Week 2 Trimester 1 Meta theory: Person and Practice of the Psychotherapist

"All have won and all must have Prizes" the Dodo Bird effect coined from Alice in Wonderland.

Findings are that there are many common factors across counselling theories and therapeutic practices that are critical factors to therapeutic change.

All good theories are creating therapeutic change.

Therapeutic change process therapists bring their views of human nature, change process and theories.

Integration of factors of the therapy process unconscious assumptions/leaded practice, bias of therapies that might influence your practice.

Counselling deals more in the present that the past and more in the conscious than the unconscious

Formism - similarities, personality typing, boxes,
Mechanistic - technical workings of humans, one of the cogs is broken, can we fix it CBT
Organismic- we go through stages and ages, things that limit growth, developmental,
Contextual -story or narrative, changing the meaning of the story Narrative therapy

Psycho-dynamic Counselling. Learning to counsel
Focus is the clients personal sight and functioning of the unconscious
Making what is unconscious, conscious because that is where the dysfunction lies
Gaining of insight and catharsis equals resolution of conflict

Transference is the client's unconsciously transfer feelings and project them onto the therapist. The client unknowingly associates attitudes for other people onto the therapist ( doctors, teachers. parents, a person from the past) These projections could be hostile or positive feelings.If the counsellor responds to these projected feelings this would be called counter-transference.

Person Centred Counselling
Rogers: 3 core conditions to facilitate therapeutic growth are

1. Genuineness
2. Unconditional regard
3. Empathic understanding as well as Non-possessive warmth

CBT

Aaron T Beck Founder

How a person thinks and how thinking influences you behaviour. What you think you become.

Faulty learned patterns of behaviour are the root of all emotional or behavioural problems and changing thoughts and behaviours rather that finding the root of the problem is the focus of the therapy.

Eclectic and integrative approaches

Eclectic counsellors use a range of techniques that will suit the individual needs of the client at the time

Integrative counsellors may develop new counselling techniques by borrowing philosophies and practices from different theories to design a new model.

Confidentiality

I struggle personally with working with children. Due to my past and the high prevalence of childhood abuse in society, I have found the content in the chapter on confidentiality quite triggering.

I intend to avoid placing myself  directly in the position of counselling children. Situations may arise where I may feel the need to protect a child whom I discover is being mistreated by my client and therefor would have no choice but contact DHS, breaking client - therapist confidentiality but I would inform the client of my intentions.