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Theories of Counselling and Psychotherapy

Theories of counselling and psychotherapy generally tells on how counsellors and therapist Perceive/think this about clients, Nature of problems and Counselling process.

They are approaches counsellors use to solve peoples problems.

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Psychoanalysis Theory This theory was propounded by Sigmund

Freud (1856-1939). Freud lived in Australia and he was trained

as a medical doctor specialized in neurology.

He started treating people with neural disorders.

Latter he expatiated in counselling as he believed that sex drives as the cause of diseases.

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An introduction Freudian theory became the foundation of

all other theories of counselling and psychotherapy which came latter.

Some of these therapeutic approaches extended others modified psychoanalytic concepts and procedures while others emerged as the reaction against it.

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is a model of personality development, a philosophy of human nature and a method of psychotherapy.

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Theoretical Assumptions• Human behaviours are determined by

unconscious forces of which people are . unaware of,

• Sex drives are the principle determinants of human behaviour. To them most behaviours are determined or controlled by sex

• Adults behaviour is greatly determined by the their childhood development

• Problems in human arises in intrapsychic (energy that flow within the person) conflict

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Cont…

Freud believe that our is behaviour determined by;

• irrational forces,

• unconscious motivations,

• biological and

• instinctual drives as these evolve through key psychosexual stages the first six years of life.

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Cont…• Psychoanalysis teaches that a person’s

behaviour is far more complex than had been imaged.

• It also teaches that one may through insights free oneself from the oppression of past experiences, as the unconscious becomes, blind habit is replaced by choice.

In his view sexual and aggressive drives are powerful determinants of why people acts the way they do.

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Human Personality Development According to psychoanalytic view the

personality consists of three systems. The Id, Ego and Super Ego, These are psychological structures and

should not be thought of as manifestation kind that operates the personality

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The Id This is the original system of personality at birth

a person is all id. It is unconscious instinctual part of human

personality and it is a primitive and selfish part that demand immediate gratification.

It works towards increasing pleasure and reduce pain/tension. It has no contact to reality

As child grows and experiences some changes and challenges that make him/her to have reality

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The Ego The Ego operate under the principle of reality as it

has the contact with the external world of reality. It is the executive that governs, control and

regulates the personality as it makes personal rational decision.

The Ego also mediates between the instinct and the surrounding environment.

Controls the action also selects some features from the environment and decided where to respond to

It does realistic and logical thinking and formulates plans of action for satisfying needs, by checking the blind impulses of the Id and super Ego

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The Super Ego This is the moral branch of personality. It represents the internalized traditional values

the of the society and the main concern being whether the action is good or bad, right or wrong.

It represents the ideal rather than the real, and strives not for pleasure but for perfection.

These are therefore, rewards and punishment that bring about moral conscious and judgement

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NOW When the Ego cannot control anxiety by rational

and direct methods, it relies on unrealistic methods namely defensive mechanism. The Ego defensive mechanisms help the individual cope with anxiety and prevent the Ego from being overwhelmed.

These methods have adaptive value if they do not become a style of life to avoid facing reality.

They usually either deny or distort reality and they operate on an unconscious level.

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The Defensive Mechanisms

Repression: - it is a means of defence through which threatening or painful thoughts and feelings are excluded from awareness.

It is an involuntary removal of something from conscious.

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Defensive Mech cont..

Denial: - it is the way of distorting what the individual think, feels or perceive in a traumatic situation.

It consists of defending against anxiety by “closing one’s eyes” to the existence of threatening the reality.

People blind themselves to realities that would be too painful to accept.

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Cont..Projection: - this consists attributing to

others one’s own unacceptable desires and impulses.

Immoral, aggressive, or other impulses are seen as being possessed by other people but not me.

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Cont..

Displacement: - this is a way of discharging impulses shifting from a threatening object to a safer target.

• It involves directing energy towards another object or person when the original objector person is inaccessible

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Sometimes this is done as Displacement

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Cont…Rationalization: - this involves explaining

away failures or losses.

• Thus it helps to justify specific behaviours and it aid in softening the blow connected with disappointment.

For instance one fail an interview and say I did not like that post any way

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Cont…

Sublimation: - this involves redirecting sexual and aggressive energy into creative behaviours that are socially acceptable and sometimes even admirable.

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Cont…

• Regression: - this involves reverting to a form of behaviour that they have out grown.

• It is regression to the earlier stage/phase of development; the demands are not so great

• e.g. children who are frightened in school may indulge in infantile behaviour such as weeping, excessive dependence thumb sucking, hiding or clinging to the teacher.

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Cont… • Identification: - it involves people

identify themselves with successful causes, organizations or people in the hope that they will be perceived as worthwhile.

• In most cases this happens to people who are inferior.

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Last Compensation: - this consists of masking

perceived weaknesses or developing certain traits to make up for limitations.

• For instance children who receive less positive attention and recognition may develop behaviours designed at least get negative attention.

• People who feel intellectual inferior may direct their attention to building their bodies

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Is this also a Defensive Mechanism? If yes which one?

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Which Defence Mechanism will you use in this Situation?

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Contribution

• Freud’s contributions are his concept of unconscious and of the level of conscious, which are keys to understanding behaviour and problems of personality. The unconscious can not be studied directly, it is inferred from behaviour through:-

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Ways of Studying Unconscious

Dream analysis: - these are symbolic representation of the unconscious needs, wishes, and conflicts.

• Freud sees dreams as royal road to the unconscious one’s unconscious wishes needs and fears are expressed.

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Cont…

Free Association:- This involve saying whatever comes to mind, regardless of how painful, silly, trivial, illogical or irrelevant it may be.

• Clients flow with any feelings or thought by reporting them immediately without censorship.

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Cont…

Slip of the Tongue: - Most of the time what is expressed is what is going on in the brain.

There are times it comes that what is going on in the brain and what you what to express in conflicts.

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Argument

Freud argues that conscious is a thin slice of the total mind and

The unconscious store up all experiences, memories and repressed materials.

Needs and motivation are inaccessible that is, out of awareness, are also outside the sphere of conscious control.

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Stages of Personality Development

Human development consists of five personality development stages

These stages are:

Oral stage: This stage starts from birth to end of first year. It is characterized by sucking the mother breast satisfies the infant’s need for food and pleasure.

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Oral stage cont..

At this stage the mouth and lips are sensitive erogenous zones, whereas

Sucking produces erotic pleasure. Deprivation of oral gratification during infancy is

assumed to lead to problem in adulthood such as mockery, hostility, aggression, gossip and making bitting comments to others, mistrust, fear of reaching out to others, rejection of affection, fear of loving and trusting, low self esteem, isolation and withdraw and inability to form or maintain intense relationship.

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The Anal Stage:- The stage begins at 1-3 years. At this stage

children learn to be independent, personal power and autonomy.

The anal zone comes to be of major significance area for pleasure. If child feel going to the toilet there is tension in him/her.

• By going there she/he release that tension

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Anal stage cont…

Here there is toilet training. the external environment forces to teach you do what you do

If your parents control you too much you will be strict, smart, arranged and organized.

If your parents leave you, you became rough and dirty.

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The Phallic Stage

This stage last from 3- 6 years.

• Children satisfactions come from touching their genital areas.

• Much interest in sex differences, according to Freudian theory both boys and girls experience sexual longing and conflicts which they repress.

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Phallic Stage Cont..

• A boy craves the attention of their mother, feels antagonistic towards his father and develops fears commonly known as Oedipus complex and they develop the castration anxiety.

• Girls develop sexual feelings to her father (Electra complex) and hate her mother because of missing the penis (penis envy)

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The Latency Stage

The stage begin at 6-12 years. At this stage socialization is the major

activity and children direct their attention to the large world.

Sexual drives are sublimated to some extent to activities in schools such as hobbies, sports friendship of the same sex.

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The Genital Stage

This start at the age of 12-18 the adolescent period.

Children now form intimate relationship, become free from parental influence,

and develop the capacity to interest in others

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Note that

Sometimes some people experience

Fixation where a person reach at a particular stage and remain there, fail to move to the next stage.

While others may experience,

Regression a person instead of going forward stage she/he develop backward stage.

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The Goal of the Counsellor in Psychoanalytic Theory

1. To make the unconscious – conscious so that we can deal with it in the realistic manner

2. To strengthen the Ego. The client to deal with his/her problem in a realistic manner

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Counsellors Function and Roles 1. To help the client to acquire the freedom to do

whatever they wishes 2. To assist the client to establish self awareness

so that he can deal with the anxiety effectively.3. Establish work relationship with the client

listen well what the client is saying. having the 3rd ear be able to see

Gaps Detect contradiction Analyse the dream

4. To reduce defensive mechanism. we can not eliminate rather reduce the defences

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To Develop 3rd Ear Need the Following Techniques

• In Free association the ability to listen whatever is said by the client and make connection with the client present problem

• Interpretation. Consists of the analyst pointing out explaining and even teaching the client the meaning of behaviour that is manifested in dream free association and slip of the tongue

• Dream analysis: analyse the dream itself • how to resolve the conflicts or resistance to

help the person

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Rules of Making Interpretation

• The interpretation should be when the phenomenon to be interpreted is close to the conscious awareness

• Interpretation should start at the surface and go deeper as far as the client is able to go.

• It is best to point out a resistance of defences before interpreting the emotional or conflict that lies beneath it.

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Psychoanalytic • Advantages of Psychoanalytic Theory • It made a great foundation of other theories of

counselling and psychotherapy• it made us aware of childhood importance to

adulthood personality • Disadvantage of the Psychoanalytic Theory • It needs a trained person • It takes time to help a person • It helps problems which have happened earlier

while clients are interested in problems happened recently

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Existential Theory

• The theory was developed by Viktor Frankl and Rollo May.

• Existential therapy can be described as a philosophy and an approach that influences a counsellor therapeutic practice.

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Existential view

• The existential approach rejects the deterministic view of human nature propounded by psychoanalysis and radical behaviourism.

• Psychoanalysis sees human freedom as restricted by unconscious forces, irrational drives and past experiences behaviourist sees freedom as restricted to social cultural conditioning.

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Cont…

• Existential therapist acknowledge some of these facts but emphasizes that our freedom to choose what to make of our circumstances.

• This approach is grounded on the assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and actions.

• The assumption is we are not the victim of circumstances, because to large extent we are what we choose to be.

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Basic Philosophy Outline of this Approach

• Human being existence depends on the number of choices they have.

• A major aim of the therapy is to encourage clients to reflect on their life, to recognize their range of alternatives and to decide among them.

• external forces makes it hard for people to make choices e.g. going to town or lecture

• it is difficult to make choices • sometimes the choices are ambiguous• making number of choices is also making a choice

therefore you can not avoid making choices

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The Theory Propositions

1. Human beings have got the capacity of awareness, especially self awareness being aware of yourself affect you psychologically.

the self awareness makes us to make choices which are present

when you are aware of yourself it increases the number of making choices as you establish goals

motivated

1. Human beings have got freedom and responsibility regarding making choices. We are free to do what we want to do while Freud says we are controlled by unconscious.

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Propositions Cont…

3. Strive for identity and relationship with others the relationship affects our well being.

4. the search for meaning of life the questions to ask ourself such as

• who I am • why I am here • what do I what in my life • what gives may life purpose • where is the source of meaning in life

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Cont..

5. Anxiety is the condition for living. (anxiety means fear and missing something)

Questions to ask Clients• Do you like direction of your life • Are you pleased on what you are doing

or what you are going to become in future

• if you are confused what are going to do

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Counsellors Function and Role

1. To understand the subject world of the client in order for him/her come to new understanding and options.

In most cases counsellors using this approach deal with people who have restricted existence (limited awareness of them and are often vague about the nature of their problem).

2. the focus is on the clients present life situation not on helping clients recover a personal past

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Cont…

3. To employ various methods of counselling not only from different clients but also with the same client at different phases of the therapeutic process.

• They also make use of free association, or cognitive restructuring may also insight from other orientation.

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Cont…

4. To establish reflective relationship counsellors believe that their basic attitude towards client and their own personal characteristics of honesty, integrity, and courage are what they can offer.

• This is what Buber 1970 conceptualized as the I/thou relationship (strong relationship) without this the counsellor can smile or nod in absent and this will affect the counselling if noticed by the client.

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The Counselling Techniques and Procedures

The counsellors using this approach are required to be creative from session to session and from individual to individual because the individuals are different and sessions are also different. However, counselling can be done in three phases.

1. Help the client to identify and clarify the assumptions about the world because most of the problems are caused by misconception, so show them clear what happen.

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Cont..

2. Help the client to fully examine the source and authority of the present values. Develop deeper insights and structuring of values and attitudes people need to change their attitude and values in order to be helped.

3) To help the client to put into action what he has learned from the session use inner to change his values and attitude

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Contribution of the Theory 1. It emphasizes that human quality on

counselling that people have freedom to change for their own actions.

– This aspect lessens dehumanization of psychotherapy by making it mechanical process.

1. It has also recognized people’s freedom to and responsibility to redesign his/her life by choosing with awareness

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Limitation of the Theory

• it does not have systematic approaches in counselling

• It focuses on individualistic life and it ignores the contribution of other people in one’s life.

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The end of today's Lecture

Which part interested you most? WHY?

Which part was so boring?

HOW?