Good, Better, Best - Mother Goose

Outstanding Warrants

Dear Cassi,

   

The arrival of the police a few days ago at my work prompted many of my residents to go run and hide. This is because, or so I am told, they have outstanding warrants and have not taken the time to go to our legal clinic.

   

This reminded me of a man I ran across in the late nineties who had a hundred thousand dollars in fines from three traffic tickets. He had neglected his legal obligations and been found in contempt of court. The option given him was spend the next ten years in jail or pay the fine. He had opted to pay and was now living with his girl friend and putting most of his pay towards his debts to society.

I have to agree with how the court put this out for him. Spending ten years in jail would only cost the tax payers more so making it as unappealing as possible is the best thing the judge could have done. Further on, the money was only just compensation for all those people who fail to deal with warrants.

Failing to get to one’s obligation is a way to get buried in problems. Now day’s I struggle to stay on top of things primarily because I never got to them in youth. Stacks of old paper and piles of tools that were never put away are a large part of my life.

I do understand that getting to these things a few years ago would have been an exercise in futility. No matter what I did things just got worse for me as my depression, and my overworked life style leads to crud piling up.   

I’ve been moving in the right direction and the passing of junk from about to away is like puss from an infected wound. The more of it that moves the better I feel, and every day my home gets more livable.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal   

All Humans to be - Dykes

The Sun Has Risen - C. S. Lewis

When I Was Young

3^rd January 2012

Dear Cassi,

    

Another of the cornerstones of my youth was playing with leaves and seeds. We had this old tree in the front yard that shed these leaves that looked to me like spaceships. The flowers looked like little rose of orange and yellow seahorses. The flowers would mature into seed pods which I used as tanks fighting some unnamed war in my head.

    

Likewise, I always thought of fox-tails as little fighter jets who would standoff against the wild oats as mortal enemies. That was the funny thing about youth, to me the world was made of toys. When I was in grade school it was seeds and leaves, and when I was in high school it was bits of old electronics.

    

Somewhere in the piles of junk I think I still have a red bucket full of those things, but where it is I have no idea. I keep telling myself that I will get all that mess cleaned up but I never do. What a youth could be reconstructed from that mass of broken pieces after all these years, but who has the time.

    

Then again, we often see the good times as bathed in a golden light, and the bitter nature of the truth may creep in on closer examination. Needless to say, living in the past will not serve me today, so I should let that business go, but over the past year I have been given need to look back.

    

These childhood pastimes do have a modern iteration. They are the bases of my writings and the foundation for my creativity. Still, that creativity has yet to pay off but that has failed to stop me from iterating. One day I may get something from my old pass times, just as one day my scars from youth may heal.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal

The Risk of No Risk - Idahosa

Bed Wetter

30^th December 2011

Dear Cassi,

I have no delusion that this comes as a shock to you, but I was a bed wetter. I think this went on until I was six which is normal, or so I’m told, but it never feels normal at the time for the only one who wets.

   

There was one time that I remember so distinctly from as far back as four that I still have it pop into my head today. I was at preschool when this happened and we had naptime.

   

I woke up with my jeans wet in the middle of the nape with all the other students still sleeping. I looked around and stood up feeling more naked than I had ever been when I was nude and froze. I had no name for the feeling at the time, but I can tell you now that I was embarrassed.

   

Doesn’t embarrassed sound like you have your back end hanging out? You have to wonder if that’s how the word came about. Some day I’m going to look that up.

   

Back on topic, I knew I had to tell staff what had happened but when I walked away to go do that I felled so bad that I couldn’t. I said something to myself that was just thinking out loud and started walking sideways. It made me feel better but why who can say.

   

Funny things get into your head when you’re young. Then again when you get to the place in life where you once again wet the bed I figure you have some funny things in your head again.

   

My mother had to bring me another pair of pants but she never spoke of this event later. Maybe she would have if she were alive today but who can tell. Mom talked about bad things that involved folks I didn’t see every day. She rarely spoke ill of my friends or my father. I think she knew when to speak and when to be silent.

Say safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal  

Risks Will Take You - Benson A. Idahosa

Notes to Classmates

I’m happy to say that I don’t feel like I’m about to die this morning. I feel bad, yes, but after three weeks of illness I’m coming round.

I wrote these two notes to the classmates in my grad school on the 22^nd, and I hope to be back up to quality writing now. Then again, I think I’m just getting readers by accident. Any time one of you would like to prove me wrong by commenting it would be much appreciated.  

(Classmate one)

Ah theater people. What an odd mix of color and form resulting in a strange hypnotic movement.

I was 12 units from a degree in theater when I looked over at my teachers and said “I don’t want to be like these people” then changed my major to psychology.

Still, I just have to ask, how old is the photo?

Hay (Classmate two),

Never live in your head. It gets cramped in there. Unless you have a head like mine that is. I think Godzilla has an apartment in my left ear.

Well, let me point out that any extreme is generally a bad thing in child rearing, but you made your way through it and now you’re doing something better.

I always tell religious folks that if daemons walk the earth I’ve shaken hands with one. At the time it was killing a Methodist congregation in inner-city Los Angeles. Most of the time it’s hard for people to understand those sorts of things. You either get it or you don’t, but it’s not worth keeping you up at night.

In any case, it looks like you have your life banged out to where it works so take pride in who you are and what you have lived through. You can trust me on this it’s easier that way.   

Richard

Oh no, I got a Cold - Pam Ayers

Pay Attention to Your Enemies - Antisthenes

Artichokes Like Humans - Kathy Good

Blessings of Old Friends - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Letter to Counselor

This is a forum post I wrote a day ago to a counselor talking about her problem client. She hasn’t responded so I don’t know if she found my comments useful.

Dear Counselor

This fellow you’re working on is a grown baby because he had no strong role models and he clearly needs to find a few. His father could be enabling and the son’s refusal to call him by his parental role is indicative of abandonment issues.

I can only say that he needs to be in group therapy so he can learn that he is not the only person in this world with problems and that his father needs to “man up,” or “parent up” to be PC, and stop enabling his son’s acting out.

In addition, I would have to ask if he ever reached out to his mother. She doesn’t have to love him but she is a part of him and he should help things along. Ask him to write letters to his mother, real paper letters, and bring them in and read them to you. Hopefully you can get him to a point where he wants to have something good to say. His mother will not come save him, but she might want to be a part of his life if she can be proud of him.

In any case putting his feelings down may help to lance the fester and start the healing process. He can use these letters for a blog later.

Another thing you could try is sessions with his dad where you toss a ball around. Sounds funny but it forces him to engage and concentrate.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. You have a good deal more experience than I.

Richard Leland Neal

Happiness is Like a Butterfly - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Four Career Development Theories

Identify at least one unique contribution from each of the four career development theories discussed in this chapter.

Super’s theory is a large and expansive construct with a difficult number of factors to interpret, but one of its cornerstones stands out the idea of exploration by the client of the self and needs. It then becomes the responsibility of the counselor to address that exploration, aide in it, and guide the client on to the next find. Super’s life stages overlap and it is important to note that child, student, and worker start at different ages in life but all end around sixty five(Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2009, p. 50). This would indicate that so long as some is still working they are still learning and developing. In the modern world we see this all the time with older and older individuals returning to school and looking to education for their next stage of development.

We can consider the act of thinking about, asking about, or researching a new career to be this exploration. For example, a man came to me looking for a job to fill his time once he retires as he would do so in the next six months. He questioned me about a job as a Security Officer as he knew my experience in this area. I then explained to him that the work was often boring, difficult, dangerous, and stressful. In the end of this interview we agreed that before he retired he should have a firm grasp of the work he would move into and that he should test the job out before making any major changes. He explored a possibility, found it not to his liking, and I helped him through this search.

The most important aspect of Gottfredson’s theory is that it addresses preconceived notions placed on clients from the past. This is consistent with the ideas of Freud and Kelly both relying on passed experience. However, the point to be examined with Gottfredson is the idea of sex rolls. This “Tolerable-sextype boundary” (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2009, p. 60) will be a major obstacle for many a client and counselor.

In a sociology class I once watched a documentary about a man who was ostracized at work for taking his daughter to the doctor. His coworkers felt that this was “woman’s work” and said that he was father and mother to his little girl. When I was asked to comment on this the class was surprised that I found this concept ‘evil’. I then explained to the class that gender should have no impact on responsibility and that these ideas are out of date and never had much real validity. As a counselor these issues will at some point need to be addressed.

Holland’s theory is very attractive in that it is simple and easy to understand. It can be broken down into the idea that there are six mindsets and six environments in which these mindsets fit. The idea that all jobs and people are one of these: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional oversimplifies and relies on the idea that one, we are correct in these assumptions, and two that those assumptions are assessable readily. However, the point to take from Holland if any is that different people require different environments for optimal satisfaction. The other side of this coin is that every person can work well in a number of environments. The counter point that must be made is that this theory is overly mechanical and fails to also include human factors like dysfunctional job situation in which no one will work well or the opportunity for satisfaction outside of work. Take what you want from Holland but understand that in addition to the limitations the research lends it only moderate support.

Krumboltz Learning Theory of Career Counseling has a major advantage over the others because it uses cognitive restructuring to improve clients rather than simply evaluate them. This idea of restructuring can greatly benefit individual with a verity problems and bring them to a better work environment.  

Which career development theory offers the best link to your future counseling practice/population?

Honestly, Holland’s theory will work well for those cases that are in moderate distress. Those who are easy to satisfy will need little help and a model they can understand. On the other hand, problem cases will require Krumboltz because the individual must look within for job satisfaction as the work space is so rarely a happy one.

Niles, S. G., & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. G. (2009). Introduction to Career Development Interventions. In Career Development Interventions in the 21st Century (3rd ed., Ch 2).

A Real Friend

No Heart and No Brian - Woodrow Wilson

Sad Little Lies

28^th December 2011

Dear Cassi,

    

Do you ever recall from your youth one of the more obvious lies you were told? After my parent’s divorce every other weekend my father would come over and sometimes he would take us to the “park.” What he meant by the park was the playground of the local grade school where we would find ourselves the only weekend visitors.

    

To this day I still think of parks as rather lonely places. I have no memory of children laughing and playing in them. Then, by the time I went to school laughter wasn’t something I was known for given my depression.

    

I do recall asking what the school building was before I turned five but I have no memory of what my father said. The old man said a lot of things designed to screw with me and that idea that messing with kid’s heads is funny never got old for him.

    

Why we insist on lying to children I have never been able to understand. I never believed in Santa or the Easter Bunny, and I never put teeth under my pillow. You could say that I had a bad childhood, I would, but would it have been made better by these lies? Can there truly be all that much wrong with being honest and clear to the young?

    

Today week keep our children as fools unaware of that the world is like, but when do they grow up to learn the truth? The truth is ugly, and the tender nature of children should be spared that grief. Still, need we lie; need we paint the world in rosy tones so that as they age they can see those tones fade into the dim of reality?

    

If we spent all the effort put into the lies of our world to making reality better we could have a world with brightness. Once more, if we banished from our lives those sad little lies we always tell ourselves maybe we would be better to one another.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal

A Mind Like a Home - Louis L'Amour

Forces of Evil - Edmund Burke

Don't Think - Alan Smithee

Fail, Do it Again

So this is the second paper I turned in to grad school, comic included, and it was given  a “fail.” Well, I’ll take that with a grain of salt.

Three skills that counselors can help their clients develop through the delivery of systematic career development interventions:

          First and foremost the goal of career development intervention should be to build that skill without which all other skills are useless. That would be the ability to find a job. Both the unemployed and the working may have issues in this area. If a client has come for intervention they do so because there is some issue they need to address and the examination of their job finding skills should come first. Once that has been properly examined then all other skill building may commence.

Skill 1: Career decision making

          In the normal life in modern time the average person will need to make career decisions and may seek intervention for them. This includes finding an education program, finding a job, requesting a transfer at work. These decisions may be short or long term and will vary depending on the need of the individual. Two college students may come to the same counselor’s office seeking a job one just needing a few dollars to go out with their friend and the other needing help with tuition. These two cases must be dealt with separately.

Skill 2: Appropriate work ethic

          Maintaining a healthy work ethic is difficult in the modern world of downsizing and layoffs.  However, a poor work ethic will slow development and reuptake into the economy. The work ethic should both fit the job and future goals of the client.

Skill 3: Adaptation to work changes and stress

          Never before in human history have we seen so much rapid change in the workplace than we do now in modern times. New co workers, new technologies, and new business plans populate the work environment. Change breeds uncertainty and uncertainty creates stress. Dealing with stress is becoming a larger and larger part of the workplace.

Professor's response:

Well Richard, that was a unique and very creative approach to fulfilling the assignment. When you are feeling better (hopefully soon) please post your paper in a professional manner and directly into the box. Other students often cannot open attachments. Thank you. 

Things Money Can't Buy - George Horace Lorimer

Happy Person - Hugh Downs

Free to Fail - Hugh Franklin

To My Readers

The day has passed firmly into night and I have to get on to work but still have not prepared a letter for you. This is one of those situations where in my body just told me ‘no’ as I’ve been in bed most of the day.

I felt I could take a moment now and let you folks in on a subject that bothers me and that is some of my letters make it to you before they make it to Cassi.

What I intend to do here is build a store house of letters so that there is a six month gap between the writing and the posting and that shouldn’t be too hard as I will be writing two essays a week for school now.

However, for the next six months the letters to Cassi will remain fairly recent, but I’m going to try to post those dealing with my memories rather than my current affairs. This will give yourselves and Cassi a history of my life.

If any of you have thoughts on this feel free to give me a holler. I know you’re out there even if you don’t say so.  

Heart without Words - John Bunyan

Online Profile

I just had to update an online profile for grad school and this is what I wrote. Does it make you feel as if you know me better?

What to say in my description that would be helpful? I earned my BA in Psychology from CSU Fullerton after I came within 12 units of a BFA in theater arts. I miss the mass experience of theater but none of the religious adherence to preconceived notions or grandeur.

You could say that I have a diverse pool of information swimming about in my head and a hunger for more. I came to mental health counseling after dealing with the counselors elected to help my mentally ill brother.

I learned that their definition of “help” was stabilize or ignore, and that angered me as much as it made me ill. I believe that giving up on people who are seeking help is the worst thing we can do as a society.

On another topic, I presently work as a Safety and Security Officer at a homeless shelter in Hollywood. I’ve worked in security since 1998 and that paid my way through college.

You will find me to be a hard thinker, strong headed, and overly analytical.

Accident of Time - Saint Augustine of Hippo