Exam 1 Flashcards
What is therapy?
Anything that makes us “well”
What internal qualities contribute to a therapist’s personal integrity and self-awareness?
Attributes such as a strong identity, honesty, willingness to admit mistakes, and maintaining clear boundaries. This helps the therapist remain genuine, and approach therapy more mindfully.
Which qualities are essential for building a strong therapeutic relationship?
Being able to form a good relationship with clients, a sense of humor, and overall empathy and engagement in the client’s experience.
What adaptive qualities enable therapists to stay responsive and culturally competent?
Therapists benefit from being open to change, living in the present, and being culturally-aware.
Why should therapists themselves try therapy?
It helps them face their own problems. Plus, why recommend therapy if you never done it?
What is “bracketing” in terms of therapy?
It’s the ability of counselors to manage their personal values so that it does not contaminate the counseling process.
What is value imposition?
It refers to the counselor’s attempt at directly defining the client’s values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
How should goals be made in a counseling session?
The client should try and figure out goals as the counselor assists them in doing so. This won’t always happen, however.
Why is it important for counselors to demonstrate multicultural awareness?
It helps treatment stay centered around the client, no matter their origins. Things like bias, imposing values, among others, are avoided.
What internal challenges might a beginning therapist face regarding self-awareness and professional identity?
Anxiety, perfectionism, and recognizing limitations
What challenges related to managing therapist-client interactions and therapeutic process might a beginning therapist encounter?
Self-disclosure, silence, sense of humor, balancing the roles of both therapist and client, and knowing when to give advice
What difficulties might arise from the client’s behaviors or unclear clinical situations in therapy?
Demands from clients, clients lacking commitment/motivation, ambiguity, dual relationships, technique
Thinking back to the Tarasoff case, what does it mean when a therapist has a “duty to warn?”
It means that if a client has a specific death/harm threat to someone, you have a duty to warn that individual.
What are the three types of ethics?
Mandatory, Aspirational, and Positive
What are mandatory ethics?
The view of ethical practice that deals with the minimum level of professional practice (In other words, ethics that is required by law)
What are aspirational ethics?
A higher level of ethical practice that addresses doing what is in the best interests of clients. (Concern, not fear based)
What are positive ethics?
An approach taken by practitioners who want to do their best for clients rather than simply meet minimum standards to stay out of trouble. (Exceeding standards)
What is informed consent and why is it important?
It is the right of clients to be informed about their therapy and to make autonomous decisions surrounding it. This helps build trust between both parties.
What are the three main issues in assessment/diagnosis?
Forensic issues, DSM-V, third party reimpursement
What’s the problem with diagnosis, particularly with the DSM-V?
It doesn’t consider social and cultural factors; it’s important to note that lots of research was mainly done for white people. There is also the issue of labeling.
What’s the issue with dual/multiple relationships?
They can effect therapy negatively. There is also the possibility of the therapist to misuse their power and exploiting the client. Most agree that a clear unethical situation of this in action is giving therapy to someone you’re sexually intimate with.
As a therapist, why is it important to set boundaries on social media?
It helps the therapist avoid having dual relationships outside of the professional setting.
What is the main idea of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory?
That our unconscious thoughts, desires, and memories influence our actions and personality.
What is libido?
It’s Freud’s notion of the life instincts of a person. In other words, humans want to gain pleasure and avoid pain.
Freud believed that there were three parts that made up our personality. What were they?
The id, ego, and superego
What is the id?
The part of personality, present at birth, that is blind, demanding, and insistent. Its function is to discharge tension and return to homeostasis.
What is the ego?
The part of the personality that is the mediator between external reality and inner demands.
What is the superego?
That aspect of personality that represents one’s moral training. It strives for perfection, not pleasure (id).
According to Freud, what is the unconcious?
That aspect of psychological functioning or of personality that houses experiences, wishes, impulses, and memories in an out-of-awareness state as a protection against anxiety.
According to Freud, what is anxiety?
A feeling of impending doom that results from repressed feelings, memories, desires, and experiences emerging to the surface of awareness.
According to Freud, what are the three types of anxiety?
Reality, neurotic, and moral
What is reality anxiety?
The fear of danger from the external world; the level of such anxiety is proportionate to the degree of real threat.
What is neurotic anxiety?
The fear that the instincts will get out of hand and cause one to do something for which one will be punished.
What is moral anxiety?
The fear of one’s own conscience; people with a well-developed conscience tend to feel guilty when they do something contrary to their moral code.
What are ego-defense mechanisms?
Intrapsychic processes that operate unconciously to protect the person from threatening and, therefore, anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings, and impulses.
What is repression?
The ego-defense mechanism whereby threatening or painful thoughts or feelings are excluded from awareness.
What is denial?
In denial there is an effort to suppress unpleasant reality. It consists of coping with anxiety by “closing our eyes” to the existence of anxiety-producing reality.
What is reaction formation?
A defense against a threatening impulse, involving actively expressing the opposite impulse.
What is projection?
An ego-defense mechanism that involves attributing our own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and motives to others.
What is displacement?
An ego-defense mechanism that entails redirection of some emotion from a real source to a substitute person or object.
What is rationalization?
An ego-defense mechanism whereby we attempt to justify our behavior by imputing logical motives to it.
What is sublimation?
An ego defense that involves diverting sexual or aggressive energy into other channels that are socially acceptable.
What is regression?
An ego-defense mechanism whereby an individual reverts to a less mature form of behavior as a way of coping with extreme stress.
What is introjection?
A process of taking in the values and standards of others.
What is identification?
As an ego defense, this may involve individuals identifying themselves with successful causes in the hope that they will be seen as worthwhile.
What is compensation?
An ego-defense mechanism that consists of masking perceived weaknesses or developing certain positive traits to make up for limitations.
Freud suggested the idea of “psychosexual stages.” What is it about?
It’s the idea that we go through stages of growth, all which have a primary way of gaining sensual and sexual gratification.
Name all of Freud’s psychosexual stages in order.
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital
Describe the oral stage.
During the first year of a person’s life, their primary source of gratification is through the mouth. This is a time where the infant is learning to trust or mistrust the world.
Describe the anal stage.
Occurs from 1-3 years, pleasure is derived from retaining and expelling feces.
Describe the phallic stage.
Occurs from 3-6 years, pleasure is derived from direct experience with the genitals.
Describe the latency stage.
Occurs from 6-12 years, sexual interests are halted in this stage
Describe the genital stage.
Occurs after 12 years, heterosexual interests and activities are generally predominant.
Erik Erikson had a theory that contrasted from Freud’s. What was it called? Summarize.
Psychosocial stages; stressed over social aspects rather than sexual urges.
What is the difference between classical and contemporary psychoanalysis?
While both focus on instincts, contemporary also tends to focus on the ego striving for competence and mastery throughout the lifetime.
What is the therapist’s function and role regarding psychoanalytic theory?
The therapist attempts to bring the unconscious to the conscious. The client will be encouraged to say whatever is on their mind, no matter how weird or off-topic it is (Free association)
What is psychodynamic therapy?
Forms of treatment that are based on psychoanalytic theory but lack some of the defining characteristics of psychoanalysis.
Carl Jung had a theory called analytical psychology, which was noticeably different from Freud’s theories. What was it about?
It explains human nature that combines ideas from history, mythology, anthropology, and religion. It often focused on mid-life issues.
How did Jung view human nature?
He believed that humans try to constantly develop to achieve a complete level of development. We eventually achieve “individuation,” which is the harmonious integration of the conscious and unconscious parts of our personality.
What is the collective unconcious?
From a Jungian perspective, the deepest level of the psyche that contains an accumulation of inherited experiences.
From a Jungian perspective, what is the persona and the shadow?
The persona is a mask we wear to protect ourselves, while the shadow represents our dark side; the things we tend to disown by projecting them outward.
According to Jung, what is the animus?
The biological and psychological aspects of masculinity and femininity, which are thought to coexist in both sexes.
What is object-relations theory?
A newer version of psychoanalytic thinking, which focuses on predictable developmental sequences in which early experiences of self shift in relation to an expanding awareness of others.
What is self psychology?
A theory that emphasizes how we use interpersonal relationships to develop our own sense of self.
What is the core idea that Adlerian theory brings?
It’s the idea that people strive for social connection and belonging. They try to satisfy certain desires and reach specific goals.
What is human nature according to Adler?
We try to avoid feeling inferior, so we develop a fictional version of ourselves at our best, and we make that a life goal starting from around 6 years of age. This is how we get motivated.
Unlike Freud, Adler took a holistic approach to his view of human nature. What does that mean?
It means that we cannot be understood in parts; all aspects of ourselves must be understood in relation to each other.
According to Adler, we have a “guiding self-ideal.” What does that mean?
It’s an imagined central goal that gives direction to behavior and unity to the personality; an image of what people would be like if they were perfect and perfectly secure.
According to Adler, what is our “lifestyle?”
It is our characteristic way of thinking, acting, feeling, living, and striving toward long-term goals.
According to Adler, which is community feeling?
Our desire to belong and feel united.
According to Adlerian theory, we must successfully master three universal life tasks. What are they?
Building friendships (social task), establishing intimacy (love-marriage task), and contributing to society (occupational task)
Which therapist was most concerned with birth order?
Adler
In Adlerian theory, what was “The Question?”
What would you do if you were quite well?
What is the main goal in Adlerian therapy?
It is to develop the client’s sense of belonging and to assist in the adoption of behaviors characterized by community feeling and social interest. The therapist will often assist with the tasks of life.
What is the therapist’s role in Adlerian therapy?
They will look for major mistakes in thinking and valuing, making a comprehensive assessment of the client’s functioning. They will help change the client’s thinking and encourage them.
What is the main idea of existential theory?
It’s an idea that is rooted in philosophy; an idea in which we are responsible and have the freedom to create our own meaning, especially with the existence of death.
What are some famous examples of existential philosophers?
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and Buber
What did Kierkegaard focus on?
Creative anxiety
What did Nietzsche focus on?
Death, suicide, and will
What did Heidegger focus on?
Authentic being, caring, death, guilt, isolation, and responsibility
What did Sartre focus on?
Meaninglessness, responsibility, and choice
What did Buber focus on?
Interpersonal relationships and self-transcendence
Ludwig Binswanger came up with the idea of “throwness.” What does that mean?
It is the idea that we are just kind of “thrown” into the world. However, it is not a release from responsibility for choice.
Medard Boss came up with the idea of “dasein.” What does that mean?
It means “being in the world;” which pertains to our ability to reflect on life events and attribute meaning to these events.
What is logotherapy?
Therapy though meaning
What is the existential view of human nature?
It’s based on the idea that our existence is never fixed once and for all; we continually re-create ourselves through our projects. We strike a balance between the limits of the human condition and possibilities of human existence.
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 1?
Capacity for self-awareness
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 2?
Freedom and responsibility
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 3?
Striving for identity and relationship to others
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 4?
The search for meaning
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 5?
Anxiety as a condition for living
In Existential theory, what is Proposition 6?
Awareness of death and nonbeing
What is the goal of existential therapy?
It’s to help clients recognize the ways in which they are not living fully authentic lives and to make choices that will lead to their becoming what they are capable of being.
