7 Principles Applying Right Brain Thinking to Counseling and Understanding Self-Trust

By Thomas J. Rodman, C.A.D.C., M.A., Psychology of the Creative Process, New School for Social Research. Trainer and Therapist, Central DuPage Hospital, Chicago. See Guest Blogger Bio

Introduction -- S.H. Rodman

 

Tom Rodman has spent decades in innovative clinical programming in chemical dependency treatment. Here he provides insight regarding how a right brain approach introduces a different vocabulary for personal change and therapeutic relationships, specifically applying Right Brain Aerobics. The freeing of such right brain skills will likely come as we apply this kind of ability across disciplines daily, viewing ourselves and others differently as we use the brain differently. – S.H.R

 

7 Principles Applying Right Brain Thinking to Counseling and Understanding Self-Trust

1. Nothing is irrelevant -- as the individual begins to honor and respect things that “pop up” that don’t follow logical sequences in their concentration.
   
   
2. Right Brain Aerobics is, in itself, an exercise in renewed self-trust.  That which comes up is not the just relevant -- it is your discovery of how it’s relevant that it is important. You must begin to trust what your mind is revealing.
   
   
3. New connections mean organic change.  My suspicion, at least, is that when you exercise these activities that something organically begins to happen in the wiring, so to speak, that is enhanced -- and actual physical change may be taking place.
   
   
4. Practice it and it becomes automatic. You become very good at this, redoing it in a ritualistic fashion, as in the preparatory Right Brain Aerobics exercises.
   
   
5. Do each right brain exercise with abandon. That is to say “abandon,” as it is treated in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, which is without reservation.  Do not self-censor what you’re doing.
   
   
6. How we represent the world determines how we deal with it.  This is an important factor established in object relations theory: That what we are doing with the world as it is neurologically, in a mental sense and personality sense -- is processing the world as it is in such a way that our experience of it is the determining factor and also an empowerment of our own mental processes in dealing with the world.
   
   
7. A right brain approach involves a renewed loyalty to your own inner voices.  This can be a phenomenological goal within Right Brain Aerobics that builds into an experience of more total self-trust.

The individual is remobilized to use both left and right brain activity.  As a counselor, you yourself bring stronger associations to bear when you are listening to the symbolic content of the speech of the client.  You can then guide the client to make new associations. This can lead to dissolving denial on the part of the client -- rather than confronting it, which has the danger of mobilizing and strengthening the denial.

Children trust to love the world that is presented to them. Children learn from what is near and responsive with total acceptance.  The act of playing is that act of love, and it is the creative source of making of the new in its simplest form.  I think this is the key to the lifelong ability to innovate.

-- Thomas J. Rodman

Consultant and Trainer, Applying Right Brain Aerobics for Counseling
Contact: 630-707-8706, Chicago Area
Email- Bio
Photo Credit: Fotalia #7061286