Key Concepts Flashcards
Normal personality development is based on successful resolution and integration of psychosexual stages of development. Faulty personality development is the result of inadequate resolution of some specific stage. Anxiety is a result of repression of basic conflicts. Unconscious processes are centrally related to current behavior.
Psychoanalytic Therapy
Key concepts include the unity of personality, the need to view people from their subjective perspective, and the importance of life goals that give direction to behavior. People are motivated by social interest and by finding goals to give life meaning. Other key concepts are striving for significance and superiority, developing a unique lifestyle, and understanding the family constellation.
Adlerian Therapy
Essentially an experiential approach to counselling rather than a firm theoretical model, it stresses core human conditions. Interest is on the present and on what one is becoming. The approach as a future orientation and stress of self-awareness before action.
Existential Therapy
The client has the potential to become aware of problems in the means to resolve them. Faith is placed in the clients capacity for self-direction. Mental health is a congruence of ideal self and real self. Maladjustment is the result of a discrepancy between what one wants to be and what one is. In therapy attention is given to the present moment and on experiencing and expressing feelings.
Person-Centered Therapy
Emphasis is on the what and how of experiencing in the here and now to help clients except all aspects of themselves. Key concepts include holism, figure formation process, awareness, unfinished business and avoidance, contact, and energy.
Gestalt Therapy
Focus is on overt behavior, Percision and specifying goals of treatment, development of specific treatment plans, and objective evaluation of therapy outcomes. Present behaviour is given attention. Therapy is based on the principles of learning theory. Normal behaviour is learned through reinforcement and imitation. Abnormal behaviour is the result of faulty learning.
Behavior Therapy
Although psychological problems maybe rooted in childhood, they are reinforced by present ways of thinking. A person’s belief system and thinking is the primary cause of disorders. Internal dialogue plays a central role in one’s behavior. Clients focus on examining faulty assumptions and misconceptions and on replacing those with effective beliefs.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy
The basic focus is on what clients are doing and how to get them to evaluate whether their present actions are working for them. People are mainly motivated to satisfy their needs, especially the need for significant relationships. The approach rejects the medical model, the notion of transference, the unconscious, and dwelling on one’s past.
Choice Theory/Reality Therapy
Core principles of this therapy are that the personal is political, therapist have a commitment to social change, women’s voices and ways of knowing our valued and women’s experiences are honored, the counselling relationship is egalitarian, therapy focuses on strength and a reformulated definition of psychological distress, and all types of oppression are recognized.
Feminist Therapy
Therapy tends to be brief and addresses the present and the future. The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem. The emphasis is on externalizing the problem and looking for exceptions to the problem. Therapy consists of a collaborative dialogue in which the therapist and the client Coke create solutions. By identifying instances when the problem did not exist, clients can create new meanings for themselves and fashion a new life story.
Postmodern Approaches
Focus is on communication patterns within a family, both verbal and nonverbal. Problems in relationships are likely to be passed on from generation to generation. Key concepts vary depending on specific orientation but include differentiation, triangles, power coalition, family of origin dynamics, functional versus just functional interaction patterns, and dealing with here right now interactions. The present is more important than exploring past experiences.
Family Systems Therapy
