Michael Baltimore - Portfolio

Writing Projects

Welcome to Articles and Writing Projects

This project is part of a writing respository covering a wide range of subject matter including, but not limited to thoughts and responses on psychotherapy, mental health, clinical supervision, current and past events, in process professional writing and topics of interest.

It also serves as listing of project essays that document areas that need further research and general reactions to the learning process. As a part of this project, outlines and brief training materials are included. It is hoped that by capturing this ongoing process, it will continue to evolve toward publication.

Substack Blog

With this journaling and publishing effort, you can subscribe for free and sign up for a paid contribution to read the more serious compositions. Written articles on mental health issues, psychology, human behavior and other issues that are affecting our daily lives. The link below will give you an opportunity to pre-read some of the short pieces.

The article entitled: How Mental Health Has Failed Us, describes the process of how many people are fooled or become susceptible to contrary and even harmful beliefs, only to carry them forward and make their own lives worse. It is the job of mental health to provide treatment and a helping hand to those struggling with the stress and anxiety, especially during a pandemic, and also, most importantly, to provide the public with a guiding approach to good mental health. This system has failed us. Visit sub stack with this link: Dr. Baltimore at Substack

Thank you for reading.

Thoughts on Psychotherapy

In the last 35 years of providing psychotherapy on a regular basis including clinical supervision which I'll talk about shortly, it's been my pleasure to attempt to train counselors and provide theory technique and overall commonly accepted content to those who go out and work with others. It is an amazing process that takes someone to look inward at their own issues weigh those issues against the people that they work with and develop a treatment plan and provide a conversational style in many cases, that would lead to the person either gaining insight or changing their behavior or some combination of both.

I would like to expand on these ideas and talk about the progress that one enters and the skill set that is needed to carry out the idea that in a helping relationship another person can affect change through their conversation and providing information and most importantly develop a helping relationship within the context of good mental health, common sense and specific methods including task to change behavior and cognitive processes to examine the thought process as well as examination of affect for themselves and for the others that they treat.

It is only when this process comes together through training, that is, a clinically sound program with a proven track record in the engagement of the larger mental health community to support the training and development of new skills for beginning therapist and to provide additional level supervision, training as well as insight and behavioral demonstrations of the professional role of the counselor. I'd like to go further now and talk about ways in which a person enters mental health training to become a professional counselor a professional mental health provider and a psychotherapist.

Preparing for Accreditation at the University

In 1994, the first national accreditation of the counseling programs took place at Columbus State University. During that time, faculty designed a portfolio of documentation and other evidence that the national standards as proposed by CACREP, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Programs. This organization reviewed a "Self Study, the portfolio and determined whether the program met or do not meet the various standards approved by governing board of CACREP."

In 2017, the program, after 23 years of accreditation, will undergo a re-accreditation process that includes a new portfolio that meets the 2016 standards. These standards provide much more detail in areas of assessment of students and program assessment than ever before. There are clear reasons for attention to these areas as programs must be continually improving methods and outcomes. It is also clear that students must received the very best training and practice while in the program with results that indicate progress in the community and to the citizens that counselors serve.

It is a pleasure to accept the challenge to become re-accredited and to serve our community and make a difference in the people that help others. This is our primary mission in the University's Counselor Education program.

Notes on a Counseling Children Graduate Course

16 years ago the counseling children course involved creating live or recorded counseling sessions with children from ages 3 to 18 years of age. The assignment for the class required the student to to gain permission from parents and guardians and to encourage a helping conversation with children. The first video was an “open“ video simply allowed the care and training meaning, that is, graduate students in a Masters level counseling program were to establish, maintain and conclude a counseling session with a child and the conversation was developmentally appropriate to the child’s age.

The second video, assigned later in the class, asked the student to include a counseling theory and or intervention with the child told that is appropriate for the presenting problem. Second session based on information used from the first video session. During the debriefing, the instructor and the class viewed the video and provided feedback for the student presenting a case. A rubric was used to evaluate the counseling session. Also, feedback was provided regarding the counseling techniques and dynamics that occurred during the session. Hypothetical ideas were advanced regarding future sessions.

In addition to the two videos and presentations in the classroom, the students in the counseling children class were required to complete a “major project” on an issue presented in counseling from child clients. Presenting problem was then addressed by theory and techniques in the session. The student presented a complete project with both topic and theoretic approach. In fact, the counselor in training was to become an content expert on the topic.

Thoughts on Cinema Production

As with any industry, the amount of work in training to make sure that each aspect of the video production is at its optimal, training in cinematic design, storytelling and the capturing about banning video that provides greater learning is always the go.

As new technologies developed ways to put cinematic production in the hands of a few, there are many things that one should consider before going in setting up a camera on a tripod miking the talent lighting the thing not, not necessarily in that order, providing a script, looking at intros and after those, and designing an atmosphere where the true talent can come about and be displayed.

Clinical Supervision

Thoughts on Supervision

Clinical supervision is a specialty of the counseling profession and has similarities between the counseling profession, but differs in that it focuses on the training of supervisees toward meeting the maximum goals for the delivery of mental health services. Like counseling, clinical supervision depends on the relationship yet focuses on a systems view that AIDS in the supervision of the roles and responsibilities for those in the helping profession.

Setting up a clinical relationship is one of the most important parts starting a healthy supervisory relationship that leads to success. While supervision is different from counseling, there are many things to take into account that may be similar. The major goal of clinical supervision is the professional growth of the supervisee. Nowhere is it stated clear.

In an Introductory chapter in the handbook on clinical supervision: a clinical guide, the main concepts are outlined as noted here:

Introduction
  Definition of Clinical Supervision
  Main Concepts
      Becoming a Supervisor
      Supervisor Training
      Opening Sessions
      Supervisor/Supervisee Relationship
      Theoretical Orientations
      Setting
      Purpose
      Goals
      Interaction
      Feedback Plan
      Evaluation
  Definitions and Concepts
  Definition of Clinical Supervision
  Main Concepts

Teaching

Thoughts on Teaching

After 21 years of teaching at the university level in a master's degree counseling program, I can state that it is important to build a strong faculty team find expertise that allows the selection, retention and focus on the primary task of building a program that allows for intense training in the field of mental health and psychotherapy.

THE IMPAIRED PROFESSIONAL

Thoughts on the writing of The Impaired Professional

Just imagine your boss acting irrationally or in a manner that presented a certain amount of disruption in the work place or addresses you in an unprofessional way that leaves you uncomfortable or worried about your job. This type of occurance happens more than one would think. In fact, it is often overlooked by many by giving a cursory excuse or being completely unaware of mental issues that may be operating in the work place.

The World Health organization has listed known results of the impact of the impaired professional. This is just the beginning of a featured work to come. In the meantime, the mentally impaired professional continues to operate in ways that affect the work enivronment and the stability of the working team. More to come in this space...

Mental Health

Thoughts on Mental Health

Got therapy? The conversation in mental health can go in many directions, yet always lends itself to self-discovery and mindfulness that offers an opportunity to learn more about how people operate including yourself.

Writing

Thoughts on Writing

At the beginning of this writing exercise is important to note that for the most part consistency is a big piece of getting words onto a page. After all our lives are affected by many different situations, different people all in the face of emotional and cognitive balance. One mental health writer states that the ability to balance the cognitive and emotional through a differentiating process allows one to respond to emotionally and effectively to material (personal experiences) by rational and cognitive means, provides the individual with the opportunity for growth and learning.