New+Counseling+Approaches

**New Counseling Approaches**
[|Boy talk] vs. [|Girl talk]

What did you notice about the techniques for discussion? How effective are these two different type techniques?

"Brain and gender research begs the counseling profession to adjust how its members provide their services, both in schools and in the rest of the professional community, and to boys in particular. The counseling profession relies on words to a greater extent than many boys are comfortable with. It also regularly asks the boy to come to a counselor's office or sit down and talk, which, to many boys, indiciates personal weakness from the start.

Another approach, which I've successfully employed in my own counseling practice, is what I call "peripatetic counseling." Based on the Socratic model of walking and teaching, this kind of counseling allows the mentor and student to do something physical together. This is, practically speaking, good for stimulation of the limbic system and emotional processing in any child, and for many males especially; it creates opportunity for objects and other people, along the way, to play a helpful role in the counseling process ("What does that guy over there remind you of?" "Look at her; what do you think she's feeling right now?)", and it takes counseling out of the small-space office and back into the larger world." (Gurian 229)