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person (for all intents and purposes) might be willing to try and stick out. Remember, Jason is already skeptical of the help I could provide him.
I still had the trio of quotes Jason had so generously provided me. I thought I could use them in some way; maybe he could write them on his mirror? No, he would look at me like I had not heard anything about the “jokey” things previous therapists made him try. Jason had already shared that he did not like writing, reading or more specifically, “giving me more things to do.” Jason presses the button on his phone; the screen goes on then fades to black. It then occurred to me that Jason’s cellphone had to be a part of the plan. I asked him about his cellphone checking frequency. He laughed and said that he checked it every few minutes, sometimes more.
Ok, here was my in. Since he had a close relationship with his phone and the home/ lock screen on it, I decided I would invite him to try something a little strange.
Me: “Jason, I want to throw a thought out at you and see what you think about it, would that be alright?”
Jason: “You know I’m open to hearing it, just don’t ask me to join a club or something.”
Me: “I was thinking you have a good relationship with that phone of yours. I have also been writing down some of the cool quotes you’ve been throwing out since I first met you. ‘Just get over it, get it together, you gotta get this done and let me do it.’ Do you remember saying these things?”
Jason: “Yeah, you wrote them down? What about them?”
Me: “I was thinking that I want to use something you enjoy with something
I think you may want to give a try, for your motivation to get to work, like a reminder. This is something small, and you wouldn’t really have to change anything you do. We can start it here.”
Jason: “Ok...?”
Me: “I was thinking you could write down these three quotes on a piece of paper. Then you would take a picture of that paper and assign it as your home/ lock screen. You do check your phone a lot so maybe...”
Jason: “So I can see it when I check my phone, like a thousand times a day.”
Me: “Exactly. What do you think?”
Jason: “I think yeah, I would try it...right now?”
Me: “Sure, or when might you want to try it?”
Jason: “We can do it now.”
I gave Jason a sheet of white paper, a pen and the paper with his three quotes. He sat and wrote them out. I noticed
it taking a bit longer than I expected,
but I waited. When he was done, Jason smirked and said, “I added another one.” Jason sat up from his usual slumped position and said, “I can do anything, and I’ve done a lot.” He then took a picture of the paper and assigned it to his home/ lock screen.
Me: “I was thinking while you were doing that, about how you mentioned needing to be pulled out to your car and into work sometimes...”
Jason: “Yes, it would be helpful to be reminded that I need this job to work out, coming from someone or somewhere else.”
Me: “How about grabbing one of those quotes and pairing it with your phone alarm...so you can see it when you have to get up? I mean you always set alarms anyway.”
Jason: “I hadn’t thought of that, I think that could be ok.”
Me: “Well I don’t want to force you to run before you can walk, it was just a thought...got your lock screen all set up?”
Jason: “Yeah, I want to try it on my alarm, too. I think I will set the alarm to also ring when I am about to get to work.”
Me: “Oh? That’s actually pretty creative. I might borrow that one from you.”
He thanked me and went on his way. The session had ended.
I saw Jason for one more session after that, two weeks later. He reported feeling better and stated that he changed his wallpaper again. He pulled out his phone with this look of satisfaction
and handed it to me. Jason changed the background to I’m done. When I asked him how he came to decide to change it to that phrase, he said, “I think I’m ok; I think I can handle this...I know it won’t be easy, but I like what I learned here.
The alarms really helped, I have four set throughout the day and I like thinking of new phrases to put with the alarms.” Of course, I had to ask what he gained from our time together. “I could talk myself into forgetting about the blue feeling, I’m just done,” he said. I have hopes that today Jason continues to remain content in the reclamation of his happiness.
It was my hope that in presenting my cell phone intervention with Jason, that I have piqued some interest and additional questions regarding cell phone use in therapy. I think that this experience reinforces not only the creativity needed in creating client- specific interventions, but the impact technology has on people in general. No longer are therapy sessions adorned with a few chairs and some people; it begs for a more technological décor. Sure, I could have suggested to Jason
to take a walk around the block twice a day or choose times of the day to allow the “blueness” to flood him so he could move forward. Tailoring an intervention specifically to Jason with what he brought into the room worked best, it just so happened to be his cellphone.
Karla Caballero, MS, is a counseling psychology doctoral student from Our Lady of the Lake University with an MS in counseling
psychology from the same institution. She provides psychotherapy services to the community as part of the university’s community counseling clinic. She is a Pre-Clinical Fellow of AAMFT.
References
Gritz, E. R., Danysh, H. E., Fletcher, F. E., Tami-Maury, I., Fingeret, M. C., King R. M., & Vidrine, D. J. (2013). Long-term outcomes of a cell phone-delivered intervention for smokers living with HIV/ AIDS. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 57(4), 608-15. doi:10.1093/ cid/cit349
Lin, I. M., & Peper, E. (2009). Psychophysiological patterns during cell phone text messaging: A preliminary study. Applied Psychophysiology And Biofeedback, 34(1), 53-57.
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