Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy

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Theory and Practice of Counseling and
Psychotherapy

• MacDonald
• Person-centered Therapy

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Questions?

• What key concepts do you know in terms of
  person-center therapy?
• Do you believe most clients have the capacity to
  understand and resolve their own problems without
  directive intervention by the therapist? Why or
  why not?

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Person-Centered Therapy (A reaction against the
directive and psychoanalytic approaches)

• Challenges
• The assumption that the counselor knows best
• The validity of advice, suggestion, persuasion,
  teaching, diagnosis, and interpretation
• The belief that clients cannot understand and
  resolve their own problems without direct help
• The focus on problems over persons

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Person-Centered Therapy

• Emphasizes
• Therapy as a journey shared by two people
• The persons innate striving for
  self-actualization
• The personal characteristics of the therapist and
  the quality of the therapeutic relationship
• The counselors creation of a permissive, growth
  promoting climate
• People are capable of self-directed growth if
  involved in a therapeutic relationship

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Six Conditions (necessary and sufficient for
personality changes to occur)

• 1. Two persons are in psychological contact
• 2. The first, the client, is experiencing
  incongruency
• 3. The second person, the therapist, is congruent
  or integrated in the relationship
• 4. The therapist experiences unconditional
  positive regard or real caring for the client
• 5. The therapist experiences empathy for the
  clients internal frame of reference and
  endeavors to communicate this to the client
• 6. The communication to the client is, to a
  minimal degree, achieved

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View of Human Nature

• Person as innately striving toward becoming fully
  functioning.
• Therapists attitudes and belief in the inner
  resources of the clients
• Client self-healing capacities
• Clients as primary change agent
• Clients actualize their potential for growth,
  spontaneity, and inner-directedness

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Therapeutic Goals

• helping a person become a fully functioning
  person
• Clients have the capacity to define their goals
• an openness to experience
• A trust in themselves
• An internal source of evaluation
• A willingness to continue growing

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Therapists function and Role

• Function to be present and accessible to
  clients, to focus on immediate experience, to be
  real in the relationship with clients
• Through the therapists attitude of genuine
  caring, respect, acceptance, and understanding,
  clients become less defensive and more open to
  their experience and facilitate the personal
  growth

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Therapists Function and Role

• Role Therapists attitude and belief in the
  inner resources of the client, not in techniques,
  facilitate personal change in the client
• Use of self as an instrument of change
• Focuses on the quality of the therapeutic
  relationship
• Serves as a model of a human being struggling
  toward greater realness
• Is genuine, integrated, and authentic
• Can openly express feelings and attitudes that
  are present in the relationship with the client

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Clients Experience in Therapy

• Incongruence discrepancy between self-perception
  and experience in reality?anxiety?motivation to
  help
• As clients feel understood and accepted, their
  defensiveness is less necessary and they become
  more open to their experiences
• Therapeutic relationship activate clients
  self-healing capacities

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Relationship Between Therapist and Client

• Emphasizes the attitudes and personal
  characteristics of the therapist and the quality
  of therapeutic relationship.
• Therapist listening in an accepting way to their
  clients, they learn how to listen acceptingly to
  themselves.

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Relationship Between Therapist and Client

• Congruence - genuineness or realness
• Unconditional positive regard- acceptance and
  caring, but not approval of all behavior
• Accurate empathic understanding an ability to
  deeply grasp the clients subjective world
• Helper attitudes are more important than knowledge

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• It is not technique-oriented
• A misunderstanding---this approach is simply to
  restate what the client just said or the
  technique of reflection of feelings (It is
  incorrect).
• The therapeutic relationship is the primary agent
  of growth in the client
• Therapists presence being completely engaged in
  the relationship with clients.
• The best source of knowledge about the client is
  the individual client

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Questions

• What are the basic concepts of this theory that
  you might consider incorporating into your
  personal style of counseling?

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Areas of Application

• individual counseling, group counseling,
  education, human relations training..
• A variety of problems anxiety, crisis
  intervention, interpersonal difficulties,
  depression, personality disorder..

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From a multicultural perspective

• Contributions
• Has reached more than 30 counties and has been
  translated to 12 languages
• Reduction of racial and political tensions
• Limitations
• Some people need more structure, coping skills,
  directedness
• Some may focus on family or societal expectations
  instead of internal evaluation
• May be unfamiliar with people in different
  cultures

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Summary and Evaluation

• Contributions
• Active role of responsibility of client
• Inner and subjective experience
• Relationship-centered
• Focus on therapists attitudes
• Focus on empathy, being present, and respecting
  the clients values
• Value multicultural context

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Summary and Evaluation

• Limitations
• Discount the significance of the past
• Misunderstanding the basic concept e.g.,
  reflection feelings.