your Emotions and Recovering from Loss, which contains diary prompts throughout the text.
“Getting the thoughts and feelings out of your head and having a container for them will bring relief. It allows customers to process those feelings, but also to disconnect from them and take them somewhere other than their mind, ”says Murphy. "There is a common misconception: If I just give enough time, I'll feel better. In reality, it's time and what you do will help."
In addition to promoting expression therapy, Murphy often suggests that clients seek out grief support groups so they can connect with others who are having similar experiences. Volunteering can sometimes help clients bring up things they didn't accomplish with the deceased, she adds. For example, they may not have been able to reconcile with an older relative before that person died, but they can make connections with other older adults by volunteering in a nursing home or similar setting.
Similarly, counselors can help clients develop new rituals to mark the death of someone they have mixed feelings about. This can be done privately or with the practitioner in session. It can include anything from donating to a cause that is important to the client or was important to the deceased, to dining in a restaurant that the client associates with fond memories of the deceased.
Tichon agrees that expressive and creative therapies can be particularly helpful with clients who are “stuck” or who have to deal with hurtful feelings about loss. In one technique, Tichon has customers tear off a piece of paper for every emotion or painful memory they express about the deceased in a session.
“By the end of this exercise, the client is often in tears, staring at a shredded pile of papers, deeply in tune with feelings of pain and brokenness. We then process how this piece of paper doesn't look like it was made before starting, but we can use it to build something new. And in mourning things won't be the same [either] but they can be good again, ”says Tichon.
Tichon then instructs customers to take their scraps of paper home and use it to create something that reflects their hopes for the future. "This was a particularly powerful experimental intervention, and clients have brought back art and murals that serve as metaphors to move forward and create a new meaning in life," he says.
Based on
Counselors may feel the urge to comfort clients struggling with difficult emotions related to the death of someone who caused them pain, notes Crunk. While these clients need support, they also need to gradually overcome the discomfort they feel about the loss.
"Grief, painful as it is, I believe it needs to be felt. It can get complicated, but in general for the vast majority of people it is not a disorder. [It’s] an emotion that is felt and honored I'm trying to create a space for the person to emote and keep this grief container [in a] for them, I don't want to push too hard, but I encourage them to get involved in order to expand their tolerance and sit with their grief, "says Crunk." It's a delicate balance because as much as I want to offer comfort, nothing is going to change if that's all I do. "… We really want [our clients] to help and Provide support and comfort. It may not feel intuitive in grief counseling, but sometimes it is most helpful to help them increase their ability to feel their grief. Painful as it is, it is a necessary part of healing. "
This delicate balance is helping clients access and sit with their feelings of sadness and find ways to recover from their sadness, continue recovery, or give themselves permission to feel positive emotions adds Crunk.
Customers struggling with a painful, complicated loss sometimes wonder how quickly they will feel better or get away with it. Graham claims it is inappropriate to promise these customers that everything will be fine one day. Although it is natural for counselors to want to "fix" these clients, practitioners must resist this urge, she says.
"Be honest with the customer and say," This will never be easy and you may never shut down [complete]"advises Graham." I give them as much support as I can, but I never say, " It will be okay. "I say," I don't know how long this will take. Everyone is different and everyone is unique. Grief has things in common, but no two experiences are alike. "
Murphy acts as a gentle guide for customers leaning on their uncomfortable feelings about grief. “I often tell customers, 'We're doing this in bite-sized pieces … because it's too big to do everything at once. 'Ich höre das oft von meinen Kunden: ‚Es sind drei Monate vergangen, und niemand will es hören ich rede darüber [anymore]. Warum bin ich nicht darüber hinweg? “Viele [this] erkennen, dass Trauer keine Zeitachse hat.”
Murphy sagt, dass Kunden sich oft die folgende Erlaubnis geben müssen: „Ich habe jedes Recht, dies zu beklagen. Es ist mir wichtig und es wird so lange dauern, wie es dauert. “
Selbstmitgefühl zu vermitteln und sich auf Selbstgespräche zu konzentrieren, kann einen wichtigen Unterschied für Kunden bedeuten, die mit entrechteter Trauer zu kämpfen haben, sagt sie. "Wenn Sie das Selbstmitgefühl finden, um mit dem zu sitzen, was Sie brauchen, können Sie daran vorbeikommen", sagt Murphy. "Ich höre oft von Kunden:" Wenn ich mich weinen lasse, werde ich nie aufhören. "Ich [say to clients]," Lassen Sie uns das testen. Wann haben Sie sich erlaubt, etwas zu fühlen, und hat das ewig gedauert? "Es ist eine Lektion, dass Gefühle kommen und gehen, aber sie sind nicht hier, um zu bleiben."
Vergebung und Mitgefühl
Klienten, die Gefühle hegen, die gegen kulturelle Normen verstoßen – wie die Erleichterung, dass ein Familienmitglied gestorben ist -, brauchen einen sicheren Raum, um diese Gefühle auszusprechen. Tichon fordert die Berater auf, bei der Arbeit mit diesen Kunden „ihren besten Carl Rogers-Hut zu tragen“ und sich an das Prinzip der bedingungslosen positiven Rücksichtnahme zu erinnern.
„Wenn der Klient die gesamte Bandbreite widersprüchlicher Emotionen erfahren und die Tiefe einer unterstützenden, pflegenden und nicht wertenden Umgebung bereitstellen kann, die der Klient oft nicht erlebt hat, kann eine tiefe Heilung stattfinden. … Klienten können Gefühle der Sehnsucht und Traurigkeit haben, aber auch Verrat, Wut und Verachtung. Es ist hilfreich, das Mitgefühl zu erweitern und den Klienten zu ermöglichen, die Fülle dieser widersprüchlichen Emotionen zu erforschen und auszudrücken und über den Verlust des idealen Elternteils, Ehepartners oder einer bedeutenden Bezugsperson zu trauern, die sie nie hatten. [This can result] zur Validierung von Gefühlen [that are] im Gegensatz zu kulturellen Trauerbotschaften. “
Murphy betont auch die Notwendigkeit des Mitgefühls der Praktizierenden mit diesen Klienten. "Vielleicht hat sie noch nie jemand gefragt, wie sie sich über den Verlust gefühlt haben. Das kann einen langen Weg gehen und öffnet die Tür, damit sie darüber sprechen können “, sagt Murphy. "Validierung [of the client’s feelings] ist der wichtige erste Schritt."
"Ein großes Problem [that clients voice] ist" Was ist los mit mir? Warum fühle ich das und warum komme ich nicht darüber hinweg? "Und die Antwort ist, weil du ein Mensch bist", fährt Murphy fort. „Wenn wir diese Art von Arbeit machen, ist die Beziehung – diese therapeutische Allianz – die wichtigste. Wir können über Werkzeuge sprechen, aber das Wichtigste ist, dass sich die Person gehört und anerkannt fühlt. … Was wir [counselors] bringen können, ist, während dieses Schmerzes präsent zu sein und den Raum zuzulassen [to process it]. Darum geht es: Nur validiert zu werden ist das Wichtigste und dann herauszufinden, welche Werkzeuge benötigt werden, weil es so individuell ist. “
Graham sagt, dass „Empathie bei diesen Kunden einen langen Weg geht“ und betont auch die Notwendigkeit, den Arbeitskunden zu führen. Vor der Aufnahme erklärt sie den Kunden, dass der Bewertungsprozess die gesamte Sitzung in Anspruch nehmen wird und dass sie nach Themen fragen wird, die schwierige Gefühle hervorrufen können. "Gehen Sie nicht davon aus, dass sie wissen, was Bewertung ist und wie sie funktioniert", sagt Graham. "Sie erkennen möglicherweise nicht, dass sie frühere Traumata, Übergriffe oder andere schmerzhafte Probleme offenlegen müssen.
A gentle approach on the part of the counselor can prevent clients’ anxiety from spiraling, Graham says, especially if they aren’t familiar with the therapy setting. This can mean the difference between a client returning to counseling or dropping out, she says. “I tell the client, ‘There will be a lot of serious questions that are going to take you back in time. If it gets too emotional, we can stop and take a break,’” says Graham, who previously worked at an inpatient rehabilitation center for clients with substance dependence. Graham also stays mindful during sessions and steers the conversation to lighter topics toward the end, while leaving time for questions from the client. If appropriate, she finishes with a joke to get the client laughing. “They are going to have to go home and function [after session],” Graham says, “[so] I try and close the wound back up a little.”
Another aspect of this work with which counselors must tread lightly is the issue of forgiving the deceased, Crunk says. This too must be client led. Forgiveness is sometimes an outcome of grief counseling, but it should never be imposed by a counselor, she stresses.
“I would never pressure a client or use that type of language unless they bring it up. If, through the work, they find more compassion or empathy toward the person, [that can be a positive outcome]but I just don’t feel that should come from me. It’s not a goal that I would impose on the work,” Crunk says. “There are ways that positive psychology can lead to growth and positive outcomes, but we also have to be careful how we use them. Clients can react, understandably, negatively if they feel their counselor is trying to get them to find beauty in their grief or goodness in their relationship. We have to be careful that it doesn’t feel forced [by] us.”
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Grief and doing your own work
Counselors are human, which means that they will experience personal losses throughout their career. Hearing clients talk about the different painful emotions related to the death of a loved one can be triggering for practitioners if they haven’t fully processed their own feelings regarding a loss in their life.
“It’s hard,” acknowledges Karin Murphy, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) with a practice in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. “Counselors have to do their own work [to process loss]. Oftentimes, counselors are not able to talk about it [a client’s grief or loss] because of their own history. It’s an important component of grief counseling: We have to do our own work so we’re able to let that come into the room.”
Ohio LPC Bernadette Joy Graham recently experienced the death of someone close to her, and she stepped away from her counseling practice for a brief time to mourn and process the loss.
“The counselor really has to have themselves rooted with all of their losses,” Graham says. “No matter how well-trained you are as a grief counselor, grief in your own life will be hard.”
As it relates to counselor grief, the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics cautions against practitioner impairment. Professional counselors are called to “monitor themselves for signs of impairment from their own physical, mental, or emotional problems and refrain from offering or providing professional services when impaired.” See more at counseling.org/knowledge-center/ethics, particularly standards C.2.g. and F.5.b.
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Action steps for more information
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Bethany Bray is a senior writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact her at [email protected].
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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.
