PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES & KEY CONCEPTS Aaron T. Beck developed his approach known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a result of his work and observations with depressed clients. C.B.T. is based on fundamental assumptions that our thoughts can and do determine how we feel and behave in relation to events in our everyday lives and our environment. Beck contends that psychological problems or dysfunctional behaviour can occur as a result of faulty or distorted thinking and through engaging and employing C.B.T. techniques we can change or modify the way we think, to cause us to feel and act better even if our external situations and events do not change.
Negative behaviors and negative cycles are able to be terminated. Psychotherapy helps reconnect and establish relationships and identifies the change that needs to take place. Philosophical Assumptions In my theory I believe that people are a product of their environment. Our life is impacted by our life experiences. In our life we are given the opportunity to make decisions of change.
As a result there are a variety of theories of personality which try to describe the cause and effect of the human personality. This essay will briefly compare and contrast two of these theories which include the psychoanalytic and humanistic theories of personality. It is important to have an in-depth understanding of the various types of theories with respect to personality because such a discourse enables psychologists to discover more about social behaviours in daily life (Fiske et al, 2010; 365). Both theoretical viewpoints, while being substantially different from each other, do share some common comparisons as we shall examine below. Psychoanalytical theories of personality stress the individual’s unconscious motivations which can be identified through dreams, slips of the tongue and fantasies (McCrae & Costa, 2003; 21).
Your therapist helps you identify negative thoughts and evaluate how realistic these thoughts are. Then, he or she teaches you to “unlearn” negative thought patterns and “learn” new, helpful ones. CBT is a problem-solving approach. You cannot control other people or situations, but you can control the way you perceive and react. CBT teaches you the skills to change your thinking and manage your reactions to stressful people and situations.
He believed that people develop constructs as internal ideas of reality to help them understand the world around them and that the way the world is viewed is based on individual experiences, interpretations and observations. This essay will also look closely at the work from Hans Eysenck and Stanley Rachman on Trait Theory (1965) and Phillida Salmon (2003) who developed George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory further by relating it to teaching. It will also discuss the interrogative themes of Power Relations, Situation Knowledge and Agency Structure. The strengths and weaknesses of both approaches will be critically compared along with looking at the contrasts of both hoping to offer an explanation to the above statement ‘The traits that we think we find in others represent our personal construction of them’ (Butt, 2012, p.53). Theories of personality were developed around a century ago in three different strands known as clinical, psychometric and experimental traditions, although all separate they seek to explain behaviour and the individual differences in the way people react to the same situation.
Humanistic and Existential Theoretical Approaches The humanistic and existential theoretical approaches both came about in an attempt to expand on the limitations of previous theories in explaining the depth and causes of human behavior through personality. Existential theoretical approach evolved throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the idea that existence, not essence as other theories suggested, was critical in development and how an individual defines oneself (Feist & Feist 2009). In the late 20th century humanistic theoretical approach was developed, to address the simplistic behavioral and experience views of previous theories, and felt that individuals held potential and the ability to control their own behavior, and thus destinies. Humanistic psychology is almost infantile in consideration of the age of other psychological approaches and theories, but is unique in the approach that focused on individual control, and away from concrete ideas that all human behavior is based around pleasure, and that behavior is a result of situational stressors. However, ultimately, the humanistic psychological approach is one of personal perception, with the goal to fulfill one’s potential, and in doing so, change or control one’s behavior outside of previous concrete boundaries.
Freudian psychoanalytic theory, on the other hand, had tended to de-emphasize conscious thought. Advances in behavioral science and experimental psychology had brought up questions of the main assumptions of psychoanalysis, and new theories of the human mind were coming. “There are actually several kinds of Cognitive-Behavioral therapies and they all employ the same general premise: in contrast to the psychodynamic emphasis on insight into unconscious motivation, the cognitive-behavioral therapies emphasize the ability of people to make changes in their lives without having to understand why the change occurs. “ Research into human emotion had found that people’s thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions about events are important in guiding emotional experience (Carson, B.M. 2000).
Three types of humanistic therapy are especially influential. Client-centered therapy rejects the idea of therapists as authorities on their clients' inner experiences. Instead, therapists help clients change by emphasizing their concern, care and interest. Gestalt therapy emphasizes what it calls "organismic holism," the importance of being aware of the here and now and accepting responsibility for yourself. Existential therapy focuses on free will, self-determination and the search for meaning.
UNIT 02: THEORY ESSAY There are several theoretical approaches to counselling, I will explain the key characteristics and concepts of the Humanistic theory, Psychodynamic theory and Cognitive-behavioural theory. I shall then summarise the key strengths and limitations of these main approaches. I will then explain the concept of the integrative model, followed by assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the integrative model. Finally I will explain the role of theory in relation to helping relationships. CBT is a combination of cognitive therapy, which examines unwanted thoughts, beliefs and cognitive processes and behavioural therapy which looks at the behaviour in response to those thoughts.
For the purpose of this essay I will be focusing on Carl Rogers views on Person Centred Therapy (PCT). Carl Rogers (1980) believed that “Individuals have within themselves vast resources for self-understanding and for altering their self-concepts, basic attitudes, and self-directed behavior; these resources can be tapped if a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided” (p. 115). Rogers (as cited by Joseph, 2003) believed that people need positive regard from our social environment and given this we can develop our self-actualising abilities effectively. This leads us to interpret life accurately, be realistic in our perceptions and trust our own inner being. (Joseph, 2003 p.304) PCT is client directed and doesn’t focus on problems or solutions.