Theories Are Of Importance To Counselling Psychology Essay

Theories are of importance to counselling as they are the foundation of effective counselling. In an article entitled Theories of counselling: Why are they important. it highlights the six purpose of theory in counselling by Boy and Pine (1983). First and foremost theories in counselling facilitates counsellors to discover connections and the commonness among the variety of existence. Secondly, it helps counsellors to examine areas they may have missed out. Thirdly, it provides counsellors working guidelines, where it facilitates them to which area to work on and later helps them to make a professional evaluation of their progress. Fourthly, it helps counsellors centre on significant information and points to them what to search for. Fifthly, it guides counsellors to aid clients in the successful change of their cognitions, interpersonal relationships, behaviour, and emotional functioning. Lastly, it guides counsellors on their evaluation of both previous and latest approaches used in their counselling session.

One or more theoretical framework are the foundations for each and every counselling approaches. A theory presents or supplies the counsellor lens to look through the whole counselling process , the signs of concerns of the clients, and methods to work on accomplishing clients improvement. There are many theories used by counsellors, this essay will discussed four major theories approach by counsellors which are psychoanalytical theory, individual psychology, person centered, and behavioural theory.

MAJOR COUNSELLING THEORIES

Psychoanalytical Theory

A. Main Founder

Referring to Wikepedia.com, Sigmund Freud was a Viennese psychiatrist from 1856 till 1939. At age 17, he entered the University of Vienna and became a student researcher in the institution of physiology and earned the title Doctor of Medicine at 1891. At the age of 30 he was married and had a daughter named Anna Freud. He began his private practice, and became convinced that sexual conflict is the basis of neurosis during his work with patients. His insight was critically criticized by professionals which forces him to began the difficult and lonesome process of self-analysis and study of the unconscious where his hard work was finally began to gain recognition by scholars in 1900. Thus leading to researches such as William James, Alder, and Jung cooperating with him later on. Lastly, Sigmund Freud died from bone cancer at the age of 85.

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B. Model of Personality

Freud’s psychoanalytic view of human nature speaks of personality as a composition of three types of mind consciousness (Tao, 2004). The conscious mind is the awareness of what is happening around us in the present. The preconscious mind hold on to ordinary memories in other words are the recent memories of individuals which aren’t conscious but can be retrieved easily into consciousness. While, the unconscious mind stores repressed or forgotten memories which are traumatic and may be of no more importance. Freud claimed that personality has three parts (Segrist, 2009). The first part called id is present from birth and belongs to the unconscious mind. Id is guided by instincts and are of primitive behaviours. Furthermore, id is driven by the pleasure principle, and doesn’t care much about reality but only cares for self satisfaction. Lastly, it is the source for psychic energy which meant that it arouses the infant to act to his or her goals. The next part is called the ego, which is guided by the reality principle, thus dealing with reality. The ego strives to satisfy id’s desires rationally by using realistic and socially appropriate ways. Furthermore the ego understands that being selfish and impulsive can’t improve or bond relationships. The third part is called the superego. The superego holds the internalized standard values of good and bad and ideals. Parental influence greatly impact on the standardizing of what are wrong and what are right.

C. Model of Health

In an article entitled “Psychosexual Stages” by Saul McLeod (2008), it mentioned Freud’s five psychosexual stages of development where each stages that tends to runs into frustration or excessiveness happens, will result in fixation.

Oral Stage

This stage begins from birth to age of one year, during this time, the id is functioning highly. This stage is characterized by mouth orientated, as the infants gains pleasure from the discovery of things using their mouths, involving actions such as biting and sucking. Oral fixation happens later in life when the infant is continuously given insufficient food or over excessive consumptions of food (Garcia, 1995). Adult individuals with oral fixation tends to continue searching the pleasure from mouth oriented activities such as smoking, drinking alcohol which may lead to health problems.

Anal Stage

This stage begins from one to three years of age. Where parents tends to begin to regulate their children defecating activity, in other words toilet training begins (Garcia, 1995). The anus become the part of libido, where the child gains satisfaction in achieving bladder and bowler control. Anal fixation happens when children are given harsh or strict toilet training which results the individual gain an anal-retentive personality which tends to became to obsess of tidiness That may lead too cautious and isolated themselves from the norms and developed negative mental health.

Phallic Stage

Phallic stage occurs throughout three to six years. Genitals became the source of pleasure where they go through exploration of their genitals. The child becomes conscious of the different body structures of their opposite sex and themselves, making the occurrence of Oedipus complex for boys and the Electra complex for girls characterised by negative behaviours over comparing of self body parts with others such as jealousy. An individual who fixate in this stage tend to adopt compulsive sexual behaviour and individuals tends to have high preferences for the opposite sex organ and tend to have high sexual intercourse and continuously changed of sex partner (Jerkovic et. al, 2012). Thus tends to result a risky sex activity which may lead to one gaining sexually transmitted diseases and unhealthy relationship as they tend not to be committed.

Latency

Latency happens at age 6 till puberty. This stage marked as a “paused” of psychosexual activity. The child at this stage tends to suppress the sexual urgency and put forward its creative instincts and energy to outdoor activities such as their hobbies and playing with individuals from the same preferences (Garcia, 1995).

Genital

From puberty to adult, is the last and final stage called genital.

Hence, fixations may impacts on mental, emotional and physical health, not excluding the big impact on an individual’s healthy lifestyle and relationships.

D. Model of Abnormality

Id, Ego and Superego tends to be in disagreement with each other as Id demands to satisfy its desire without considering the reality, where ego tends to delay the process as in search for social appropriate ways to satisfy Id demand and lastly superego aim is to make certain the action is in accordance with the moral value. The conflicts between these three pats of personality derived actions that causes problems and anxiety which result in abnormality. According to the notes derived from 311 psychology, when a child is disciplined or scolded, the child tend to feel threatened by the decreased of love from his or her parents, and the actions will tends to associate with anxiety. Due to the fact that anxiety isn’t pleasant, the child will tend to get rid of it by running away or suppress the cause of the anxiety, which then tends to develop the defence mechanism.

E. Model of counselling

The counselling process is characterized by collaborative change process, facilitating the clients to go through the stages of psychosexual development (Garcia, 1995). The process of counselling will tend to be unsuccessful when clients tend to be over-frustrated or develop self reliance due to a very comfortable helping environment given by the counsellors. In the counselling process, counsellor encourages clients to speak of their life story and counsellors responds in ways which is suitable for the client. It is crucial that responds are appropriate as it encourages client to explore further while inappropriate responds can tend to result resistance and anxiety from the client. As the counselling process go deeper, where it reach to a certain phase that the client is going to reveal painful materials, hence counsellors need to be open and encourages them to express them and not by force or in demanding ways. Besides that, counsellors should not over interpret or make confronting provocations which may tend to let clients feel being exposed and ashamed. Lastly, it is important that counsellors bring their unconsciousness to consciousness, where it helps the clients exploration. Extensive sexual desires derived from fixation which results in fantasy, raping and extensive masturbation and so on is in crucial need to be aided by counsellors. Where counsellors should direct the energy from the desires to activities that can developed their personal uniqueness.

Individual Psychology

A. Main Founder

In 1870, Alfred Adler was born in Vienna and unfortunately he experienced rickets in his early years which disallowed him from walking till age four. Although quite unfortunate, but it became the motivation for him to become a physician. A biography on Adler from psychology.com state that Adler’s theory emphasized that each and every person has a sense of inferiority where every individuals work toward resolving this inferiority and affirm their superiority over others from child. Between 1928 till he died in 1937, he written twenty one papers which were then put together and published (Toal, 1966). Furthermore, Adler’s view of treatment, was largely on the emphasis of precise diagnosis of the patient’s cooperative partnership, it’s of crucial the patient to develop the greater ability to cope with others. Lastly, Adler’s believed that social interest can be educate to children in their early years in the educational settings.

B. Model of Personality

Adler proposed that an individual’s personality and lifestyle can be understand by referring to their birth order as each individuals birth order affects the way siblings search for methods to be of significance and belong to the family. Hence, affecting their personality. Adler listed personalities for four birth-order related siblings positions (Stewart,2012).

First-born child

A first-born child tend to be of authoritative and on a leading role in the family and in regards to that they tend to be sensitive to issues such as hierarchy and protocol. First-born are quite particular with the arrangements, the structures and tends to be following strictly to social norms and rules thus their characters are often associate with themes from success. Lastly, they do have fears of having their privilege as the eldest child taken over by their younger siblings.

Youngest child

The siblings of the youngest child tends to be advanced earlier than the youngest child, The youngest child being seen as less capable leading to being spoiled by parents as parents over provide them things or helps. The individuals from this birth order tends to master their coaxing or charming skills to get the help or things they desires. Hence, resulted in them being popular and outgoing.

Middle child

Middle child tend to feel that they are not belong to their family as attentions were given to the youngest child which authority is with the oldest child. They developed low self esteem as they do not see their significance or contributions in their family and they felt less loved. Thus, they tend to associate with themes under rejection.

Only child

The only child tends to over protected by their parents, their parents tends to over involve themselves in the only child’s matter, may lead to the only child gaining negative experiences. The only child tends to desire greatly for independence as they felt that their lives are being so controlled and often only being able to be closed with their family. Besides that, the only child characteristics can be varied.

C. Model of Health

Adler believes that individual’s one-sided perception mould the individual’s personality and behaviour. Individuals with physical deformities tends to build up belief system on methods to become dominant such as being strong and superior. Thus we can conclude that one use their inferiorities as motivation to move towards to psychological health and a practical style of life. But there are others who overcompensate and tend to isolate themselves from the society causing an unhealthy lifestyle. Adler believed that it greatly relies on the extent of social interest an individual developed during their early years that affect the individual’s behaviour which determines their healthy lifestyle.

D. Model of Abnormality

Neurotics is one of the maladjustment for Alder’s theory. Neurotics often set their goals too high as they try to shake of their inferiorities. They also tend to isolate themselves and live lifestyles that are fixed and not flexible. The next maladjustment will be exaggerated physical deficiencies that leads to the individuals highly concerned for themselves and hardly care about others. Besides that, individuals which live in a pampered lifestyle tends to be lacking on social interest due to their high reliance on their host which over pampered them till the individual inability to be independent or do not see independence as a major issue.

E. Model of Counselling

Counsellors can use the problem solving method which has four phases (Nystul, 1995). The first phase will be problem identification. The counsellors in this first phase will focus on the current behaviour of their client and counsellors will need to identifies the current problems of their client. In the process of the first phase counsellors will need to facilitate their client to be aware of how control all they over the situation and guide them the need to be responsible if necessary. The second phase counsellors need to understands the client problem behaviour in terms of the use to which the client puts it. This can be done through the use of the Adlerian technique of getting early memories. Counsellors can asks questions related to the starting point of the problem behaviour and the usefulness of the behaviours to identify if the client has any intention to meet any needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The third phase is modifying motivation, where the counsellor focuses on raising the client’s motivation for change. In this phase, clients is required to make self-evaluation where they determine if their behaviour is correlated with their needs and isn’t messing with the rights of others. In this process, clients are encouraged to assess whether their behavior is meeting their needs without interfering with the rights of others. The client will gain motivation when they are aware that their behaviour isn’t appropriate to meet their needs and can tend to walk into conflict with others. The last phase involves clients to learn how to make effective approaches. Approaches may sometimes need behaviour replacement while sometimes it may not be necessary, such as an individual who is a drug addict may need to replace the addiction with healthy addiction such as sports. When approaches is determined, counsellors need to develop practice opportunities by giving out tasks and constantly following up with the client’s progress and if necessary make amendments.

Person-Centered Theory

A. Main Founder

Carl Rogers is a man who pour his passion on studying and addressing humanistic values and strongly advocate to his believe of that human is born good. Rogers involved in quite a lot of areas such as international diplomacy and some of his works has been translate to as much as twelve languages. He has written more than two hundred articles and published fifteen books. He is constantly exploring, testing implementing, and sharing as new ideas and questions arises. He was an educator and a counsellor once before, he was seen as processing a freedom giving warmth by his students. Rogers are a man who has guts to take different approaches and developing new methods for conducting research and therapy which lead him to receive many awards (Heppner, et. al, 1984).

B. Model of Personality

Rogers state that the basic structures of personality are organismic experiencing and self which can be conscious or unconscious process and include all sensory experiences. Next, Rogers state that the actualizing tendency which is the human organism central source of energy motivates and energizes behaviour of individuals (Fernald,2000). He believed that a child’s self-concept developed through interaction with people of significance, where these interactions affect the organismic experiencing and form the child’s positive or negative values. Personality dysfunction happens when the individual experience incongruence between conditions of worth and organismic experiencing.

C. Model of Health

If there aren’t organismic experience which is negative, it’s considered as an ideal situation where all the individual’s self-concept from young made up of all organismic experiencing leading to a healthy and fully functioning individual (Fernald,2000). Roger believes that a person needs to be positively reared, meaning that an individual must be unconditionally showered with love, respect, warmth, care and give acceptance from their parents and others to develop the individual to a healthy person. Feelings of self worth can be formed if the individual behaves in particular ways as conditional acceptance let the individual realizes that only when conforming to others’ wishes they are able to feel valued.

D. Model of Abnormality

There are conflicts between the individual ideal self and real self as they strive for acceptance in the society. The greater the disharmony between the real self and the ideal self, the more abnormal the individual became, and tends to be isolated by the norm or isolated themselves from the norm.

E. Model of Counselling

Rogers advocate on the non directivity of counsellors in theraphy is well known. This approach is also called the client centered theraphy (Bozarth, 2012). Techniques uses in the communication of the conditions of clients such as dream analysis, free association can be used in the therapy session in accordance to the clients situation. Is it crucial that counsellor or therapists sets up an atmosphere that is comfortable for the client to express and discover themselves in the process and during the process be aware of verbal and non behaviours from the client. Of many of the goals in the therapy, the counsellor need to facilitate the congruence of the client’s idea self and real self. Rogers state that empathy, positive regard, acceptance and congruence are essential conditions to fulfil in the counselling process.

Behavioural Theory (B. F. Skinner)

A. Main Founder

B. F Skinner is known for advocating behaviourism as a psychology of learning. B. F. Skinner born 1904 and died at 1990. He went through a stable and caring life during his early years in Pennsylvania. He was passionate in inventing new things which lead him to the studies in later life. He was once a writer but shifted his career after meeting the works of Watson and Pavlov, leading him to become a big contributor to behaviourism. One of his well known invention is the skinner box.

B. Model of Personality

In an article entitled behaviourist theories of personality, it connect dots of B.F. Skinner and personality, where B.F. Skinner stated that behaviours varies as learning experiences varies. Intervention such as rewards and punishments are to guide desire behaviours in individuals. Besides that its crucial to make changes in the environment for efficient personalities changes to take place. A result of shift to positive personality traits must happens in order for reinforcement to be state as successful. Reinforcements strategies are more supported of usage than punishments, Skinner also believe that the society can also affects one individual personality and behaviour from that personality traits and behaviour is able to be controlled and shaped by the society.

C. Model of Health

Behavior modification works very well with children and is used on many psychological problems such as addictions, autism, even schizophrenia. Referring to an article on B.F.Skinner on http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com, the token economy strategy is quite often implemented in organizations such as juvenile halls, psychiatric hospitals and prisons. Hence, behaviour modification can use to guide individuals with health problems or people with negative behaviour problems to shift their behaviour to positive ones.

D. Model of Abnormality

According to the notes derived from 311 psychology, a reinforce stimulus can result in an abnormal behaviour where an individual will repeat the behaviour through the motivation from the stimulus reinforcer, thus, abnormal behaviour increases. . For example, if the child throws toys across the room and was punished by the parent. Instead of the expected response, the child throws even more toys across the room. Apart from that, generalization is gained if similar responses are reinforced

E. Model of Counselling

Counsellors can use techniques such as negative or positive reinforces, shaping, behavioural rehearsal and punishment to help the clients achieve desirable personality traits

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CONCLUSION

Using theories in counselling makes counselling more valid , reliable and professional,. The application of using theories in counselling have to be choose wisely in order to appropriately analyse clients situations and provide ways that is appropriate to solve clients concerns or issues.