counseling therapy and the HCAP model

Abstract
The High Capacity Model of Resilience and Well-being (H-CAP) illuminates the factors that promote psychological resilience: Hope, Commitment, Accountability, and Passion. An in-depth review of the H-CAP quality of passion reveals poignant lessons therapists can apply when working with clients. In particular, the quality of passion can be played out within the realm of narrative therapy. The theory behind narrative therapy involves the ubiquitous use of metaphor and meaning-making through personal life stories, and how people interpret the experiences and events that comprise their lives. Through self-awareness and self-analysis, the client can overcome obstacles and triumph over adversity via the application of H-CAP principles like passion. Passion and narrative therapy can be woven into a Biblical approach to psychotherapy, with clear clinical implications for a diverse clientele.
Review of Factor
Passion is one of the four main factors that comprise the H-CAP model of psychological resilience. The other three factors include Hope, Commitment, and Accountability. While all four of these essential qualities are necessary for psychological healing and resilience, passion is one that many individuals may struggle with as they seek meaning and purpose in their lives. Passion is defined by the value one places on any goal, ideal, or activity (Barclay & Barclay, 2017). Without passion, a person’s sense of purpose and energy may fade, leading to a lack of motivation. Passion can be integrated into the other three H-CAP components by providing fuel for hope, commitment, and accountability.
However, research shows that passion can be cultivated in appropriate as well as dysfunctional ways. For example, harmonious passion is proportionate to one’s identity and life goals, whereas obsessive passion refers to situations where the person’s sense of self-worth or identity is tied to a certain drive or desire (Barclay & Barclay, 2017). Obsessive passion can be considered inauthentic, such as the pursuit of a parent’s goals rather than seeking one’s own inner drive and interests. A therapist can help guide clients towards understanding the difference between obsessive passion and harmonious passion, via the quest for the authentic self. Passion is also what motivates the client to seek therapy and to persist even when therapy uncovers uncomfortable emotions or memories. With passion, the person has the determination to set new goals and reach them through persistence and perseverance. Therefore, passion can be critical for the success of the therapeutic relationship.
The counselor learns to identify signs of obsessive passion in clients and differentiate those behavioral patterns from harmonious or authentic passion. Some of the signs of obsessive passion include a lack of self-fulfillment in spite of taking decisive action, reliance on ego defense mechanisms, and low self esteem (Barclay & Barclay, 2017). Rigidity and inflexibility in one’s approach towards career or relationships can also signal the application of obsessive, rather than harmonious passion. A client might never have learned about or experienced harmonious passion, but through therapy can better ascertain the root causes of unhappiness or lack of fulfillment.
Unlike obsessive passion, harmonious passion means alignment between all aspects of oneself. Harmonious passion allows for spiritual fulfillment and self-actualization “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 6:21). From a Biblical perspective passion takes on a whole new meaning, epitomizing the life story of Jesus. Empirical research links the psychological quality of passion to achievement and performance outcomes, as well as psychological resilience (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012). Passion is also one of the known qualities of high achievers and those who attain maximal success in their chosen career path, making this factor one of the most important to cultivate in clients seeking life coaching (Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014). Because passion creates the mindset necessary to push through obstacles or to overcome setbacks, this essential factor helps clients to redirect energies after a failure and plot new and constructive courses of action.
Narrative Theory and Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy is an action-oriented approach to counseling grounded in multiple theoretical orientations. Strongly focusing on discursive practices in the clinical setting, narrative therapy involves helping the client iterate all aspects of the life story, including suppressed and painful events (Flaskas, 2018). By encouraging some distance and detachment, the therapist helps the client distinguish between events and the core self, allowing for the emergence of an inner protagonist who can be viewed as the hero of one’s life story. During narrative therapy, the client may experience significant breakthroughs that permit deeper understanding and compassion for the self (Goncalves, Ribeiro, Silva, et al., 2015). The client observes the past as if watching a television show or movie, gradually unfolding the life story with a greater sense of objectivity that allows one to analyze areas of strength and weakness. From there, the client is empowered with the motivation to help the protagonist of the story—the self—do whatever it takes to achieve personal goals and dreams.
Narrative therapy has proven useful in a number of different clinical settings and various client populations, including children who have experienced trauma (Dallos & Vetere, 2014). Likewise, research has revealed the efficacy of narrative therapy among clients with eating disorders and addictions (Pugh, 2015). A variation of narrative therapy called time perspective therapy has also been shown to be effective when working with clients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Sword, Sword, Brunskill, et al., 2013). With the innumerable benefits of using narrative therapy with clients, counselors can help stimulate a long-term program of intervention. Narrative therapy does require insight, persistence, and a willingness delve deep into unconscious myth-making and cognitive schemas that impede personal progress or fulfillment (Pugh, 2015). Similarly, narrative therapy enables clients to discover new paths, to externalize problems, and to better envision a new way of being.
Linked with symbolic interactionism, constructivism, and cognitive theories of the self, narrative therapy helps clients to break down their life story and self-concept into their constituent parts. Problematic persons can be construed as antagonists who can help the person become stronger and more resilient, while allies are perceived as important social resources the client can leverage on the path towards healing and wellness. A person can learn how to become unstuck using narrative therapy, seeing how patterns become ingrained and habitual. Seeing the story for what it is, the client can then write a new vision for the future. Narrative therapy encourages both cognitive and emotional distance, encouraging one to stop misidentifying with setbacks and instead view the self as being strong and able to overcome adversity. The process of storytelling in narrative therapy can also be useful for developing compassion towards difficult people, and to cultivate a new sense of self.
Narrative therapy may use different techniques such as journaling, verbal storytelling, or even art and music to write or re-write the personal story. The client can dramatically alter relationships by thinking, acting, and feeling different in their social affairs, or by presenting oneself differently than ever before. Visualization and meditation can also become key components in the narrative therapeutic model. Well-suited for counselors who also appreciate the benefits of humanistic, existential, and cognitive-behavioral therapeutic orientations and theories, narrative therapy offers a culturally conscious, long-term approach to holistic psychological healing.
Use of Passion in Narrative Theory
Narrative therapy can be applied to any or all of the H-CAP factors. Passion is particularly evident in narrative therapy, as no hero in any life story can achieve goals without the all-important trait of passion. Through passion, one discovers the unbounded energy that permits one to become the hero of one’s own life. Passion also parallels the focus one needs in order to persist through life’s changes and challenges, while also serving as an important source of emotional and mental energy useful in situations requiring resilience (Barclay & Barclay, 2018). Persons who aspire to positions of power or leadership need passion not just to realize their own goals, but also to solicit and maintain the support of others on their own personal journey.
Because passion is empirically linked to success and achievement across multiple life domains, it is especially important to focus on the cultivation of passion in narrative therapy work. The dialogue that takes place in clinical settings can be modified in ways that promote the discovery of core passion, and the elements that underlie either constructive or destructive behavioral patterns (Goncalves, Ribeiro, Silva, et al., 2015). For example, when working with veterans suffering from PTSD, narrative therapy can be used to help clients recognize what points in time their consciousness remains anchored in and therefore inadvertently passionate about (Sword, Sword, Brunskill, et al., 2014). Narrative therapy helps the client see how cognitive biases and dysfunctional schemas lead to the re-enactment of the trauma, and to divert the attention and emotion towards a new source of passion (Sword, Sword & Brunskill, et al, 2014). Biblical approaches that help the individual cultivate a spiritual mindset can offer additional supports during narrative therapy. After all, Biblical allegories—narratives—can be useful counterparts and components to narrative therapy. A therapist working with a Biblical worldview can draw from the abundance of wisdom embedded in scripture. Each person’s own personal narrative will have an instructive Biblical parallel.
Narrative therapy helps the client to reframe the self, and the stories that comprise one’s life. Therefore, the client can help uncover the self-image or self-concept that detracts from the pursuit of one’s personal goals. If a person lacks energy, drive, and motivation to achieve, or is channeling passion into activities that are unfulfilling or unnecessarily competitive, narrative therapy can be used during reframing activities. Because the person may have identified with a dysfunctional self for many years, engaging in self-destructive patterns, the process of narrative therapy can take years and will involve active client engagement. When the client’s problematic narrative is rooted in childhood trauma, the therapeutic process can even take longer (Dallos & Vetere, 2014). In other words, the client needs to be passionate about narrative therapy and the process of self-healing. Narrative therapy does involve a great degree of client engagement, which in itself requires passion and leads to the self-empowerment that can motivate meaningful, lasting, and intrinsically rewarding change.
Language is also a critical component of narrative therapy, which is in turn linked to theoretical orientations like symbolic interactionism (Flaskas, 2018). Symbolic interactionism shows how people attach arbitrary meanings to the multitude of symbols in their lives: from people and places to ideas and abstract concepts that construct their worldview, attitude, and belief system. Narrative therapy can uncover the challenging layers of the self, including the unconscious constructs, schemas, and metaphors. Through the application of Biblical stories, too, the client can make the semantic and linguistic connections that lead to purposeful breakthroughs in therapy. In fact, the passion of Christ is the quintessential life narrative that can provide structure and meaning to an individual’s existence.
Using narrative therapy can help a person to discover the authentic, harmonious passion that allows for personal flourishing and fulfillment. The deeper the client can discover harmonious passion for selfless service, the more empowered the client is to re-write his or her own narrative. Taking charge of one’s life through the reframing processes involved in narrative therapy, individuals can shed old patterns and embrace new modes of viewing the self and others. Narrative therapy also involves altering the self-talk patterns that lead to problematic behaviors and emotions. The linguistic processes of storytelling can be reworked in therapy, providing clients with the tools they need to continually co-create their life story (Flaskas, 2018). Reflecting on how one creates a story through actions and interactions with others, narrative therapy is instrumental in revealing the voices one uses in different situations. A client may need to change point of view or perspective, much as an author would shift from a third person to a first person narrative style in a novel.
For clients with mood disorders like depression or anxiety, which might suppress the expression of passion in their lives, therapists can use the processes and techniques of storytelling to unearth sources of trauma that bury hidden passion. When working with clients with PTSD, eating disorders, addictions, and other behavioral manifestations of misplaced and obsessive passion, counselors can guide the client either through the past or into the future (Dallos & Vetere, 2014; Sword, Sword, Brunskill, et al., 2014). Re-telling stories from the past can help the client see how a personal narrative approach proves harmful, facilitating realignment or reframing. Alternatively, the client could re-tell a story from the past by actually envisioning how his or her ideal self would have reacted. When applying narrative therapy to future scenarios, the therapist also helps the client recognize how the ideal self would handle difficult circumstances or moments of success. Narrative therapy can easily be integrated with spirituality in therapy, as the client finds purpose, meaning, and passion through a relationship with a higher power.
Narrative therapy helps to showcase the difference between harmonious passion and obsessive passion. For example, the tragic heroes of literature like Hamlet or Oedipus exemplify obsessive passion: the passion to do the wrong thing, even if driven by righteous motives. Jesus’s story illustrates the means by which a person can achieve harmonious passion: the alignment of the self and God’s will through purposeful action in the service of others. No matter what the person’s religious or cultural background, narrative therapy offers innumerable opportunities to apply passion and purpose towards the achievement of goals.


References
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