Adlerian Theory, And Relational-Cultural Theory

Counseling Theory Components Throughout the course while learning about and researching different counseling theories I have had an opportunity to begin to develop my own person approach to counseling. While I have seen value and merit in all of the theories that we have reviewed, I found myself relating most to the theory of Person-Centered therapy, Adlerian Theory, and Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT). According to Parsons & Zhang (2014), “For Rogers, the more the client can trust his or her own experience as a guide for living, the better an intuitive scientist he or she becomes,” (p. 180). In Person-Centered therapy the counselor does not set goals for the client but supports the goals of the client, the counselor is there to create …show more content…
In Adlerian theory the counselor has more of an active helping, guiding role that in Person-Centered therapy, but the initial component of the theory is relationship development which is where the client-counselor relationship is built. While Adler believed that the first 6 to 8 years of life greatly influences adult life outcomes, he also held that individuals are not solely preprogrammed by genetics or solely shaped by environment but guided by both and therefore have free will in life and decision making, (Parsons, R.D. & Zhang, N., 2014). In RCT, less focus is on the individual and more on the interconnectedness, relationships, and an individual’s growth through connections. While I do not think that all or even most issues a person experiences are related or can be explained by their relationships or lack thereof, I do believe they play a large part in a person’s sense of …show more content…
Similarly, the goal of RCT is to identify how the relationships from early childhood molded the relationships or lack thereof in adult life in order to develop and foster growth in relationships (Parsons, R.D. & Zhang, N., 2014). “By contrast, a client-centered therapist has no goals for the client except commitment to the meta-goal of empowering the client and freeing the client’s inner resources for growth,” (Parsons, R.D. & Zhang, N., 2014, p. 186). The time-frame target for change with these three theories is the present and the future, with more emphasis on future change. These are not theories that would necessarily be beneficial to a client in immediate crisis or seeking some sort of immediate outcome, but a longer-term counseling approach that seeks to begin to change the present in order to effect long term future