According to Mental Health America approximately 20% of children develop mental health problems severe enough to meet diagnostic criteria, but less than one third of them receive help (Lin & Braton, 2015). For the children who do seek help, there are not a lot of interventions that are proven to help children’s developmental needs. Mental health counselor’s need to utilize different interventions and adapt them to the needs of children. As I pursue my career in mental health counseling with a focus on children and adolescents, the three counseling theories I find most useful to apply with this population are Child-Centered Play Therapy, Client-Centered Therapy, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. In this paper I will review these three theories
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Getting children to express themselves and open up can be a difficult task. They might feel embarrassed by their emotions or afraid to talk about certain situations. The therapist must create an environment where the child feels free from judgement and feels accepted. Unconditional positive regard refers to nonjudgmental interaction, possessive warmth, and acceptance. Cornelius-White (2016) explains that acceptance refers to the client’s person, feelings, conflicts, perceptions, solutions, and actions. Acceptance is not agreement like some clients may think. Therapists must also be genuine to their clients. Clients can detect when therapists are not fully present. They can tell when the therapist is distracted by some outside factor or upset about something. To be genuine, the therapist must be present with the client. They cannot let any internalizing conflicts affect how they see their clients. The last attitude a counselor must possess is empathy. Empathy is simply understanding the client. Understanding their thoughts, feelings, experiences, meanings, and their reactions. Clients want to know that their understood, they want to be …show more content…
There are a lot of demands and expectancies put on kids. Children learn from their experiences. If a child grows up in a household were perfection is demanded, they will strive to be perfect. Any accounts when they don’t achieve this, they may believe they are a failure. They may tell themselves that their not good enough and not worthy. The child is experiencing cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are thoughts that cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately. So why do children think like this? Bernad (2004) suggests that when children are facing unfavorably emotional situations, they tend to revert to a preoperational stage of cognitive thinking. Characteristics of this stage include jumping to conclusions with evidence, taking things out of context, and
Getting children to express themselves and open up can be a difficult task. They might feel embarrassed by their emotions or afraid to talk about certain situations. The therapist must create an environment where the child feels free from judgement and feels accepted. Unconditional positive regard refers to nonjudgmental interaction, possessive warmth, and acceptance. Cornelius-White (2016) explains that acceptance refers to the client’s person, feelings, conflicts, perceptions, solutions, and actions. Acceptance is not agreement like some clients may think. Therapists must also be genuine to their clients. Clients can detect when therapists are not fully present. They can tell when the therapist is distracted by some outside factor or upset about something. To be genuine, the therapist must be present with the client. They cannot let any internalizing conflicts affect how they see their clients. The last attitude a counselor must possess is empathy. Empathy is simply understanding the client. Understanding their thoughts, feelings, experiences, meanings, and their reactions. Clients want to know that their understood, they want to be …show more content…
There are a lot of demands and expectancies put on kids. Children learn from their experiences. If a child grows up in a household were perfection is demanded, they will strive to be perfect. Any accounts when they don’t achieve this, they may believe they are a failure. They may tell themselves that their not good enough and not worthy. The child is experiencing cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are thoughts that cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately. So why do children think like this? Bernad (2004) suggests that when children are facing unfavorably emotional situations, they tend to revert to a preoperational stage of cognitive thinking. Characteristics of this stage include jumping to conclusions with evidence, taking things out of context, and