Interview your client and construct a genogram of their extended family (back to grandparents, out to 3nd cousins). How much does this help you understand a person? What else would you want to know?

Practice Cautella's Self-Control Triad 10 (minimum) to 20 times a day between now and our next class (note that for a client this instruction would usually be for a week—until the next session). Record your practices (approximately 90 seconds each) in your journal—date, time, place, any particular qualitative impression. Note in your journal any changes in your experience—is it getting easier, harder, more effective, boring, etc? At the end, write down what you have learned about what it would be like for a client to be carrying out such an assignment. How might you use this in considering how you want to give behavioral assignments?

Construct an image which is maximally relaxing for you. Be sure to include details regarding as many sensory modalities as possible, and construct the scene in maximum detail. Note your SUD experience before and after focusing on the image as a clue toward refinement of the image. Record your Personally Relaxing Image in your journal.

Wolpe used SUD's rating as a mechanism of communication between therapist and client regarding unpleasant emotional states, typically anxiety but sometimes other private internal experiences (anger, disgust, loathing, arousal).

For anxiety the scale was anchored at 0 (no anxiety or tension at all, completely relaxed and comfortable) and 100 (anxiety, terror, panic as intense as imaginable). The client was invited to use this as a vehicle for sharing with the therapist their internal experience. It could also be used as a metric for scaling hierarchies and measuring change. Homework assignments involving relaxation training often include having the client write down their SUD rating immediate before beginning relaxation and immediate afterwards. This helps monitor client progress toward effective relaxation (and provides a measure of the number of practices the client engaged in.

SUD's ratings can be made retrospectively for various experiences or times of a day, can be made "in the moment" to report on immediate experience, and can be used in self-monitoring assignments. The validity of retrospective ratings are probably more problematical than current ratings, but there is not real external criteria to judge validity against.

Assignment: Self-monitor your subjective anxiety on an hourly basis (for waking hours) between now and your next class. Record you SUD ratings in your journal.

After completing the ratings: Do you notice anything interesting in the pattern of results? Did you have any difficulties in carrying out this assignment? What problems might a client have in carrying out such an assignment and how might you minimize these?

A variety of stress management procedure have been developed and there is empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of the majority of these. Clients tend to report that these experiences are pleasant and that they feel more positive afterwards. Nevertheless, clients (and the rest of us) seem to have a lot of problems maintaining any stress management technique for an extended period of time. It might be useful to consider why this is so.

One of the simplest and easiest anxiety management responses is meditation. There are many forms of meditation but a basic protocol for focused meditation would be something like this:

1) find a time you can be quiet for 10 minutes
2) adopt a comfortable sitting posture
3) observe your breathing
4) breath in
5) think of your mantra (select from Carrington's list or use "Calm" or "One" or "Relax")
6) breath out
7) repeat

If you mind wanders, don't be upset with yourself, just bring your attention back to the basic operation (3-7) can continue.

Try meditating daily for three weeks. Keep track in your journal of your experience: whether you carried out your practice, what it is like for you. If your really interested mark down SUD's rating before and after meditation. How hard was it to come up with "10 minutes" in your life? How often were you tempted to skip a day ("I've really got to get Dr. Swerdlik's paper done", "I dont' have time to day", "What does this have to do with working with kids?"). At the end of the three weeks, consider these questions: "Did you enjoy the meditation?" and "Are you going to continue meditating?"

Adlerian clinicians sometimes use early childhood memories (ECM) as a projective assessment technique (Mosak, 1958). The assumption is that you will be more likely to recall (or construct) memories which are consistent and congruent with your lifestyle (Adler's meaning of lifestyle). Try this out: Record your earliest recollection in your journal. Then consider it from these perspectives (Sweeny, 1975):

Are you active or passive in this recollection?
Are you an observer or participant?
Are you giving or taking?
Do you go forth or withdraw?
Are you alone or with others?
Are you concerned with people, things, or ideas?

Does there seem to be any validity to the picture of you that emerges from considering this early recollection?

1. Identify a current concern and write it down on a piece of paper (NOT in your journal).
2. Focus on this issue and notice the feelings that come up in you.
3. "Stay with the feelings" and think about other times you have felt similar feelings, especially the first time you can recall ever having felt this way.
4. Consider any relationship or connection between your current situation and these past experiences.
5. Does this process shed any new understanding on your current challenge?

6. In your journal record your reactions to this process: Have you learned anything interesting? Did you have any difficulties in allowing yourself to free associate in this manner? What was this exercise like for you? The use of feelings to link past and present is sometimes referred to in the therapy literature as an "affect bridge"; can you think of any way this could be useful in counseling?

1. Choose one of your dreams from Assignment 2
2. Break the dream down into elements -- an easy way to do this is to record each image or aspect of the dream on a 3x5 note card
3. Turn the cards up one at a time; consider the content there; and record any thoughts, images, feelings this manifest content elicits in you.
4. Record these associations.
5. What (if any) sense can you make of all this? What interpretation would you make of your dream?

6. In your journal record your reactions to this process: Does it seem like you might learn things about yourself through such a process that might not have occurred to you? Is dream interpretation all hocus pocus, Ouija boards, and nonsense; or might there be something to this. What do you know of the basic dream science; how does dream interpretation relate to our current empirical understanding of dreams? What kind of dreams might your want to hear about from your clients (or would you never like to hear about their dreams)?

Record your dreams

Keep your journal near your bed and whenever you awaken write down any dreams that you recall.

1. What do you want to get out of this class?
2. What do you feel your role should be in achieving this?
3. How much are you willing to do to achieve your goals for this class?
4. What might get in the way of achieving your goals for this class?
5. What could you do to prevent or limit this interference?
6. How will you measure your progress toward achieving your goals for this class?
7. How will you know when you are through?
8. Why have I asked you to do this assignment?