Theories Of Counseling - Adlerian Therapy

Front 1

Inferiority feelings

Back 1

- motivate us to strive for mastery, success (superiority), and completion

Front 2

Role of genetics?

Back 2

- not as important as what we choose to do with the abilities and limitations we possess
- enter the world with certain genetic givens, but our perceptions of ourselves affect our personality
- develop sense of self from family environment (adverse influences include pampering and neglect which lead to formation of mistaken goals)

Front 3

What are humans' primary motivations?

Back 3

- social relatedness (not sexual urges, i.e. Freud)
- teleological: humans are pulled toward the future rather than pushed by the past

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What does "phenomenological" mean?

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- an orientation wherein the therapist attempts to view the world from the client's subjective frame of reference
- the way perceive their world is called "subjective reality"

Front 5

What was Adler's theory called?

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- Individual Psychology
- stressed unity of the person and understanding the whole person in the context of his life (holistic concept)

Front 6

Fictional finalism

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- refers to an imagined life goal that guides a person's behaviour
- replaced with "guiding self-ideal" and "goal of perfection" to account for striving toward superiority or perfection

Front 7

Lifestyle

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- includes the connecting themes and rules of interaction that give meaning to actions
- faulty interpretations may lead to mistaken notions in our private logic

Front 8

Social interest

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- the action line of one's community feeling
- involves being as concerned about others as one is about oneself
- innate: must be developed and learned
- our happiness is tied to social connectedness
- primary source of motivation

Front 9

Community feeling

Back 9

- embodies the feeling of being connected to all humanity and to being involved in making the world a better place

Front 10

What three life tasks must we all master to be successful?

Back 10

- building friendships (social task)
- establishing intimacy (love-marriage risk)
- contributing to society (occupational task)

Front 11

Birth order

Back 11

- not deterministic, but does increase a person's probability of having certain traits
- less important than a person's interpretation of his place in the family
- oldest, second of 2, middle, youngest, only

Front 12

What is the view of clients?

Back 12

- being discouraged, not being sick or needing a cure

Front 13

What is the most powerful method for changing a person's beliefs?

Back 13

- encouragement: builds self-confidence and stimulates courage

Front 14

What are the goals for the educational process of therapy?

Back 14

- encouraging the person to see equality among people
- helping clients to overcome discouragement and inferiority
- changing clients' lifestyle
- helping clients become contributing members of society
- changing faulty motivation
- fostering social interest

Front 15

Family constellation

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- part of lifestyle assessment
- parents, siblings, others living in the home, life tasks, early recollections
- birth order, family values, parental relationship

Front 16

Early recollections

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- stories of events that a person says occurred at one particular time before he was 9-10 years old
- indicate what clients do and how they think (mistaken notions, present attitudes, social interests, possible future behaviour)
- projective technique used to: assess client's convictions about self, others, life, & ethics; assess client's stance to session and therapeutic relationship; verify client's coping patterns; assess client's strengths, assets, and interfering ideas
- three memories usually the minimum

Front 17

Lifestyle assessment

Back 17

- involves learning to understand the goals and motivations of the client, which then leads to targets for therapy
- family constellation, early recollections
- goal is to get a deeper understanding of lifestyle (holistic narrative), way client copes with life tasks, and uncover private logic involved in coping

Front 18

Private logic

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- concepts about self, others, and life that constitute the philosophy on which an individual's lifestyle is based
- convictions and beliefs that get in the way of social interest and that do not facilitate useful belonging

Front 19

What does the therapeutic alliance look like?

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- egalitarian and collaborative
- therapist helps clients to discover the purposes of behaviour or symptoms, and the basic mistakes associated with their personal coping
- therapist is typically active
- therapist guides client toward adaptive behaviour, which leads to a reduction in feelings of inferiority
- therapist corrects client's mistaken perceptions and develops new goals for behaviour

Front 20

4 phases of therapeutic process?

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- establish proper therapeutic relationship
- explore psychological dynamics operating in the client (assessment)
- encourage the development of self-understanding (insight into purpose)
- help the client make new choices (reorientation and re-education)

Front 21

Establishing the proper therapeutic relationship:

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- more attention to subjective experiences of client
- main techniques: listening with empathy, following subjective experience of client, identifying and clarifying goals, suggesting initial hunches about purpose in symptoms, actions, and interactions

Front 22

Assessment phase:

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- goal is to get a deeper understanding of lifestyle (holistic narrative), way client copes with life tasks, and uncover private logic involved in coping
- subjective and objective interviews
- family constellation and early recollections
- integrated summaries of the data are developed

Front 23

Subjective interview

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- counselor helps client tell his life story as completely as possible
- the Question: "How would your life be different and what would you be doing differently, if you did not have this problem?"

Front 24

Objective interview

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- how problems began
- medical history (including medications)
- social history
- reasons the client chose therapy at this time
- person's coping with life tasks
- lifestyle assessment

Front 25

Insight phase:

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- therapist interprets findings of the assessment as an avenue for promoting self-understanding and insight
- insight & interpretation

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Insight

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- an understanding of the motivations that operate in a client's life
- special form of awareness that facilitates a meaningful understanding within the therapeutic relationship and acts as a foundation for change

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Interpretation

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- deals with clients' underlying motives for behaving the way they do in the here and now
- concerned with creating awareness of one's direction in life, one's goals and purposes, one's private logic and how it works, and one's current behaviour
- suggested in the form of open-ended questions

Front 28

Reorientation and re-education phase

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- action-oriented phase
- clients make decisions and modify their goals, translating them into action between sessions
- reorienting the client
- encouragement
- focus on motivation modification more than behaviour change

Front 29

Reorientation

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- involves shifting rules of interaction, process, and motivation
- these shifts are facilitated through changes in awareness

Front 30

Encouragement

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- entails showing faith in people, expecting them to assume responsibility for their lives, and valuing them for who they are
- discouragement is the basic condition that prevents people from functioning
- empathetic listening

Front 31

Areas of application?

Back 31

- Adler advocated for Individual Psychology in schools
- education, parent education, couples counseling, family counseling, group counseling

Front 32

Strengths of theory from a diversity perspective:

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- importance of cultural context
- holistic perspective on life
- emphasis on health as opposed to pathology
- ability to exercise freedom within context of social constraints
- value of understanding clients in terms of core goals and purposes
- focus on prevention and development of a proactive approach in dealing with problems
- therapist fits techniques to each client
- emphasis on family and socio-cultural context

Front 33

Shortcomings from a diversity perspective:

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- emphasis on changing autonomous self may be problematic for clients
- nuclear family and birth order assumptions based on Western nuclear family
- soe clients expect firm solutions
- some clients may not want to share family information

Front 34

Adlerian Brief Therapy (ABT)

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- incorporated 4 phases into "minor psychotherapy" by Dreikurs
- 5 main characteristics: time limitation, symptoms as solutions, focus, counselor directiveness, assignment of behavioural tasks
- 3 levels of system behaviour: identifying client's actions and emotions and social context; addressing function served by client's actions, interactions, feelings, concerns, or issues; investigating client's idiosyncratic rules of interaction

Front 35

Basic assumptions of Adlerian theory:

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- behaviour is purposeful and goal-directed
- humans are born with a sense of inferiority and a striving for superiority
- to understand the individual one must know the pattern of his life (lifestyle)
- perceptions of the world determine one' behaviour
- we mould our own personalities
- ideal form of striving is social interest
- personality is laid down early life
- basic obstacles to growth are: organ inferiority, pampering, and neglect

Front 36

Longitudinal or cross sectional perspective?

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- longitudinal perspective is used to understand the client

Front 37

External or internal determinants?

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- emphasis on internal values, goals, and interests and the individual's perception of reality

Front 38

Tension reduction or tension production?

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- tension production: striving for superiority and perfection
- growth model whereby much of a person's behaviour can be explained as involving movement towards growth and self-actualization

Front 39

Possible sources of psychopathology?

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- lack of social interest, mistaken beliefs, and inadequate psychological models, over-ambition, or discouragement
- poor self-concept
- pampering, neglect, organ (physical weaknesses of the body) inferiority, sibling rivalry, and self-defeating behaviour
- neurosis is viewed as an escape from fulfilling one's duties to the community
- to compensate for feelings of inferiority, people strive for superiority
- healthy person has a strong social interest and realistic life goals

Front 40

Masculine Protest

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- describes the individual's tendency to overcompensate for their real or perceived weakness or limitations
- attention seeking: person is continually looking for approval of his actions
- power: person wants to win or be in control
- revenge: person does things to hurt others
- inadequacy: person assumes deficiency and gives up trying

Front 41

Primary goal of counseling:

Back 41

- to develop the client's social interest
- change in behaviour follows a change in motivation through insight
- three major aims: understanding the lifestyle; promoting self-understanding;; strengthening social interest

Front 42

Main techniques of Adlerian therapy:

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- encouragement: generally focuses on strengths that the client has but may not acknowledge or appreciate
- comprehensive lifestyle assessment
- acting "as if": using the "Question"; clients told to act "as if" they are the person they want to be
- catching oneself: client learns to become aware of self-destructive behaviours or thoughts
- spitting in the client's soup: when a counselor points out a payoff for a negative behaviour, the enjoyment may be diminished

Front 43

Characteristics of positions of birth order:

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- 1st child: steady, dependable, high-achiever, follows parents' attitudes and obeys, orderly, good leaders
- 2nd child: tries to find a different place int eh family, less steady and poised, active and pushy, sociable, outgoing, laid back, squeezed, unloved, unnoticed
- 3rd child: the "baby", may feel inferior, may struggle to be noticed and seek approval, spoiled, helpless, outperforms others, not usually a leader, not tidy and neat
- one boy among girls or vice versa: gender may be viewed as advantageous or not
- weak or sick child: may be pitied, may be viewed as weak and therefore facing an obstacle
- child born after death of firstborn: may be overprotected, may lead to helplessness
- only child: may aim to please adults, develop adult viewpoints or feel inferior to others, may have strained relationships with other kids, doe not feel a sense of belonging to groups of kids