The three Rub & Yawn techniques used at PaulsRobot.com are Reach & Withdraw, 6-Direction and Rogerian. The user can switch among these at choice, whichever seems to work best at the time.
Carl Rogers, the founder of Person-Centred Therapy, assumed that the most basic drive in a human being is that to self-actualization. It is this drive, nurtured by the skilled counsellor's attitude, that allows the client to sort things out for herself.
The counsellor embodies the "core conditions" in a session, namely
The counsellor gets the client talking, and the client gives some details of her topic, whatever is on her mind. The topic might be issues at work, or a relationship problem, personal debts, whatever. Just everyday things that people have trouble with. Every now and then, but without interrupting, the counsellor tentatively paraphrases and summarises the details of this just-spoken chunk of topic back to the client, both as to factual and emotional content, to the extent that the emotional content can be perceived. In this way, the client gets to look at her topic again, from a slightly different viewpoint, and can sort it out to some extent in her own mind. Bit by bit it should become clearer. The counsellor's reflection back to the client is tentative, so that if he gets it a bit wrong, the client can correct this.
In very basic terms, that is how Rogerian therapy works. Not only does the counsellor offer no advice, but the counsellor also offers no interpretation.
How could the practitioner-client session procedure described above possibly be replicated by a set of simple web pages, which cannot understand or act upon any of the words the client is saying or anything that the client is feeling?
It works like this. The client sits down in front of a computer with things arranged so that she won't be distracted for maybe 30 minutes, opens up PaulsRobot, and gets ready to start the session. She has some way of taking notes. The PaulsRobot "counsellor" consists of a set of linked web pages that are static, i.e., each page does not change its content at all. There is an audio file attached to the page that plays as soon as the page is opened. The audio is a simple direction to the client, like
OK. Write down some details of your topic as it seems to you now.The words in the audio also appear across the top of the web page, just in case there is something wrong with the audio or the client loses track of what she is supposed to be doing.
She follows the direction, in this case by putting into writing some details of her topic, a few sentences. There are some response options on the screen, and also further how-to details as needed. She selects an appropriate one, in this case probably
I have written down a paragraph about my topic.
This causes the linked web page to open up. The audio immediately says something like
Thank you. Summarise the factual content of that paragraph.So she looks both at the words she just typed and, in her mind's eye, that part of her topic. And she paraphrases and summarises the important points in it. She clicks the appropriate option. The linked web page says something like
Good. Write down how you feel about that paragraph.So the client looks over her reaction to that event and notes it down. Click.
All right. Write down another paragraph of your topic . . . Summarise it . . . Feelings? . . . Another paragraph . . . Summarise it . . . Feelings?These steps are abbreviated here, but each is as complete as in the earlier examples.
Next is a screen asking the client how it's going, as the Robot can't tell, of course, not being human. If it's going fine like this, the client just continues as before, giving details, summarising, noting any feelings etc. If the client want to edit an existing paragraph, she can do so. She can edit any further paragraphs like this before continuing with writing new paragraphs. If she wants to, she can redo the whole thing from scratch. All of these options are carefully covered in the session pages PaulsRobot shows her as the session is going along.
Sources: Edited from my article at paulsrobot3.com/1st/theory.htm. Image is fair use of a low-res common photo of a famous individual used for informational/educational purposes.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them for you.
To get free online fully-personalized stress-release sessions 24/7, see the links below.
I am not a licensed practitioner in your area, and no longer give personal sessions. My works, designed for normal people and not clinical cases or the dysfunctional, treat you as a spiritual being and not mere flesh and blood. Use my free websites and videos at your own risk.
Table gives post number, title/link, brief notes about content.
Yawnguy YouTube videos: Entry level. Since 2007, I deliver sessions directly to you by video on your custom topics. Start with Rub & Yawn 1/3.
YawnMachine.com: Entry level. Mobile-friendly. Text-based Rub & Yawn sessions.
PaulsRobot.com: Entry level (more or less). Mobile-friendly. More options to address your own topics. Sessions use three different Rub & Yawn techniques (Reach & Withdraw, 6-Direction, Rogerian). Includes theory and explanations.
RubAndYawn.com: Entry-level. Mobile friendly. Theory/explanations only, no session delivery.
PaulsRobot3.com: Advanced level. Desktop site. Delivers sessions on your custom topics. 3375 session pages in 31 onsite modules, using over 16 different techniques, none of them simply “talking about it”. Includes all relevant theory.
PaulsRobot2.com: Advanced level. Mobile-friendly. Experimental. PaulsRobot functionality but through icons instead of words. Includes automated session record. Video intro.
Yawnguy.com: Entry level. Desktop site. Links to my other sites. Over 100 testimonials. Includes roll-your-own audio session templates.
Facebook: My FB account, not used much.
Twitter: I have @yawnguy, @paulsrobot, @rubandyawn accounts, now coming out of hibernation since 2009.
