Profidant.com
Profidant Services
Susan D. Griffith Ph.D., and Richard S. Cooper, Ph.D.,
Clinical Psychologists by training and Profidants by experience and choice, meet individually with executives, professionals, and others in confidential, supportive sessions that lead to satisfying and creative solutions.
Profidant services are private meetings with Dr. Griffith or Dr. Cooper, during which there is talking back-and- forth. There is no record of the content of any meeting and no one is informed that the meeting took place (apart from billing if payment is not made following the meeting.) Meetings after the first one may take place on the telephone, and email interaction is a possibility. Meetings
can be scheduled for 45 minutes or for several hours in length, and the frequency of meetings is variable.
Profidant services evolved from Dr. Griffith's years of working with people as a psychotherapist, during which she came to understand that the high degree of improvement experienced by her clients resulted from her supportive, relationship-oriented interactions with them, as well as her consistent focus on solving problems. The problems solved were not just troublesome emotions, as is the focus of many therapists, but any sort of problems, and not just the problems people identified when they first came to see her.
In addition, her clients seemed very much like herself. She had difficulty "diagnosing" them as "patients" with problems, seeing all people as simply having difficulties and anxieties and conflicts and insecurities that could become much better with supportive attention and problem-solving. People felt better when things were better.
Dr. Griffith's sensitivity to emotions helped considerably both in understanding her clients and in helping them to understand themselves better and to respect the leadership their own emotions gave them in suggesting what to do and not do.
Over the years many clients told her why they chose to do certain things and act in certain ways. Thus, Dr. Griffith amassed a storehouse of information that she could use to help people make better decisions in their dealings with other, understanding them better and predicting how they would act.
Never an advocate for a "medical model" of human behavior, Dr. Griffith came to pay little attention to "symptoms" and even to the client's "presenting problem". Instead she and a client talked and, as the past and present were described, problem areas were disclosed. From the start she and her client were able to come up with alternative ways of doing things, or of thinking about things and, from the first session she and the client set about solving problems and making things feel better.
Compared with friends who are sounding boards, a Profidant has more experience with certain aspects of human nature and with effective interviewing techniques, and is not distracted by his/her own involvement in the life activities of the client.
The client may come to the session with a problem foucs, or may not, and may, or may not, be experiencing symptoms of stress.
Dr. Griffith found she believed it made people feel better to know their strengths, to know and respect their own weaknesses, to look for alternative ways around weaknesses, that might lead to greater strength overall, to see the positive and reframe situations so they can see the positive in them, to understand that the traits and characteristics about people that drive us crazy are the same ones that may make those people good for us, that patterns of childhood, for example with parents and with sibllings, give us important information about how we can deal best with people in the future, that there are many types of people and all are useful and necessary, that the world may be the way it seems to us (but be sure to try out an opposite view as well), that talking things over helps, that expressing negative feelings sometimes makes them go away, and that feeling better gives people more energy to devote to accomplishing the things they really want to accomplish.
Drawing upon her vast experience observing people and helping them make wanted changes in their lives, Dr. Griffith coined the word "Profidant" to define much of her work. The word emphasises that the helper providing Profidant Services is confidential and professional and provides services to help the client with problem-solving toward personal profit.
A Profidant is supportive and interactive and creative, helping each client use his or her own strengths, interests, and experiences to come to creative solutions.
Dr. Cooper's background is similar to that of Dr. Griffith, and he has joined her in offering this service.
