Theories of Counseling Chapter 5

Question 1

Adlerian Perspective on Human Nature

Answer 1

• Humans are motivated primarily by social relatedness ( to change)
• Behavior is purposeful and goal-direct, and consciousness
• Have the capacity to interpret, influence, and create events.
• People can only be understood as integrated and complete beings.
• Looked at the person’s past as perceived in the present and how an individual’s interpretation of early events continued to influence that person’s present behavior.

Question 2

Inferiority

Answer 2

• Normal condition and as a source of all human striving.

- Motivate us to strive for mastery, success (superiority), and completion

Question 3

Adlerian Approach

Answer 3

• Holistic, social, goal-oriented, systemic, phenomenological and humanistic.
• Essential to understand people within the system in which they live.

Question 4

Life Movements

Answer 4

The individual’s lifestyle (plan of life)

Question 5

Lifestyle

Answer 5

Described as our perceptions regarding self, others, and the world, includes the connecting themes and rules of interaction that give meaning to our actions.

Question 6

Social Interest

Answer 6

• The action line of one’s community feeling, and it involves being as concerned about others as one is about oneself.
• Requires the willingness to give/take and contribute to the welfare of others.
• Begins in childhood and involves helping children find a place in society and acquire a sense of belonging. (Innate and taught)

Question 7

Community Feeling

Answer 7

• Embodies the feeling of being connected to all humanity

- Only when we feel united with others are we able to feel worthy

Question 8

Three Universal Life Tasks

Answer 8

1. Building friendships (social task)
2. Establishing intimacy (love-marriage task)
3. Contributing to society (occupational task)

Question 9

Aim of Adlerian Therapy

Answer 9

-To develop the client’s sense of belonging and to assist in the adoption of behaviors and processes characterized by community feeling and social interest

Question 10

Therapist-Client Relationship

Answer 10

• Collaborative arrangement between the client and the counselor.
• Relationship based on mutual respect; lifestyle assessment; and disclosing mistaken goals, and faulty assumptions within the person’s style of living.

Question 11

Role of the Therapist

Answer 11

• Provide clients’ a fundamental understanding of the purpose of their behavior, counselors assist them in changing their perceptions.
• Perform comprehensive assessment of the client’s functioning.
• Therapists often gather information about the individual’s style of living by means of a questionnaire on the client’s family constellation

Question 12

Early Recollections

Answer 12

• An assessment procedure.

- Stories of events that a person says occurred before he/she was 10 years old

Question 13

Life Assessments

Answer 13

• The process of gathering early memories.

- Involves learning to understand the goals and motivations of the client.

Question 14

Private Logic

Answer 14

• The concept about self, others, and life that constitutes the philosophy on which an individual’s lifestyle is based.
• Private logic involves our beliefs that get in the way of social interest and that do not facilitate useful, constructive belonging.

Question 15

The therapeutic process helps individuals become aware of their patterns and make some basic changes in their style of living, which lead to changes in the way they feel and behave.

Answer 15

1. Establish the proper therapeutic relationship
2. Explore the psychological dynamics operating in the client (an assessment)
3. Encourage the development of self-understanding (insight into purpose)
4. Help the client make new choices (reorientation and reeducation)

Question 16

Establish the Proper Therapeutic Relationship

Answer 16

Help clients become aware of their assets and strengths rather than dealing continually with their deficits and liabilities.

Question 17

Explore the Psychological Dynamics Operating in the Client (an assessment)

Answer 17

• The focus is on understanding the client’s identity and how that identity relates to the world at large.
  1. The subjective interview: the counselor helps the client tell his or her life story as completely as possible.
  2. The objective interview: seeks to discover information about the person’s coping with life tasks and lifestyle assessment.
• Once material has been gathered from both subjective and objective interviews therapist integrates summaries of the data and together refining specific points.

Question 18

Encourage the Development of Self-Understanding (insight into purpose)

Answer 18

• Interpret the findings of the assessment as an avenue for promoting self-understanding and insight.
• Adlerian disclosures and interpretations are concerned with creating awareness of one’s direction, purposes, one’s private logic.
• Asks open-ended questions, such as “is it possible that..”

Question 19

Help the Client Make New Choices (reorientation and reeducation)

Answer 19

• Action-oriented phase, putting insight into practice.

- Clients are both encouraged and challenged to develop the courage to take risks and make changes in their life.

Question 20

Birth Order

Answer 20

• Is not a deterministic concept, but does increase an individual’s probability of having a certain set of experiences
• Emphasis is on the individual’s interpretation or the psychological position of the child’s place in the family.

Question 21

Oldest Child

Answer 21

Receives a good deal of attention, and during the time she is the only child.

• Is typically spoiled and the center of attention.
• Exhibiting a high achievement drive.

Question 22

Second Child

Answer 22

• The second child typically behaves as if she was in a race and is generally under full steam at all times.
• Competitive struggle

Question 23

Middle Child

Answer 23

• The middle child often feels squeezed out
• Problem child
• May become the switch board and the peacemaker, the person who holds things together in dysfunctional family.

Question 24

Youngest Child

Answer 24

The youngest child is always the baby of the family

-Tends to be the most pampered one

Question 25

Only Child

Answer 25

• Refuse to cooperate with other children
• May become dependently tied to parents
• Center stage

Question 26

Adlerian Approach in Group Therapy

Answer 26

• The group provides the social context in which members can develop a sense of belonging, social connectedness and community.
• Altruism within group, which is the process of helping others.
• Through mutual sharing of these early recollections, members develop a sense of connection with one another and group cohesion is increased.

Question 27

Multicultural Positives

Answer 27

• Focuses on the person in a social context.
• Clients are encouraged to define themselves within their social environments and to understand how those environment influence their lifestyle.
• No particular set of procedures so may apply a range of cognitive and action-oriented techniques to helping clients explore their practical problems in a cultural context.

Question 28

Multicultural Negatives

Answer 28

• Tends to focus on the self as the locus of change and responsibility.
• Emphasis on changing the autonomous self may be problematic for many clients
• Cultures who are not interested in exploring past childhood experiences, early memories, family experiences, and dreams may terminate
• Cultures may expect the counselor will provide them with solutions to their problems.