Counseling Consulting

Along with my training as a counselor at the Interchange Counseling Institute I also developed my listening skills during the 130 hours of interviews I conducted with survivors of torture and other human rights violations in South Africa. I think we all need support at certain times in our life – if not frequently – and finding that right person to support one is important. My approach to counseling is summarized in some of the statements and questions below:

Are your emotional reactions at times disproportionate to the event in question?

Past hurts may be getting in the way

Learn about coping strategies or defenses that worked well for you in the past but that are no longer serving you

Listen to and learn what your body is holding emotionally

Remember who you are rather than the lies you've learned about yourself

Explore how your social context has impacted your life, for example, through oppressions such as: racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc.

The reality is: Hurts happen! No one escapes them in this life

Your needs are important

Mediation Consulting

Consider using mediation for conflict involving:

Couples

Families

Organizations

Communities

Examples of the types of mediations I have conducted include:

Divorcing couples

Adult roommates

Neighbors with restraining orders against each other

Family members in conflict

An incident that included military recruiters, student protestors, the police and university administration

Human Rights and Social Psychology Consulting

Social psychologists study the impact of social influence on individuals. Why do we do what we do? How do others influence us?

I love teaching. Some of my favorite lectures are from the Psych 1 lecture series I taught including those about our tendencies to obey authorities under certain circumstances or our behaviors of ignoring a struggling stranger assuming that someone else will take care of them or the problem (we become bystanders to small acts, larger acts and sometimes even acts of genocide). I am curious what makes some people stand up against injustice and come to the aid of others.

My academic research in human rights started at Notre Dame University and continued with my dissertation on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that involved interviews with victims affiliated with the Khulumani Support Group in Johannesburg, South Africa. A list of articles from this and other research projects is listed below.

Byrne, C. C. (2003). Responses of victims to perpetrators' justifications, excuses and apologies: Accounts in the context of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Dissertation Abstracts International, 63(10), 4963.

Byrne, C. C. (2004). Benefit or burden: Victims' reflections on TRC participation. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 10, 237–256.

Byrne, C. C. (2007). An Accident of Birth? In R. J. Eidelson, J. Laske & L. Cherfas (Eds.), Peacemaker 101: Careers Confronting Conflict (pp. 263-270). Philadelphia, PA: Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict.

Byrne, C. C. (2009). Proactive Versus Defensive Ethics: Re-Humanizing Psychology. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 15, 215–225.

Byrne, C. C. (2010) (Ed.). All That Was Lost. Apartheid Violence: Thirty TRC participants speak. Shereno Printers, Benoni, South Africa.

Byrne, C. C., & Escobar, J. (2011). Psychology and Transitional Justice Systems. In D. J. Christie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Byrne, C. C., & Escobar, J. (Under Review). Survivors' experiences with the South African TRC reparation process: An exploratory study.

"There's More To Life Than Tenure" Consulting

After making the complex decision to leave academia and training as an InterChange counselor through the InterChange Counseling Institute, it became apparent to me that pre-tenure professors are under a great deal of pressure and many could do with some support while navigating the tenure track and departmental politics.

I thus developed a counseling consulting specialty in supporting pre-tenured and tenured faculty in maintaining a productive healthy life/work balance.