Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

July 29, 2019 By Admin

Quintiliani’s Brief Life Experience Screening

Quintiliani’s Brief Life Experience Screening

Years ago, when I received a rather large number of managed care referrals for  adolescent “treatment failures” and their families, I soon realized that typical screening, assessment and therapy was NOT working well. I tried so, so hard to reach these young people – all experiencing extreme psychological suffering with little hope for relief. Suicide risk was high, uncomfortably high! Nothing seemed to work very well; cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness interventions fell short of the goals. My alliance building skills did work, but other than a meaningful and emotional relationship there was very little positive change in their cognition, emotion, or behavior. For the most part my young clients did show up, so I guess the therapeutic relationship was a motivating factor. For some, legal consequences may have been a factor. After ample frustration, I decided to start fresh; I decided to break things down into logical, sequenced patterns in their lives. Behavioral task analysis was helpful, but insufficient for success. Then in a meditation, it came to me as clear as a Vermont summer sky. There were some fluffy clouds. Below I will share what worked much better, and how to use it as a transitional screening and treatment strategy. Ok, get ready for a lot of letters!

Hx – Mp – CEB – VAKGO – I-S – Rels:  This represents what I came up with to  reach these young clients, and how we collaboratively discovered deficits/problems and more than a few solutions. The administration format is quite simple: Simply move through the letters (and their meanings), and as you do ask for the major negative/unhelpful memory/characteristic/experience the person remembers.  After each entry, asks for the major positive/helpful memory/characteristic/experience the person remembers. When you complete the screening you will have highly significant self-report about core live processes and major life experiences – both unhelpful and helpful. Allow me to clarify each step. The process is voluntary, and the client may stop at any time. Be sure to obtain informed consent. Stick with the dyadic formula – both negative and positive experiences. The negatives are problems to be resolved via relationship and skills; the positives are sources of personal strengths to help resolve problems. Obtain information up to the present; this wide window of time will allow the person to include all significant experiences they are willing to share with you.

Hx (History):   involves early attachment, object relations, educational experiences, medical and psychological issues. Simply ask for a significant problem and a significant benefit for each area noted.

Mp (Mind Perception):   involves personal reflections about significant life events and emotional responses/reactions to them. Emphasize how the person utilized perceptual processes in these experiences. Are they anxious and/or depressed? Are they open to change? Are they at all optimistic? Are they pessimistic?

CEB (Cognition, Emotion and Behavior):   involves highly significant unhelpful and helpful experiences in thinking, feeling, and acting. What are the dominant negative and positive repeating thoughts, emotions, and behaviors? Keep behavioral reinforcement and conditioning in mind for the behavioral area. Special attention may be required for addictions (substances, processes, eating, cellphone, self-harming, etc.).

VAKGO (Sensory – Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Gustatory, Olfactory):  involves the past experiences of sensory processing. What are the most unhelpful and helpful recalled sensory experiences the person has had? Be sure to ask about negatives and positives for each sensory category. Interoception may be important: they ability to perceive and interpret internal body sensations is a special sensory attribute. Caution: Since serious traumatic experiences are processed and recalled most often via the CEB and VAKGO categories, be sensitive to client readiness to share. Be prepared to stop and become more psychodynamically supportive.

I-S (Intuition and Spirituality):  involves the person’s history of negative and positive experiences regarding their intuition and their spirituality. Since some people are not at all spiritual, go easy on this category. Some people, however, are highly spiritual with and without formal religious practice. This may be an area of primary strength for some people.

Rels (Relationships):   involves the negative and positive nature of significant relationships in the person’s life.This is also the core area where all of the above categories may become quite integrated. Most people experience pain and suffering as well as joy and happiness via their interpersonal relationships – the more significant, the more powerful.

Summary: Now you have a sheet of paper that notes significant aspects of a client’s history (up to the present), as well as significant areas of suffering and happiness. Work on working through and witnessing the suffering, and be sure to help your client improve their ability to use mindful skills to improve their future. Feel free to integrate other evidence-based therapies into the process. The process is trans-theoretical, but one that fits common human experiences across various domains. Good luck on this. Hope it is helpful to you and your clients.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Behavior, Featured, Screening Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTLIANI, PERCEPTION, SCREENING

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Trauma: Object Relations Therapy Object relations therapists, D. W. Winnicott especially, have presented a logical analysis on how to provide object-relations-oriented therapy to people suffering from the effects of psychological trauma. Such attachment-based trauma therapy provides support and healing from trauma, loss and long-term trauma-effects.  The interventions below combine the best of object relations therapy, […]

Wind Ridge Press NEW Publication! Author Anthony Quintiliani, a licensed psychologist with more than 35 years professional clinical experience, casts a wide net into the personal, clinical, and societal causes of prolonged human suffering and unhappiness in his book Mindful Happiness. The book’s guided interventions are aimed at helping to relieve depression, anxiety, traumatic reactivity, and […]

Helping Professions and Emotional Balance Helping professions must practice to achieve emotional balance.  Working conditions for the helping professions have become more and more difficult over time, especially with the advent of so called “helpful technologies” and ever-increasing governmental/funding requirements for documentation.  When I started in the (behavioral health) field of clinical psychology and addictions […]

Strategies to Cool Your Hot Emotions: Using Mind and Body First, let me note that one of the best sets of mind-body approaches to cooling down hot emotional reactions can be found in the various emotion regulation skills and practices in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (created by Marsha M. Lineman, a practicing Buddhist).  These skills may […]

Mindfulness, Movement, and Meditation Practices Meditation Master Thich Nhat Hanh offers some of the most helpful mindfulness, movement, and meditation instructions available today.  His themes here are about reducing your suffering, increasing your satisfactions, and expanding your happiness as a result. Please do not note that “I do not have time to do these things!” […]

Tonglen Meditation or Giving and Taking I have added various posts about many compassion practice.  Earlier posts have covered a range of practices – from super-easy to more demanding. Here, I will add a more advanced practice.  This Tibetan compassion meditation practice has been taught often in the Vajrayana school of Buddhism.  In my opinion […]

Henry David Thoreau  & Walking Meditation Henry David Thoreau is, perhaps, the most individualistic of the American Transcendentalists. He asked us to consider what we have learned that is useful as we travel our own “stream of life.” He cautions us not to regret when we die that we “had not lived.” He advised us to […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc.  Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness The Buddha taught about your four best friends, that is how the body changes physiology when you sit, stand, walk/move and every time you are lying down. Modern Western neuroscience now supports this statement of 2500+ years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh added the importance of your breath, walking meditation, […]

Self-Care to Reduce Compassion Fatigue First let’s begin with what some people do to counteract the stressors of living in a hurried,“over-technologized” world. Technically, “technologize” is not a popularly accepted word, but it is a sad  reality. We live in a time when texting while driving may become the new addiction-based cause for many, many […]

Mindfulness Skills and Psychotherapy Outcomes There are at least ten good reasons why mindfulness training and regular practice may improve psychotherapy outcomes. These reasons assume the training is presented by a well-trained clinician-mindfulness practitioner. Of course improved outcomes also depend upon the client’s motivation and energy to actually practice mindfulness skills on a regular basis. […]

“The Other Shore” to Happiness and Enlightenment Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Other Shore: A New Translation of The Heart Sutra…Berkeley, CA: Palm Leaves Press brings us on an inner journey toward a happier, more peaceful and enlightened life. Wisdom implies that we understand that life is made up of mental formations, no-self (more clarifications later), […]

Interoceptive Practices for Generic  Tai Chi  & Chi Kung  Postures By Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D. From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center  for  the  Study  of  Secular  Meditation  in  Monkton,  Vermont These practices will require either knowledge of Tai Chi/Chi Kung postures or following pictures of the same postures.  Be prepared before you begin to practice. […]

Liberate Yourself with Spiritual Energy Cultivating authentic inner and outer peace is the only way to a happy and good future. Learn to use your spiritual higher self to let go of self-centerednesss, greed, and entitlement. Work to free yourself from the endless grasping for material “things.”  Does it really matter what kind of car […]

Interpersonal Mindfulness Various forms of mindfulness-based compassion training help us to care more about the needs, happiness, and health of other people. However, direct applications of interpersonal mindfulness activates these influences into direct action on behalf of others.  Thus, if lucky, we learn to care more about others and less about ourselves.  The self-centered ego […]

Secular Meditation and Addictions Treatment Today we have ample research evidence (NIH, NIDA, SAMHSA, etc.) that mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and mind training all have some effectiveness in improving addiction disorders. In recent meta-analyses the primary effect was through improved emotion regulations, whereas there was a more direct positive impact on chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. […]

Brain Habits –  Helpful Vs Unhelpful Nora Volkow, MD, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse ( video below)  has noted that people suffering from addictions may experience some dysfunction in in brain areas related to personal motivation, reward recognition, and inhibitory controls.  Neuroscientists have utilized various brain imaging techniques to document this possibility in addicted individuals.  These […]

Forms of Happiness from Buddhist Psychology Given the season “to be jolly” I plan to write several posts on the topic of happiness. The following information notes five stages or levels of happiness.  Read them over and see what stage/level may be appropriate for you at this time in your practice. Note that some meditation […]

Insights – Vipassana Mediation There will be future, more advanced vipassana meditations posted on the site. For now, however, we will end this series with a final post about the insights often experienced via vipassana meditation. We learn via experience about impermanence, suffering and its causes, no-self, emptiness and many other things – or, perhaps, […]

 Poem on the Wind   I am quite pleased with my experience on BEING in the wind today.  This poem will suggest that you allow the wind to be a metaphor – even a fantasy – that allows your pain and suffering to be swept away by the endless, gentle, blowing wind of nature. We […]

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness