Chance to Excel 2 Flashcards
Goals of Existential Therapy
- aid client in dealing with life conditions (death, isolation, meaninglessness)
- find value, meaning and purpose
- develop awareness
- confront fears and anxieties
- become aware of freedom to aid in self-actualization
Strengths of Existential Therapy
- highly relevant in working in a multicultural context
- invites clients to examine the degree to which their behavior is being influenced by social and cultural conditioning
Limitations of Existential Therapy
- may not work for all cultures (collectivistic)
- may not account for real-life limitations for oppressed
- very indirect, which may be off-putting for some
- no specific techniques, making treatments hard to standardize
- very individualistic; ignores social factors that cause human problems
Philosophical Approach Existential Therapy
- phenomenological
- humans are in a constant state of transition, evolving, and becoming
- clients are searching for meaning in their subjective worlds
- purpose, death, freedom, isolation, meaning
4 givens of existence
death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness
inevitability of death
- the realization that death is an outcome for everyone
- the fear of non-existence can make life seem pointless
meaninglessness
- only certainties in life are birth and death
- lack of meaning in life can create a sense of hopelessness, despair, and emptiness
isolation
we are ultimately alone; everyone experiences feelings of alienation and loneliness; lacking true connection with others
Anxiety (Existential)
- is an unavoidable result of being confronted with the “givens of existence”
- part of living with awareness and being fully alive
View of Diagnosis (Existential)
opposed to diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis
“Aloneness”
the sense of isolation comes when we recognize that we can’t depend on anyone else for our own confirmation; we alone must give a sense of meaning to life
Logotherapy
- designed to help clients find meaning in life
- human suffering (the tragic and negative aspects of life) can be turned into human achievement by the stand an individual takes when face with it
Freedom
- we have the ability and responsibility to make choices to lead a more purposeful life with the limited time that we have
Goals of P.C. Therapy
to assist clients in achieving a greater degree of independence and integration so they can better cope with problems as they identify them
Strengths of P.C
- good multicultural application
Limitations of P.C.
- not good for collectivistic cultures
- new counselors may have a difficult time supporting while challenging the client
- lack of techniques
Role of Counselor P.C
- therapist uses themselves as an instrument of change by encountering clients on a person-to-person level
- create a quality therapeutic environment
- model
- genuineness, openness, authenticity
- deepens knowledge of self
P.C. Techniques
- congruence
- unconditional positive regard
- accurate empathic understanding
- reflection of feelings, presence, immediacy
motivation towards change (P.C)
- self-actualizing tendency
- humans have the inherent capacity to move away from maladjustment and toward growth
P.C. Therapeutic relationship
- shared journey
- accepting the client without judgment and being authentic in interactions.
congruence
- genuineness/realness
- behaviors match words
unconditional positive regard
- acceptance and genuine caring
- accepting clients for who the presently are
empathy
- the ability to deeply grasp the client’s subjective world
- attitudes are more important than knowledge
reflection P.C
Repeating what the client has shared about his or her feelings (AKA: active listening)
third force (PC)
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow who emphasized self-actualization, health, creativity, becoming, and meaning-making.
Motivational Interviewing (Stages of change)
- brief interview
- focuses on self-responsibility
- goal to reduce client ambivalence about change and increase the client’s own motivation for change
Goals of Gestalt Therapy
- assist the client in attaining greater awareness and choice
- increased self-awareness
- assume ownership of their experience
- learn to accept responsibility
Strengths of Gestalt
- takes the client’s context into account
- effective in helping clients integrate the polarities within themselves
Limitations of Gestalt
- potential for power abuse by therapist
- high focus on emotion may pose challenges or limitations for clients
Resistance
defenses we develop to prevent us from experiencing the present fully
Introjection
- the tendency to uncritically accept others’ beliefs and standards without stimulating them to make them congruent with who we are
- blocks you from self-actualizing
Projection
- disown certain aspects of ourselves by assigning them to the environment
- ex. blaming others for our problems
Retroflection
- turning back onto ourselves what we would like to do to someone else or doing to ourselves what we would like someone else to do to or for us
Confluence
blurring the differentiation between the self and environment
- ex. avoidance of conflict, people pleasing
deflection
the process of distraction or veering off, so that it is difficult to maintain and sustain a sense of contact
- ex. beating around the bush, changing subject in the middle of an argument
blocks to energy
- where energy is in the body, how it is used, and how it may be causing a blockage
- a form of resistance, for example, tension in a part of the body, not breathing deeply, or avoiding eye contact.
figure formation process
- tracks how the individual organizes experience from moment to moment
- some aspect of the environmental field emerges from the background and becomes the focal point of the individuals attention and interest
here-and-now
- our power is in the present
impasse
- a stuck point; unfinished business
- occurs when external support is not available or the customary way of being does not work
