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pro - wie professional

Areas of application

We have used Changers in various contexts: in therapy, counseling, coaching, and supervision - mostly in individual settings, but occasionally also in multi-person settings (couples/families).
With Changers, serious topics can be worked on in a playful and creative way, independent of the field of application and relatively independent of the approach.

 

Variety
Depending on the preferred approach, Changers can be used both as a flanking method over a medium- to the long-term transformation process and as a core method for short-term intervention.
Regardless of whether the orientation is more cognitive-behavioral, depth psychological, systemic-solution oriented, hypnotherapeutic, ACT, CSF, NLP, ...


For example, Changers can represent

  • a picture of a SMART goal state,

  • an image of the skill(s) / trait(s) needed to achieve a goal,

  • positive/healing words or phrases/beliefs,

  • positive images

    • for reconciliation with inner parts

    • for healing the inner child

    • the safe place

and much more.


The principle of developing a positive, constructive, healing, deeply individual image, discussing it, and printing it on Changers in order to use it as an anchor to be internalized on a daily basis, can be integrated into the vast majority of change processes.

As soon as a goal in therapy / consulting / coaching or a skill/quality to be developed is brought into focus, Changers can be implemented so as to activate the combined power of all mentioned active principles.

Revitalize stagnant processes
Changers have repeatedly revived stagnant change processes and provided fresh, activating impulses for further development.

 

Boundaries
No approach or intervention will always work equally well in all situations. We know from psychotherapy research that numerous factors lead to a successful process or to failure.

 

Unsuccessful Persuasion

Using Changers, as with any effective intervention, requires both persuasion and a desire on both sides to engage in a creative and humorously lightweight change process. If you lack the interest in working with Changers and the conviction that they can be helpful, the convincing introduction of the intervention will most likely not succeed. Psychotherapy research also teaches us this: lack of conviction of the effectiveness of an intervention on the part of the therapist leads to a weaker effect.


Lack of fit
There are clients for whom the idea of 'ingesting' a healing, positive target image does not sit well, be it because the ingestion of medication or medication-like substances is not part of their style of helping themselves - or because they find the idea of developing and ingesting Changers (a preparation without physiologically effective substances) too absurd. Here a barrier is already reached before the actual use.

Ethics: Awareness of the principles of the intervention
Changers are neither a medication nor a placebo and in our opinion, they should not be 'sold/administered/developed' as such. Clients/patients/coachees should be able to understand that this is not a drug in the narrow sense with active physiological ingredients, but that it is an activating, goal-oriented autosuggestion and anchoring of a goal in the everyday life of the client.
If it is to be expected that your client/patient/coachee does not understand this difference (language barrier/lack of cognitive resources), an ethical boundary could be crossed if it is suggested that it is a real drug.


Therefore, we recommend:

  1. to make sure that the client:in has the appropriate comprehension skills, and  

  2. to use phrases to introduce the changers, such as:


"I have a something that might help you achieve the things we've been talking about here:
I would like to develop with you 'a kind of' preparation, 'something like' a psychological / autosuggestive drug. This will be a wafer that we will print with an image of your goal, that you will ingest daily, literally internalizing the goal, in order to regularly connect with the changes / developments discussed today. Together we will discuss an effective name for this ' preparation ', the expected effects, positive side effects and long-term effects and have them printed on the label of the Changers can. I have had good experiences with this in many processes and believe that you will also benefit from it. Would you like to develop your personal 'miracle pill' ;-) with me, which will support you in achieving and consolidating the goals discussed here?"

Training
If you have gotten the impression that the Changers intervention could be useful for your work, but would like to learn more about it, we recommend participating in an online training.

Active principles

Test tubes

Impact factors

As described on the home page, Changers combine a number of proven effect factors:

 

  • Autosuggestion

  • Goal orientation

  • Hope elevation

  • Work with images / metaphors

  • Formation of habits / rituals and

  • conscious anchoring of the change process in everyday life.

Numerous studies prove that people can positively influence their health and well-being through thoughts and visualization. Such positive thoughts and visualizations can

  • influence many physiological functions of the body

  • regulate emotions

  • change habits and ingrained behavioral patterns

  • increase performance.


Changers are designed to harness these inherent abilities to change ourselves. Changers do not contain any medical substances. Their effectiveness is based entirely on the healing power of your mind.

The act of taking Changers in a manner similar to taking a host is a 'therapeutic ritual' (Franks, 1986) that can reinforce an unconscious expectancy effect for change and promote attentional focus on constructive developments.

 

In addition, it is likely that the taking of hosts has become part of 'collective memory' and is also effective at this level. Unconsecrated hosts were also used in the past as medicinal cloaks (see here).


By the way: With the reference to hosts we do not want to denigrate individual religious acts or the Christian faith as a whole in any way. Rather, we understand religion and faith as a powerful, therapeutically usable resource for psychological well-being.

 

Evaluation
Currently, we are planning an evaluation of the Changers at the „Evangelisches Klinikum Bethel" in the child and adolescent psychiatry in Bielefeld.


If you are interested in participating in the research/evaluation of the Changers intervention, we would be happy to receive your e-mail (contact).

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