Very good questions, Tab. Wish I had the perfect answer. You are right that getting to know the client and his/her situation/history/etc. will assist in determining the “best” approach. And sometimes that approach is just LISTENING, accepting, not judging, not talking, just BEING THERE 100% for that person. Advice is rarely helpful, unless it’s practical advice or providing information about, say, resources available or things like that.
But it all depends on what the problem is. For something like, say, phobias, certain techniques (namely CBT) are quite good for a number of people (not nearly as many people as they would have you think). Sometimes we do very “directive” therapy such as Gestalt or “Emotion Focused” techniques/therapy (EFT), which are extremely powerful and bring the “mind” and “emotions” together to produce insight and/or change.
But when it comes to changing the underlying personality structure (or ego or whatever you want to call it), no “advice” will work. Short-term methods will NOT make much of a dent. It requires TIME and CONSISTENT self-exploration to arrive at that moment of “BANG!!!” when things start to make sense (insight). But they can’t just make sense intellectually, which is why advice and talking about things usually doesn’t work. It has to CONNECT emotionally and RESONATE with the person. Now, the Gestalt or EFT actually DOES bring about such things faster than, say most psychodynamic approaches. However, Interpersonal Therapy is a psychodynamic approach and is short-term (about 12-16 weeks) and CAN be quite effective–it changes how we interact with others and helps us understand why we act/react as we do (and why others do that with us). It’s sort of a two-pronged approach: insight and guidance on how to interact socially (and to understand social factors’ impact on us, and vice versa), which is often at the root of many problems. Again, if done on an intellectual level, not that much will change (at least not for long), but when the person CONNECTS emotionally with what is happening in therapy, then change can occur.
So how does that answer your questions, Tab? Not very helpful practically speaking, I know. But let’s return to empathy. If someone truly empathizes with the other, then they have a better chance at knowing which approach is best (usually, a sympathetic, LISTENING ear is best, especially when all else fails). The problem is that this only works for a while before you become frustrated over hearing the same things over and over and seeing no change in the person. That’s when you can try all of the things people have mentioned above, being careful to see which you think is the best ones, and making sure not to assume that YOU know which it is; understanding that you’ll probably be off base in your choices at first, which is why it’s usually good just to BE THERE till the person is able to process such things (anyone who has suffered from severe depression or anxiety can write about how their cognitive functioning is often impaired, along with their motivation). And remember that in the case of depression, the person has probably been told or has felt that others are saying “JUST GET OVER IT,” even from the best intentioned individuals, and such messages (whether spoken or implied or even incorrectly inferred) only add to the guilt and shame and worthlessness that the person probably already feels, which only worsens their state, of course (though there is the TINY minority who might actually respond positively to such demands).
It’s not the most positive outlook on improvement, but it’s realistic. And being realistic helps prevent you (the person trying to help) from stressing yourself out over things that you may not be able to change (though in my original question about people regretting their life, the idea that people responded with of getting the person to change his/her philosophical outlook might help too, since it’s another way of arriving at some kind of insight, as long as they can connect with what they are reading/hearing about the philosophy–finding religion also helps, not b/c it gives insight but b/c it gives a sense of hope and understanding and “meaning”…again, all of this needs to be done at the pace and in the way that the person is most comfortable with).
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and re-phrased it. Anyway…This idea is, that once we die, the physical elements go to the physical environment and the mental go to the Higher Consciousness, or Mind or God. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed in our world therefore, thoughts being some form of energy cannot be destroyed either and so must exist as a huge database of information somewhere, perhaps as The Book of Life. In this way, all our past actions are recorded and fate happens accordingly in the current life and in the re-births.