Theoretical Orientations + Ethics and Professional Practice

Question 1

What is psychoanalytic therapy?

Answer 1

founder: Sigmund Freud

• theory of personality development, philosophy of human nature, and method of psychotherapy that focuses on unconscious factors that motivate behaviour
• attention on events of first 6 years of life as determinants of later development of personality

Question 2

What is Adlerian therapy?

Answer 2

founder: Alfred Adler
key figure: Rudolf Dreikurs

• Dreikurs credited w/ popularising approach in the US
• growth model that stresses assuming responsibility, creating own destiny, and finding meaning & goals to create purposeful life
• community feeling, private logic, life tasks, family constellation, birth order

Question 3

What is existential therapy?

Answer 3

key figures: Viktor Frankl, Rollo May & Irvin Yalom

• reaction against tendency to view therapy as system of well-defined techniques
• stresses therapy on basic conditions of human existence (choice, freedom & responsibility to shape one’s life, and self-determination)
• focuses on quality of person-to-person therapeutic relationship

Question 4

What is person-centered therapy?

Answer 4

founder: Carl Rogers
key figure: Natalie Rogers

• 1940s: nondirective reaction against psychoanalysis
• based on subjective view of human experiencing: faith in client & their responsibility in dealing w/ problems & concerns
• emotion-focused therapy, motivational interviewing

Question 5

What is Gestalt therapy?

Answer 5

founders: Fritz & Laura Perls
key figures: Miriam & Erving Polster
- experiential therapy stressing awareness & integration; reaction against analytic therapy
- integrates functioning of body & mind and emphasises therapeutic relationship
- holism, field theory, figure-formation process, organismic self-regulation

Question 6

What are the ethical considerations regarding displaying a client’s artwork?

Answer 6

• artwork created in medical setting is part of treatment: confidential aspect of care
• informed consent forms w/ indication allowing

utilising informed consent = compliance w/ national standards in Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Privacy Rule

Question 7

What are functions that art therapists typically do and do not perform?

Answer 7

• consultant & creative partner: enlist client as co-creator, from conceiving & planning space to execution
• collaborator in group setting
• role of experiencer: attempts to reflect & document experiences of social group through making art based on compassionate subjectivity

role model:
- disclosure of process/content of art making intensifies importance of therapist’s self-awareness & self-monitoring
- use personal artistic expression in service of others