Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsQualifying Generalizations for Disclosure of Values Three very strong maxims in the art of conversational, consultation dialogue are as follows: the first is except in special summary situations never to ask a question answerable by “Yes” or “No”, which can stop the conversation dead in its tracks. (See Counseling Insights: July…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications ”Faithing” to Support Resilience Somewhere in some dusty ancient text, some Chinese sage is recorded as saying, “If you want to be happy, Be Happy! This is wise existential therapy; the mind wills one’s state of being. In the post WWII generation, we had Norman Vincent Peale’s run-away doctrine of The power of…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Making Decisions or Waiting for Things to Happen So very often, astrologers are asked to make decisions for their clients or to make a pronouncement that makes the decision easier for them to make. –If I make this decision, if I accept this new job, is it going to be successful…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Corollary Thinking Corollary thinking is exposing a thought that is companion to a thought already presented; the new thought follows naturally usually into a new, even opposite direction. –If we have the thought that the world is round, a corollary to that could be ”Well, that means we can never…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Extending Suggestions Creatively Modern astrologers, almost by definition, are resourceful, creative people. We are not simply pronouncing fate and rules from cookbooks –that went out of style about 50 years ago. We are stimulating development in our clients’ life, and we should do this with panache! For example: I was…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Helping with 11th House Tensions A recent client shows Uranus ruling the 11th, peregrine; Venus ruling the 2nd peregrine; Saturn ruling the MC, peregrine; Mercury ruling the 3rd was peregrine; and the Sun ruling the 5th was also peregrine! While we tend to expect a clearly focused accent of idiosyncratic…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client CommunicationsRecommending a PsychoSemantic Diet Astrologers must be creative listeners in consultations, and we have pursued this several times in our studies with techniques to make “creative connections.” [Please see “Counseling Insights”/Archives: December 2000; August 2001; September 2001;January 29, 2003] Very often, the client will repeat a sense –usually of suppression, demoralization,…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Changing Your Horoscope! Long ago, I heard student stories about a teacher in the Chicago area ‘way back when’ who had an intriguing exercise for his students: he instructed them to draw a horoscope (by hand in those days, of course) with any distribution of signs and planets the students wished.…
View detailsAll teachers in any humanistic discipline know the value of “telling a story.” Parables crystallize points of view. The story puts “out there” what is inside the client; what’s “out there” is easier to manage, and the vivid nature of the narrative is memorable in and of itself. Very often, we encounter client attitudes that…
View detailsCreative Connections & Client Communications Hearing the Answer within the Question There are questions and there are questions. –Factual questions are answered with facts; judgment questions, opinion questions are more complex … they are asked with varying levels of emotional content, and the answer must be framed to appreciate that. The client helps us in…
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