Chapter 11 - Humanistic Theories of Counselling

Question 1

Person Centered Counselling

Answer 1

Founder: Carl Rogers nondirective client centered counselling

Question 2

phenomenological perspective

Answer 2

What is important is the person’s perception of reality rather than the event itself.

Question 2

Human Nature in Person-centred counselling

Answer 2

people are essentially good. Humans are positive, forward moving, constructive, realistic, and trustworthy. Each person is aware, inner-directed and moving toward self-actualization from infancy on

Self actualization is the most prevalent and motivating drive of existence.

Question 3

Self-theory

Answer 3

The self is an outgrowth of what a person experiences, and an awareness of self helps a person differentiate him or herself from others

Question 4

positive regard

Answer 4

Love, warmth, care, respect and acceptance. How a healthy self emerges.

Question 5

conditional regard

Answer 5

conditional acceptance if a person behaves a certain way. Person will have to deny or distort a perception when a person they depend on for approval sees a situation differently. An individual caught in such a dilemma becomes aware of incongruences between self-perception and experience. If they do not do as others wish, they will not be accepted and valued. If they do what others wish there is a gap between ideal self and real self

Question 6

ideal self

Answer 6

what the person is striving to become

Question 7

real self

Answer 7

what the person is. The further the ideal self is from the real self the more alienated and maladjusted the person becomes

Question 8

Role of Counselor in P.C.C

Answer 8

holistic. Sets up and promotes a climate in which the client is free and encouraged to explore all aspects of self. The atmosphere focuses on the counsellor-client relationship.
Client is entitled to direct his or her own therapy

Question 9

Goals in P.C.C

Answer 9

Focus on the client as a person, not on his or her problems. People need to be assisted in learning how to cope with situations, help the person become a fully functioning person who has no need to apply defense mechanisms.

More open to experience, more trusting of self-perception and engaged in self-exploration and evaluation

Question 10

Techniques

Answer 10

• empathy
• unconditional positive regard (acceptance, prizing)
• Congruence (genuineness, openness, authenticity, transparency)

shown through active and passive listening, accurate reflection of thoughts and feelings, clarification, summarization, confrontation, general open ended leads. Questions avoided whenever possible

Question 11

Empathy

Answer 11

may be subjective, interpersonal or objective or all 3. The counsellors ability to feel what the clients feels and convey this understanding back to them.

Question 12

Unconditional positive regard

Answer 12

acceptance - a deep and genuine caring for the client as a person, prizing the person just for being.

Question 13

Congruence

Answer 13

condition of being transparent in the therapeutic relationship by giving up roles and facades.

Question 14

Strengths and contributions of Person centered

Answer 14

*revolutionized the counselling profession by linking counselling with psychotherapy and published tapes of and transcripts of counselling sessions
*applicable to wide range of problems, including labour management, leadership, career decision, international diplomacy.
* reduces stigmatization
*generated extensive research
*effective in many settings, improve psychological adjustment, learning, frustration tolerance, decrease defensiveness
*may be helpful in working with clients who have experienced tragedies, allows them to struggle through emotions and actually become less affected in time by fully realizing feelings related to the tragedies
* focuses on open and accepting relationship established by counsellors and clients and the short-term nature of the helping process
*short time to learn . Basis for several new and emerging approaches and frequent combined with other orientations
*positive view of human nature and it continues to evolve

Question 15

Limitations of Person Centered

Answer 15

*approach may be too simplistic, optimistic, leisurely and unfocused for clients in crisis or who need more structure or directions.
*depends on bright, insightful, hard-working clients for best results. Has limited applicability and is seldom employed by severely disabled individuals or children
*ignores diagnosis, unconscious, developmental theories and innately generated sexual and aggressive drives, many say overly optimistic
*delas only with surface issues and does not challenge the client to explore deeper areas
*more attitudinal than technique based

Question 16

existential counselling

Answer 16

founder: Rollo May & Viktor Frankly - meaning of life and dealing with anxieties

Question 17

View of human nature in existential counselling

Answer 17

People form their lives by the choices they make. emphasizes the freedom that human beings have to choose what to make of their circumstances Focus on free will of choice and the action that goes with it. people as the author of their lives.

The meaning of life changes, but it never ceases to be.

Question 18

Logotherapy

Answer 18

meaning goes beyond self actualization and exists at 3 levels a) ultimate meaning - order in the universe b)meaning of the moment and c) common, day to day meaning.

Can discover meaning in 3 ways
1)doing a deed - accomplishing something
2)experiencing a value - nature, culture, love
3) suffering - finding a proper attitude toward unalterable fate

Question 19

Role of Counsellor in Existential Counselling

Answer 19

no uniform roles. Every client is unique. sensistive to all aspects of their clients character.

Counsellors concentrate on being authentic and entering deep and personal relationships, strives to be in the here and now and to understand and experience the ongoing emotional & mental state of the client.

Focus on person-to-person relationships that emphasize mutuality, wholeness and growth.G

Question 20

Goals of Existential Counselling

Answer 20

help clients to realize the importance of meaning, responsibility, awareness, freedom and potential

Question 21

Techniques of Existential Counselling

Answer 21

Does not limit the counselor to a specific technique or intervention

fewer techniques available then almost any other model

allows existential therpaists to borrow ideas as well as wide range of personal and professional skills

sees approaching humans with merely techniques implies manipulating them

Question 22

Strengths and contributions of Existential Counselling

Answer 22

*approach emphasizes the uniqueness of each individual and the importance of meaningfulness in their lives
*recognizes that anxiety is not necessarily a negative condition it is a part of life and can motivate some individuals to make healthy and productive choices
*gives counsellors access to a tremendous amount of philosophy and literature that is both informative and enlightening about human nature
*offers hope to clients through therapeutic encounters with counsellor
*effective in multicultural situations because it’s view of human existence allows counsellors to focus on the person of the client
*helps connect individuals to universal problems faced by humankind such as the search for peace and the absence of caring
*combined with other approaches
*empirical support showing its efficacy

Question 23

Limitations of Existential Counselling

Answer 23

• does not have a a fully developed model of counselling
  *lacks educational and training programs. Each practitioner and counselling experience is unique
  *limited for those who require techniques
  *requires that counsellors have developed wisdom and deep understanding regarding their own existential questions
  *difficult to implement beyond individual level because of its subjective nature
• closer to philosophy than theories of counselling

Question 24

Gestalt Therapy

Answer 24

Founders: Frederick Perls, stresses completeness and wholeness. Gestalt means whole figure.

Question 25

View of human nature in gestalt therapy

Answer 25

human beings work for wholeness and completeness in life. Gestalt view places trust in the inner wisdom of people! (YES)
People are more than a sum of their parts.

antideterministic: each person is able to change and become responsible.

People are constantly developing, and they accomplish this by continuing to explore, adapt and self-reflect

One discovers different aspects of oneself through experience, not talk, and a person’s own assessment and interpretation of his or her life at a given moment in time are what is most important.

Question 26

Role of Counsellor in Gestalt Counselling

Answer 26

create an atmosphere that promotes clients exploration of what is needed to grow.

permission to be exuberant, to have grandness to play with the nicest possibilities for ourselves within our short lives.

Question 27

Goals of gestalt therapy

Answer 27

emphases on here and now and recognition of the immediacy of experience
help the client resolve the past to become integrated

completion of mentally growing up.
acceptance of polarities within the person

Question 28

Techniques of Gestalt Therapy

Answer 28

Exercises & Experiments

Exercises such as dream work. Messages that represent a person’s place at a certain time. Gestal counsellors do not interpret. Clients are directed to experience what it is like to be each part of the dream - a free association to get in touch with multiple parts of the self.

Empty chair. Clients talk to various parts of their personality, such as the part that is dominant and the part that is passive. rational and irrational parts of the client come into focus.

confrontation - counsellors point out clients incongruent behaviours and feelings - such as a client smiling when they are admitting nervousness. Ask what and how questions. Not why.

Making the rounds
I take Responsibility
Exaggeration
May I feed you a sentence?

Question 29

Exercises

Answer 29

ready-made techniuqes such as the enactment of fantasies, role playing and psychodrama. They are employed to evoke a certain response from the client, such as anger exploration

Question 30

experiments

Answer 30

activities that grow out of the interaction between counsellor and client. Not planned and what is learned is often a surprise to both the client and counsellor.

Question 31

Strengths and Contributions

Answer 31

*helps people incorporate and accept all asepcts of life. An individual cant be understood outside the context of a whole person who is choose to act on the environment in the present
*focus on resolving areas of unfinished business
*emphasis on doing rather than talking
*flexible, not limited to a few techniques. Any activity that helps clients become more integrated can be used in Gestalt
*Versatile, used for many affective disorders and DSM-IV-TR diagnosis

Question 32

Limitations of Gestalt Therapy

Answer 32

*Approach lacks a strong theoretical base
*deals with now and how, does not allow for passive insight and change
*eschews diagnosis and testing
*too concerned with individual development and is criticized for self-centredness - focus entirely on feeling and personal discovery