SECTION II:
The Helping Relationship I: Theory and Skills
 Chapter 4: Individual Approaches to Counseling
 Chapter 5: Counseling Skills
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Chapter 4
Individual Approaches to Counseling
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Why Have a Counseling Theory?
 Offers us a framework
 Knowledge builds on knowledge (Paradigm Shifts)
 See Box 4.1, p. 100
 Theories are heuristic
 Based on our view of human nature
 Helps us work in an organized manner
 Today, there are hundreds of counseling theories, but only
some have gained prominence
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Four Conceptual Orientations
and Associated Theories
 Psychodynamic Approaches
 Existential-Humanistic Approaches
 Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
 Post-Modern Approaches
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Psychodynamic Approaches
 Overview
 Dominated early part of 20th century
 Common elements
 Unconscious and conscious affects person’s functioning
 Early child-rearing has some affect on development of personality
 One’s past, in interaction with the conscious and unconscious, affects
person’s development
 Have tended to be longer term therapeutic approaches
 Some approaches: psychoanalysis (Freud), analytical therapy
(Jung), individual psychology (Adlerian)
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Psychoanalysis: Freudian Therapy)
 Developed by Sigmund Freud
 First comprehensive approach to therapy
 Psychic energy (instincts) drive behavior
 Life instinct (Eros): love, intimacy, sex, survival
 Death instinct (Thanatos): fear, hate, self-destructive
behavior aggression
 All life and death instincts = libido
 Structure of personality
 Id (pleasure principle)
 Ego (reality principle)
 Superego (moral imperatives)
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Psychoanalysis: Freudian Therapy)
 Psychosexual Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
 Parenting affects developmental through stages
 Defense mechanisms reflect that development
 Name some defense mechanisms!
 Deterministic Approach
 See Figure 4.1, p. 105
 Long term approach that relies on making a little more of the
unconscious conscious
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Psychoanalysis: Freudian Therapy)
 Techniques
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 Techniques
 Interpretation of:
 Resistance
 Defense mechanisms
 Parapraxes
 Dreams (manifest and
latent meanings)
 Transference
Free Association
Dream Analysis
Empathy
Developing transference
relationship
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Analytical Therapy: Jungian Therapy)
 Developed by Carl Jung
 Less pessimistic and less deterministic than Freud
 8 Psychological Types—include combinations of:
 Extraversion and Introversion (E or I) with
 Mental Functions: Thinking and Feeling (T or F); Sensing and Intuiting
(S or N)
 Information that matches psychological type goes into consciousness;
information that doesn’t match goes into personal unconscious.
 Our collective unconscious is inherited. Contains archetypes —tendency to
perceive things in ways we call “human”
 Well known archetypes: persona, anima and animus, shadow
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Analytical Therapy: Jungian Therapy)
 Jung believed we can make almost anything conscious
 If we understand our personal and collective unconscious, we
are “whole”
 Techniques:
 Goal of techniques—to make unconscious conscious
 Some techniques include: examining our dreams, meaning of
symbols, creative techniques (e.g., working with clay), and active
imagination
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Individual Psychology: Adlerian Therapy)
 Developed by Alfred Adler
 “Teleology”—we inherently are goal directed
 We move to fulfill one drive—striving for perfection.
 All other drives subsumed by this one
 Part of being human: having feelings of inferiority
 Feelings of inferiority lead us to our subjective final goal
 Our private logic leads us toward our final goal
 Drive toward our subjective goal results in development of behaviors
that compensate for feelings of inferiority
 You can tell how a person is driven toward his/her goal through
his/her style of life
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Individual Psychology: Adlerian Therapy)
 Work through feelings of inferiority, and you will move toward
social interest (gemeinschaftsgefühl)
 Followers: Dreikrus and Dinkmeyer
 Worked with children whose typical behaviors from feelings
of inferiority yield:
 Attention seeking, use of power, revenge seeking, and inadequacy
 Sometimes seen as an early humanistic approach (through
education and counseling one can change)
 One of first approaches to work with families
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Psychodynamic Approaches
(Individual Psychology: Adlerian Therapy)
 Phase of therapy
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 Techniques:
Building relationship
Assessing lifestyle
Insight and interpretation
Reeducation and
reorientation
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Exploring family constellation
Examining early recollections
Encouragement
Democratically held discussion groups
Limit setting
Acting “as if”
Spitting in the client’s soup
Setting logical and natural
consequences
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Existential-Humanistic Approaches
 Overview
 Loosely based on existential philosophy
 Deals with struggles of living and how we construct meaning in
our lives
 Tends to be optimistic and not deterministic
 Phenomenological perspective
 Focus on consciousness and the relationship
 Help people “self-actualize”
 Three approaches:
 Existential Therapy, Person-Centered, Gestalt Therapy
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Existential-Humanistic Approaches
(Existential Therapy)
 A number of theorists developed this approach

Frankl (Logotherapy), May, Bugental, Yalom
 Central tenets of most existential approaches
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Born into a world with no inherent meaning
We make our meaning
Struggle throughout life to be “human”
Most people live a life of limited self-reflection
We are born alone, die alone, and mostly live alone
Choice about who we are
Can gain awareness about choices we have made
See Box 4.4, p. 111
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Existential-Humanistic Approaches
(Person-Centered Counseling)
 Developed by Carl Rogers (“client-centered therapy”)
 We all have need to be regarded
 Conditions of worth placed on us by significant others
 Help people become more congruent and gain a more realistic
sense of ideal self
 "Necessary & sufficient conditions" (pp. 112)
 “Techniques”
 Congruence/genuineness
 Unconditional positive regard
 Empathic understanding
 See Box 4.5, p. 112
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Existential-Humanistic Approaches
(Gestalt Therapy)
 Developed by Fritz Perls
 Based on Gestalt psychology, phenomenology, & existentialism
 More directive and confrontational
 Self-regulation, need identification, and need-fulfillment
 Only aware of needs in “foreground”
 “Blockages” or “impasses” yield “unfinished business”
 Now = experience = awareness = reality
 Anti-deterministic
 Techniques “push” one into experiencing the “now”
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
 Overview
 Pavlov (1848-1936): Classical Conditioning
 Skinner (1904-1990): Operant Conditioning
 Bandura: Modeling or Social Learning (1940s)
 Recent Years:
 Cognitive Structures
 illogical Ways of Thinking
 See common assumptions (p. 117)
 Approaches:
 Modern-Day Behavior Therapy, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy,
Cognitive Therapy, Reality Therapy and Choice Theory
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Modern-Day Behaviorism)
 Developed by many different individuals
 Based on an understanding of classical condition, modeling, and
operant conditioning
 Therapeutic stages
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Building the relationship
Clinical Assessment
Focusing on Problem Areas and Setting Goals
Choosing Techniques and Working on Goals
Assessment of Goal Completion
Closure and follow-up
 Some techniques: See Box 4.8
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: REBT)
 REBT: Developed by Albert Ellis
 Complex interaction between thinking, feeling, & acting
 Mostly, focus on Rational vs. Irrational Thinking
 People have cognitive distortions
 People often driven by 1 or more of 3 core irrational beliefs (see
Box 4.9, p. 120)
 ABCs of feeling and behaving
 Relationship important, but not critical (see Box 4.10, p. 120)
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Cognitive Therapy)
 Developed by Aaron Beck
 Continuity hypothesis: older emotional responses continue into
modern day world
 Diathesis-stress model
 Biological/genetic/environmental model—under stress, our
(unique) disorders are shown
 Rational, pragmatic, antideterministic, educative, empirical
 We all have “core beliefs” that drive us—embedded beliefs often
out of our awareness
 We can have negative core beliefs (see Box 4.11)
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Cognitive Therapy)
 Cognitive Therapy (cont’d)
 Core beliefs lead to intermediate beliefs (“attitudes, rules, and
expectations”)
 Intermediate beliefs lead to automatic thoughts
 Automatic thoughts related to certain “cognitive distortions” (see Box
4.9, p. 121)
 Automatic thoughts lead to possible reactions to certain situations (see
Figure 4.2, p. 125)
 Treatment: focus on automatic thoughts, get to intermediate beliefs,
then get to core beliefs—change core beliefs through thinking and acting
differently
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Reality Therapy and Choice Theory)
 Developed by Glasser—originally called Reality Therapy
 Five genetically based needs: survival, love and belonging, power,
freedom, and fun
 Unique “need-strength profile”
 We can only satisfy our needs and control our behaviors in the
present
 Since birth, we create a “quality world” to determine how to
satisfy our needs
 Some quality worlds lead to destructive behaviors
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Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
(Reality Therapy and Choice Theory)
 Reality Therapy (cont’d)
 Can change the pictures in our quality worlds and our
behaviors
 Total behavior: We can only choose our actions and
thoughts
 Use internal-control language, not external control
language
 Techniques: see WDEP system (Figure 4.3, p. 128)
 Anti-deterministic
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Post-Modern Approaches
 Overview
 Based on post-modernism, social constructionism, poststructuralism
 Post-modernists: Questions modernism and many assumptions and
beliefs we take for granted
 Social Constructionism: Values are transmitted through language via
social milieu (family, culture, society)
 Post-structuralism: Questioning of “inherent truths” or “structures”
we have believed
 Two approaches
 Narrative Therapy and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
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Post-Modern Approaches
(Narrative Therapy)
 Developed by White and Epston (and others)
 Underlying premises:
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Realities are socially constructed
Realities are constituted through language
Realities are organized and maintained through narrative
There are no essential truths
 Anti-deterministic and anti-objectivist
 Deconstruct problem-saturated stories (narratives)
 Construct new narratives
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Post-Modern Approaches
(Narrative Therapy)
 Narrative Therapy (cont’d)
 We all are multistoried
 Look at “thin” and “thick” stories
 Look for exceptions to stories (see Fig. 4.4, p. 130)
 Be respectful, curious, show awe, ask questions
 Phases:
 1) Joining, 2) Examining patterns, 3) Re-authoring, and 4) Moving on
 Use journaling, retelling new stories, symbols to reinforce
new stories
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Post-Modern Approaches
(Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: SFBT)
 SFBT: Developed by Berg and de Shazer (and others)
 Developed at Brief Family Therapy Center of Milwaukee
 Rejected “disease model” and believed that clients could work
quickly to reach goals
 Pragmatic, optimistic, anti-deterministic, future-oriented
 Miracle Question
 Questions: evaluative, coping, exception-seeking, solution-focused
 Find exceptions to client problems
 Often under 6 sessions
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Post-Modern Approaches
(Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: SFBT)
 Six Stages of SFBT
 Stage 0: Pre-Session Change
 Stage 1: Forming a Collaborative Relationship
 Stage 2: Describing the Problem
 Stage 3: Establishing Preferred Goals
 Stage 4: Problem-to-Solution Focus
 Stage 5: Reaching Preferred Goals
 Stage 6: Ending Therapy
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Extensions, Adaptations, and
Spinoffs of the Major Theories
 Eye Movement Desensitization
Therapy (EMDR)
 Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
 Object-Relations Theory
 Motivational Interviewing
 Relational and Subjectivity Theory
 Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
 Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy (ACT)
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 Gender-Aware Therapy
 Positive Psychology and Well-Being
Therapy
 Complementary, Alternative, and
Integrative Approaches
Constructivist Therapy
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Integrative Counseling and Psychotherapy
(Integrative Approach)
 Combine varying theoretical approaches into helping clients
 Integrative Approach (formerly called “eclecticism)
 Four stages
 Stage 1: Chaos
 Stage 2: Coalescence
 Stage 3: Multiplicity
 Stage 4: Metatheory
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Multicultural/Social Justice Focus
 Bias in Counseling Approaches
 Many theories developed by White men, European heritage
 Their values impacted their theories
 Some of these values included:
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Importance of individualism
Expression of feelings
Search within “self” to discover truth
If you work hard, you’ll succeed
Mind-body dualism
Truth can be found or uncovered
Facts can be found, values are opinions
External factors of little impact on internal psychological states
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Multicultural/Social Justice Focus
 It’s time to take into account other cultures and become more
multicultural sensitive in our theories
 Many of the theories can be adapted to address these issues
 Sometimes, new theories will need to be undertaken
 And, let’s not forgot our own biases and how they interplay
with existing bias in theories
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Ethical, Professional, and Legal Issues
 Theory and the ACA Code
 Counselors should only practice in an area for which they
have been trained
 Importance of Using theory that is based on sound scientific
evidence
 Obtaining supervision so that counselors practice at their
optimal levels
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Ethical, Professional, and Legal Issues
 Working effectively with all clients
 Tarasoff Case and Foreseeable Harm
 “Duty to warn”
 Julea Ward v. Board of Regents of Eastern Michigan
University (EMU)
 Counselor referral of client in same sex relationship
 Sexual Orientation Change Efforts
 Conversion and Reparative Therapy
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The Counselor in Process
 Embracing a Theory but Open to Change
 Theory development is an ongoing process
 Be open to changing your approach throughout your career
 How do you think your approach might change?
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