Comprehensive
Exam Review
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Helping
Relationships
Part 1
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A helping relationship is a process in which
one person (i.e., the counselor or therapist)
helps another person (i.e., the client or
counselee) to resolve a problem, concern, or
difficulty and/or foster personal growth or
development.
The most effective helping relationships are
based on counseling theories, which are
systematic ways of viewing and operationalizing the helping process.
There is not a standardized method for
differentiating among (i.e., classifying)
counseling theories.
However, for presentation purposes here, the
theories presented will be grouped as either
individual or family counseling theories.
Note that most individual counseling theories
can be applied to group counseling and most
family counseling theories can be applied to
marriage counseling.
Each counseling theory has a formal name
and typically also is associated with the person
who had primary responsibility for
development of the theory.
The following are the major counseling
theories that underlie helping relationships
in the counseling profession.
Major Individual
Counseling Theories
Each of the following major individual
counseling theories is introduced by formal
title and primary proponent. Then, the
following major elements of each theory are
presented:
View of Human Nature
Role of the Counselor
Counseling Goals
Major Techniques
Psychoanalytic Theory - Sigmund Freud
Freud's view of human nature is considered to
be dynamic (i.e., that there is an exchange of
energy and transformation). Catharsis is
considered to be a release of this energy.
Freud saw the personality as composed of a
conscious mind, a preconscious mind, and an
unconscious mind.
The conscious mind has knowledge of what is
happening in the present.
The preconscious mind contains information
from both the unconscious and the conscious
mind.
The unconscious mind contains hidden or
forgotten memories or experiences.
In Psychoanalytic theory, the personality has
three parts: id, ego, and superego.
The id is present at birth, is part of the
unconscious, and is the site of the pleasure
principle (i.e., the tendency of an individual
to move toward pleasure and away from
pain).
The id does not have a sense of right or wrong,
is impulsive, and is not rational. It contains
the most basic of human instincts, drives, and
genetic endowments.
The ego functions primarily in the conscious
and preconscious minds and serves as a
moderator between the id and the superego. It
is the site of the reality principle (i.e., the
ability to interact with the outside world with
appropriate goals and activities).
The superego sets the (ideal) standards and
morals for the individual and operates on the
moral principle that rewards the individual
for following parental and societal dictates.
Violation of superego rules results in feelings
of guilt.
Freud proposed stages of personality
development.
The Oral Stage is centered on the mouth as a
source of pleasure.
The Anal Stage is centered on the anus and
elimination as a source of pleasure.
The Phallic Stage is centered on the genitals
and sexual identification as a source of
pleasure.
The Oedipus Complex, as part of the Phallic
Stage, is a process whereby a boy desires his
mother and fears castration from his father.
In order to become an ally of the father, the
boy thus learns traditional male roles.
The Electra Complex, as part of the Phallic
Stage, is similar but less clearly resolved in the
female child, involving desire for the father
and competition with the mother. In order to
become an ally of the mother, the girl learns
traditional female roles.
The Latency Stage is characterized by little
sexual interest and development of social,
academic, and physical skills.
The Genital Stage begins with the onset of
puberty and is characterized by (initial)
interest in establishment of sexual
relationships.
Freud believed Ego Defense Mechanisms
protect the individual from being overwhelmed
by anxiety, and considered them normal and
operating on the unconscious level.
Repression is whereby the ego excludes
painful or undesirable thoughts, memories,
feelings, or impulses from the conscious.
Projection is whereby the individual assigns
undesirable emotions and characteristics to
another individual.
Reaction Formation is whereby the individual
expresses the opposite emotion, feeling, or
impulse from that which causes anxiety.
Displacement is whereby energy generated
toward a potentially dangerous or
inappropriate target is refocused to a safe
target. A positive displacement is called
sublimation, whereby the frustrating target is
replaced with a positive target.
Regression is whereby the person returns to
an earlier stage of development.
Rationalization is whereby an individual
creates a sensible explanation for an illogical
or unacceptable behavior, thus making it
appear sensible or acceptable.
Denial is whereby an individual does not
acknowledge an event or situation that may
be unpleasant or traumatic.
Identification is whereby a person takes on
the qualities of another person to reduce the
fear and anxiety toward that person.
The primary role of the counselor who uses
Psychoanalytic theory is to encourage
transference to give the client a sense of
safety and acceptance in which to explore
difficult material and experiences from the
past, and thus to gain insight into and work
through unresolved issues. The counselor is
an expert who interprets for the client.
The primary goals for Psychoanalytic-based
counseling include helping the client to:
Bring the unconscious into the conscious.
Work through a developmental stage that
was not resolved or where the client
became fixated.
Adjust to the demands of work, intimacy,
and society.
Primary Psychoanalytic techniques include
the following:
Free Association, wherein the client verbalizes
thoughts without censorship, no matter how
trivial the thoughts or feelings may be to the
client.
Dream Analysis, wherein the client relates
dreams to the counselor, who interprets the
obvious or manifest content and the hidden
meanings or latent content.
Analysis of transference, wherein clients are
encouraged to attribute to the counselor those
issues that have caused difficulties with
significant authority figures in their lives.
Analysis of resistance, wherein the counselor
helps the client gain insight into what forms
the basis of a hesitation or halting of therapy.
Interpretation, wherein the counselor helps
the client gain insight into past and present
events.
Individual Psychology - Alfred Adler
The Adlerian concept of social interest is the
individual's feeling of being part of a whole,
spanning both the past, present, and the
future.
Adler believed that people were mainly
motivated toward a feeling of belonging. He
did not believe that social interest was innate,
but rather a result of social training.
Adler believed that people strive to become
successful and to overcome personal areas
that they perceive as inferior, a process of
personal growth he referred to as “striving
for perfection.”
Those who do not overcome feelings of
inferiority develop an inferiority complex,
while those who overcompensate for feelings
of inferiority develop a superiority complex.
Adler believed that a person's conscious
behavior is the mainstay of personality
development.
Adler also believed that a person is as
influenced by future (desired and/or
expected) goals as by past experiences.
Thus, Adlerian theory emphasizes personal
responsibility for how the individual chooses
to interpret and adjust to life's events or
situations.
Maladjustment is choosing behavior resulting
in lack of social interest or personal growth.
Misbehavior takes place when the person
becomes discouraged or when positive
attempts at good behavior fail to achieve
needed results.
Encouragement of good behavior is the
recommended antidote to misbehavior.
Adler espoused that the birth of each child
changes the family substantially and that the
birth order of the children in the family
influences many aspects of their personality
development.
Characteristics of birth order positions
include the following:
Oldest children usually are high achievers,
“parent pleasers,” conforming, and well
behaved.
Second born children usually are outgoing,
less anxious, and less constrained by rules
than are firstborns, and they also usually
excel at what the first born does not.
Middle children often have a feeling of being
squeezed in and are concerned with
perceived unfair treatment. They learn to
excel in family politics and negotiation, but
can become manipulative.
Youngest children usually are adept at
pleasing or entertaining the family and run
the risk of being spoiled.
However, they also usually are adept at
getting what they want through their social
skills and ability to please, and are often high
achievers through modeling of older siblings’
positive behaviors.
Only children or children born seven or
more years apart from siblings usually are
like first born children.
Children with no siblings often take on the
characteristics of their parents’ birth order
because the parents are the only role
models.
They may mature early and be high
achievers, but also may be slow to develop
social skills, expect pampering, and be
selfish.
Adler believed that a child's interpretation of
life events is determined by interactions with
family members before age five, which teach
the child to perceive events and situations
through subjective evaluations of themselves
and their environment.
Children may make mistakes based on these
fictions, such as the following:
Overgeneralizing, whereby the child
believes that everything is the same or alike.
Misperceptions of life and life's demands,
whereby the child expects more accommodation than is reasonable and interprets
failure to achieve accommodation as never
getting any breaks.
False or impossible goals of security, whereby
the child tries to please everyone to gain
security and avoid danger.
Minimization or denial of personal worth,
whereby the child believes that s/he cannot be
successful in life.
Faulty values, whereby the child adopts a "me
first" mentality with little or no regard for
others.
Adler believed that life takes courage and a
willingness to take risks without knowing the
outcome and that a person with a healthy
lifestyle contributes to society, has meaningful work, and has intimate relationships.
Adler espoused cooperation between the
genders (as opposed to competition) and that
well-adjusted people live in interdependent
relationships with others in a cooperative
spirit.
The role of the Adlerian counselor is as a
diagnostician, teacher, and model.
Adlerian counseling is very cognitive, with
an emphasis on the examination of faulty
logic and empowering the client to take
responsibility for change through a
(re)educational process.
The Adlerian counselor encourages the client
to behave "as if" the client were who the
client wished to be, and often provides the
client with "homework" assignments outside
the sessions.
Adlerians are eclectic, with emphasis on
encouragement and responsibility.
The goals of Adlerian counseling focus on
helping the client to develop a healthy life-style
and social interests.
The Adlerian counselor assists the client to
achieve four goals of the therapeutic process:
establishing a therapeutic relationship,
examining style of life, developing client
insight, and changing behavior.
Client behavior change is the result of taking
personal responsibility for behavior.
Commonly-used Adlerian counseling
techniques include the following:
Confrontation, whereby the counselor
challenges the client’s private logic and
inconsistent behavior.
Asking "the Question,” whereby the
counselor asks the client how life would be
different if the client was “well.” Parents are
often asked, “What would be the problem if
this child was not the problem?”
Encouragement, whereby the counselor
supports the client by stating belief in the
client's ability to take responsibility and
change behavior.
“Spitting in the client's soup,” whereby the
counselor points out the purpose of the
client's behavior, after which the client may
continue the behavior but cannot do so
without being aware of the motivation for
engaging in the behavior.
Acting "as if," whereby the counselor
instructs the client to behave "as if" there
were no problem or as the person that the
client would like to be.
“Catching oneself,” whereby the counselor
helps the client learn to bring “self-destructive”
behavior into awareness and then stop it.
Task setting, whereby the counselor helps the
client set short-term goals that lead toward
attainment of long-term goals.
Person-Centered Counseling - Carl Rogers
Rogers viewed human nature as basically good
and that if given the appropriate environment
of acceptance, warmth, and empathy, the
individual would move toward selfactualization.
Self-actualization is the motivation that makes
the individual move toward growth, meaning,
and purpose.
Person-centered is considered a
phenomenological psychology whereby the
individual's perception of reality is accepted
as the “true” reality for the person.
Person-centered theory is often referred to as
a “self theory” due to Rogers' emphasis on
the self being a result of the person's life
experiences and the person's awareness of
comparisons to others as the same or
different.
Rogers believed that most people were
provided conditional acceptance as children,
which lead them to behave in ways that would
assure their acceptance.
However, in their need for acceptance, the
individual often behaved in ways that were
incongruent with the real self.
The greater the incongruity between the real
self and the ideal self, the greater the
isolation and maladjustment for the person.
The role of the counselor in Person-Centered
counseling is to create an environment in
which the client is safe to explore any aspect of
self and to facilitate exploration through a
special “I-Thou” relationship of warmth,
unconditional positive regard, and empathy.
Diagnosis and psychological testing are
discouraged because they are incompatible
with the philosophical view of the individual
as unique and place the counselor in a
position of evaluation and authority.
Goals in Person-Centered theory relate
directly to the individual as the counselor
facilitates client movement toward:
realistic self-perception,
greater confidence and self-direction,
a sense of positive worth,
greater maturity, social skill, and
adaptive behavior,
better ways of coping with stress, and
full functioning in all aspects of
their lives.
There are three distinct periods in which
different techniques were stressed in PersonCentered Counseling:
Nondirective (1940 - 1950) - the counselor
focused on listening and creating a
permissive atmosphere and did not provide
interventions, but did communicate
acceptance and clarification.
Reflective (1950 - 1957) - the counselor
emphasized being non-judgmental, while also
responding to the client's feelings and
reflecting affect accurately.
Experiential (1957 - 1980) - the counselor
emphasized EWG: Empathy, Warmth, and
Genuineness.
Empathy is the ability of the counselor to
understand the emotions of the client and to
communicate correctly this understanding.
Warmth is the ability of the counselor to convey
an unconditional acceptance (i.e., positive
regard) of the client's personhood.
Genuineness, or congruence, is the ability to
be who one really is without assuming roles
or facades.
The Person-Centered counselor helps the
client through accurate reflection of feelings,
keeping the client focused on the concern,
and clarification of feelings and information.
The counselor uses open-ended questions or
phrases to help clients gain insight into
experiences and necessary changes in their
lives.
Existential Counseling - Viktor Frankl and
Rollo May
Existentialists believe that individuals “write their
own life story” by the choices they make.
Psychopathology is defined by Existentialists as
neglecting to make meaningful choices and
accentuating one's potential.
Frankl indicated that each person searches for
meaning in life, and that while the meaning may
evolve, it never ceases to be.
According to Frankl, life's meaning can be
discovered in three ways: by doing a deed (e.g.,
accomplishments or achievements), by
experiencing a value (e.g., beauty, love, nature,
and arts), or by suffering (e.g., reconciling
ourselves to fate).
Anxiety is viewed as both a motivational force
that helps the client to reach his/her potential
and, conversely, as a paralyzing force that
prevents clients from achieving their full
potential.
Each client is considered to be in a unique
relationship with the counselor, one focused
on an authentic and deeply personal, shared
relationship between the counselor and client.
In the Existential counselor role, the counselor
models how to be authentic, realize personal
potential, and make decisions, with emphasis
on mutuality, wholeness, and growth.
The goals of Existential counseling include
helping the client to:
take responsibility for his/her life and
life decisions.
develop self-awareness to promote
potential, freedom, and
commitment to better life
choices.
develop an internal, as opposed to an
external, frame of reference.
In Existential counseling, the counselor-client
relationship is the most common technique.
However, confrontation also is used when
counselors “challenge” clients to assume
responsibility for their own lives.
This concludes Part 1 of the
presentation on
Helping Relationships