Sigmund Freud's Psychodynamic Approach

Carl Rogers’ proposed that humans have an innate ability for mental growth and that also depends on external factors (Rogers 2007). Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory strictly focuses on a person’s unconscious thoughts that are repressed from childhood and negatively affected a person later in their adult life (Safran et al. 2014). In addition to the unconscious, Freud also believed that the human mind was made of two other parts, the pre-conscious that holds all of our memories and stored information from experience and the conscious mind that contains feelings, thoughts and perceptions (Larsen & Buss 2012) (Safran et al. 2014). Rogers’ theory conflicted with Freud’s theory and he argued that humans were born good and that it was other …show more content…
2012). It is important to use language that the client understands. These counsellors pay attention to the specific information the client discusses and attaches this this information to experiences and feelings from their past (Killips et al. 2012). The aim is to make the unconscious conscious in order for the client to gain insight. The humanistic counsellor is a little different in their therapy. Carl Rogers stated “There has been a tendency to use the term counselling for more casual and superficial interviews, and to reserve the term psychotherapy for more intensive and long-continued contacts directed toward deeper reorganization of the personality. While there may be some reason for this distinction, it is also plain that the most intensive and success- full counselling is indistinguishable from intensive and successful psychotherapy. (Rowan 1998). The counselling relationship is based on the core conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard. Client centred therapy helps individuals grow and develop in the ways that they otherwise could not on their own (Raskin et al. 2014). When individuals are denied acceptance and positive regard from others, or when that positive regard is made conditional upon the individual behaving in particular ways, they may begin to lose touch with what their own experience means for them, and their innate tendency to grow in a direction consistent with that meaning may be corrupted or lost. The therapist accepts the client for who they are without judgment whereby the client feels free to explore all thoughts and feelings, positive or negative, without danger of rejection or condemnation. They are also able to explore and to express without having to do anything in particular or meet any particular standards of behaviour to ‘earn’ positive regard from the counsellor. Empathy and