Broadening the Lens Social Justice & Focus in Counseling

Описание: This lecture explores how Motivational Interviewing (MI) skills of focusing and evoking help counselors guide conversations about change while honoring both neuroscience and social context. We examine how addiction operates in the brain’s limbic system, why logic alone can’t undo survival-based behaviors, and how MI techniques create safety, autonomy, and connection, conditions that make change possible.
Through stories, theory, and reflection, we also look at how racism, privilege, and housing shape recovery and access to treatment. Drawing from Maya Szalavitz’s exploration of harm reduction and Miller & Rollnick’s framework of MI, this lecture challenges us to view client “resistance” not as defiance, but as a reflection of the systems they live within.
Students are introduced to Photovoice as a creative, social justice-based assignment that parallels the work of MI, inviting us to “call forth” meaning, awareness, and voice through images and storytelling. By linking personal motivation to systemic context, Photovoice becomes both an act of reflection and advocacy.
Throughout the lecture, we emphasize the counselor’s nervous system as a tool for presence, integrating the concept of “glimmers” from Polyvagal Theory as a self-care practice. The lecture closes with a reflection on Viktor Frankl’s reminder that between stimulus and response lies our power to choose, a concept that beautifully mirrors the pause-and-reflect spirit of MI.

Suggested Reading & Resources
• Szalavitz, M. (2021). Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction. Balance.
• Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2023). Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (4th ed.). The Guilford Press.
• Hodges, S., Clark, M., & Smaby, M. (2022). Using Photovoice as a Counselor Education Pedagogical Tool: A Pilot. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health.
• Frankl, V. E. (1946/2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
• Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Brown, B. (2018). Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. Random House. (Suggested for reflecting on the counselor’s own presence and boundaries in this work.)