Discuss the premise, benefit, and limitations of nondirective interviewing.

/in /by

Core Conditions
Discuss the premise, benefit, and limitations of nondirective interviewing. To what extent do basic interviewing methods align with core conditions of the person-centered approach, and how do you assess the demonstration of skills in the Theories in Action: Person-Centered Counseling media presentation? Provide specific illustrations from Jose and Dr. Ed Neukrug’s session, and compare to Boyer’s examination of early implementation of Roger’s core conditions.

Theories in Action  Person Centered Counseling  Mr. Tim Seibles:  
            The heart of person-centered counseling rests on three critical personality characteristics that Carl Rogers, the founder of this therapy and philosophy of living, believed were critical: congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy.  People who are congruent are real, genuine, or transparent with others. Their feelings, thoughts and behaviors are in sync. However, it is important to note the therapists who are congruent do not necessarily express moment-to-moment feelings with clients as sometimes, such feelings can rapidly change and often deepen over time. However, it is important for the therapist to express feelings toward his or her client, even negative ones, if such feelings are persistent. Otherwise, the relationship would be marred by falseness or incongruity.  Unconditional positive regard is the ability to provide the client with a sense of acceptance regardless of what feelings or experiences are expressed by the client. Such acceptance allows the client to feel safe within the relationship and to delve deeper into him or herself. Person-centered counselors believe that individuals are born with the need to be loved and when significant others such as parents do not provide unconditional positive regard, children end up living as they believe others would want them to be, as opposed to being who they really are.  The last quality, empathic understanding has been one of the most widely used tools of the counseling relationship regardless of theoretical orientation, and has been shown to be a critical factor in positive therapeutic outcomes. Empathy can be demonstrated in many ways including accurately reflecting the client’s meaning and affect using a metaphor, analogy or visual image, or simply nodding one’s head or gently touching the client during the client’s deepest moments of pain. A therapist, who shows empathy is with the client, hears the client, understands the client fully and is able to communicate such understanding to the client. Let’s join Dr. Ed Neukrug as he tries to embody the characteristics of congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy with Jose who is discussing some concerns he has about his mother and younger brother.

Compare the counseling techniques you observed in the person-centered counseling videos (with the child, Wood), to the counseling techniques you observed in the video that corresponded to the additional chapter you selected in Counseling Children.

/in /by

Unit 4 Discussion 1
Theoretical Approaches and Counseling Techniques
Compare the counseling techniques you observed in the person-centered counseling videos (with the child, Wood), to the counseling techniques you observed in the video that corresponded to the additional chapter you selected in Counseling Children.
Identify the key similarities and differences between the two theoretical approaches in the following areas, using course readings to support your conclusions:
· Typical therapeutic goals for helping children and adolescents.
· Counseling methods and process used by the counselors used in the video sessions.
· Specific techniques used by the counselors, and the client’s response.
· Adaptability of the theory for use with children from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
o APA Style and Format.
[u04d2] Unit 4 Discussion 2
Unit 4 Discussion 2
How Theories Determine Interventions 
Discussion Scenario
For this discussion, first imagine the following scenario.
A father of a 4-year-old boy brings his son to counseling. His son has recently begun biting other children at preschool. As would be expected, this behavior is extremely upsetting to the teachers, the children who have been bitten, and their parents. The director of the preschool has told the father that the problem must be addressed by a professional if the child is to remain in preschool.
The father of the boy wants to get the best help he can, so he arranges an initial session with five counselors who advertise themselves as working from five different theoretical perspectives. He asks them all the same two questions: “Why is my child biting? And how will you make him stop?” He receives the following answers:
Psychodynamic Counselor
· Why: “Your child may have an oral fixation that he has tied to his aggressive impulses.”
· What to do: “When your child’s unconscious motives have been freely expressed and resolved, his behavior and peer interactions will become more age-appropriate.”
Behavioral Counselor
· Why: “It doesn’t matter why; what matters is precisely selecting the behavior you want to change.”
· What to do: “Through observation, we will determine the contingencies that are reinforcing this biting behavior and eliminate them, while simultaneously establishing rewards for desired behaviors.”
Adlerian Counselor
· Why: “It will be important to know what need your son is seeking to satisfy with this behavior—power? Attention? Self-Protection?”
· What to do: “When we find more constructive ways for your son to satisfy his need and encourage his use of these alternate ways, the biting behavior will discontinue.”
Person-Centered Counselor
· Why: “I wonder if your child feels truly seen and understood, and feels prized for who he is.”
· What to do: “When we create a space where your son feels unconditionally accepted, he will work through this on his own and I expect the biting will stop.”
Solution Focused Counselor
· Why: “I don’t know why, but answer this: Are there days when he doesn’t bite?”
· What to do: “Let’s figure out what’s happening on the days he doesn’t bite, and do more of that.”
This whimsical scenario is overly simplified to the point of being humorous. Nevertheless, it underlines the point that the same problem would be understood and addressed differently by counselors working from different orientations. It also makes the point that the answer to what to do is based on the counselor’s answer to why the problem is occurring.
Discussion Instructions
Now it is your turn. Select a common problem behavior that a child or teen might display (such as school refusal, bed-wetting, lying to teachers, sneaking out at night, obsessive fingernail biting, or always losing homework).
· Briefly describe the problem.
· Then, offer responses, from three different counselors who represent three different theoretical perspectives, to the why and the what to do questions.
· Use your textbook to ensure that you design responses that are consistent with the theories on which they are based.
· Offer a rationale, citing your support, for how you see each of your responses as exemplifying each of your chosen theories.
Audiovisual Media
Watch these videos to observe person-centered counseling in action:
· Person-Centered Counseling: Wood Interview, Clip 1: Access this video from the textbook’s companion Web site. In the drop-down menu, select Chapter 6, “Person-Centered Counseling,” and choose Video Activity 1 to get started. Transcript.
· Person-Centered Counseling: Wood Interview, Clip 2: Access this video from the textbook’s companion Web site. In the drop-down menu, select Chapter 6, “Person-Centered Counseling,” and choose Video Activity 2 to get started. Transcript.
In addition, watch the video that corresponds to the additional chapter you chose to read:

Individual Psychology

/in /by

Individual Psychology: 
1. Identify how presenting concerns relate to client’s ability to successfully meet specific life tasks.
2. Explore family constellation to discover experiences that might have led the client to develop his/her specific faulty logic. Describe the content of this faulty logic and the sense of self the client developed in the context of these experiences.
3. Establish a connection between the content of the client’s faulty logic and (1) experiences in the family of origin, (2) problems in current life, and (3) the sense-of-self in relation to the world that the client developed.
4. Identify the underlining purpose of the client’s problematic behavior, and describe how it prevents the client from successfully meeting the life tasks.
Person-Centered: 
1. While exploring the client’s presenting concerns, the counselor will assume that internalized conditions of worth have led the client to disconnect from parts of himself/herself. This disconnect, in turn, has resulted in feelings of incongruency and anxiety, which has impaired his/her internal locus of control as well as thwarted his/her self-actualizing tendency.
2. Examine the discrepancy between the client’s self-concept and ideal self-concept. Since the theory proposes that given the adequate facilitative conditions (empathy, positive regard, and congruence) in the counseling relation, clients will be able to reconnect with themselves and find their own way, the theory does not offer much in terms of a framework to explain the particular issues of each client. This is more a theory of the change process itself than a theory of personality development.
Existential:
1. Identify how presenting concerns (problem behaviors/cognitions) relate to specific givens of existence.
2. Elucidate how these difficulties represent (as mechanisms of defense) or are the consequences of the client’s efforts to avoid facing the normal anxiety generated by specific givens of existence.
3. Describe how these defensive behaviors have led the client to experience of neurotic anxiety and/or neurotic guilt and further problems.
Behavioral/Cognitive/REBT:
1. Relate the presenting concerns to faulty learning, irrational thoughts, and/or faulty cognitions.
2. Identify the client’s irrational thoughts (Ellis) and/or specific faulty cognitions or maladaptive thought patterns (Beck), and illustrate how these lead to the problematic behaviors.
3. Describe the antecedent behaviors and cognitions that trigger the client’s maladaptive behaviors and thoughts (this is called behavioral assessment).
Goal Setting and Interventions:
The information provided in the conceptualization process leads to specific counseling goals. Again, use outside sources to support your discussion of Goals and Interventions.
In the psychodynamic approaches (Object Relations and Individual Psychology), these will likely include:
· Resolving earlier conflicts
· Modifying negative aspects of the self
· Facilitating the development of positive aspects of the self in the context of the therapeutic relation
· Reconciling split-off aspects of the self,
· Changing aspects of the client’s sense of self (e.g., feeling unlovable)
· Identifying and modifying faulty logic
· Gaining encouragement to face life-tasks, and/or to develop social interest
· Identifying the underlining purposes of symptomatic behaviors
· Work through conflicts in attachment and autonomy
Interventions may include:
Psychoanalytic and Object Relations: 
· Free association
· Dream analysis
· Confrontation
· Interpretation
· Gaining insight
· Analysis of the transference
Individual Psychology:
· Lifestyle assessment
· Paradoxical Intention
· Spitting in the Soup
· Catching oneself
· “Acting as if”
· Task setting
· Motivational interviewing

Explore current and early relationships as they relate to issues of attachment and autonomy.

/in /by

Case Conceptualization Process
Case conceptualization refers to the process in which one makes sense of a client’s presenting concerns in the context of a theoretical framework. In other words, it refers to how one explains or understands the pseudo-client’s symptoms, personality characteristics, cognitions, feelings, and behaviors in the light of a particular theory or integration of theories. Such understanding should lead to the formulation of counseling goals and intervention strategies.
At this stage, you will conceptualize the client’s case from 1 theoretical orientation at a time. The content of the conceptualization of the same case will differ according to the various theories depending on the aspect of human experiencing that each theory emphasizes.
In general, however, the case conceptualization process (as with the counseling process itself) starts with an understanding of the client’s presenting concerns (as presented in the case summary) from the perspective of the client.
Use the outline below to assist you in developing your Case Conceptualization according to the theory you choose to discuss.
Client’s Presenting Concerns:
This is derived from your Case Summary.
Case Conceptualization:
Present information used to generate hypothesis regarding the origins of the client’s current problems. Use outside sources and the Jones and Butman textbook to explain the concepts utilized in this section. Below offers an outline of how to discuss these issues. 
Psychoanalysis or Object Relations Theory:

Explore      current and early relationships as they relate to issues of attachment and      autonomy. This includes gaining an understanding of how the client      understands the world and his/her relationships with others (e.g., the client’s      mental representations based on internalized objects). Understanding the client’s      internal frame of reference will help the counselor understand the client’s      behaviors.
Describe the      ideas and feelings about self that the client might have developed in the      context of these early relations (internalized objects).
Establish a      relationship between the client’s sense of self and current problems, identify      conflictive patterns that the client may be repeating in current life, and      explore to what extent current experiences trigger the client’s emotional      reactions elicited by past experiences (reliving the trauma).
Uncover      defense mechanisms embedded in the client’s presenting concerns and other      symptoms, and explain how they relate to the client’s current difficulties      and past experiences.
Help the      client become aware of issues described above, and help the client process      and resolve early conflicts.