Counseling Theories

Techniques - Family systems therapy

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Genograms
Teaching
Asking questions
Joining the family
Tracking sequences
Issuing directives
Countertransference
Family mapping
Reframing
Restructuring
Enactments
Setting boundaries
Bring about change in a short time

Techniques - Postmodern approaches

2009-03-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Change-talk
Creative use of questioning
Miracle question
Scaling questions
Listening to client's story
Externalizing and naming problem
Discovering clues to competence
Write letters to clients
Find an audience that will support their changes

Techniques - Feminist therapy

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Employ consciousness-raising techniques
Help clients recognize impact of gender-role socialization on lives
Gender-role analysis
Power analysis
Demystifying therapy
Bibliotherapy
Journal writing
Self-disclosure
Assertiveness training
Reframing and relabeling
Cognitive restructuring
Identifying and challenging untested beliefs
Role playing
Psychodramatic methods
Group work
Social Action

Techniques - Reality therapy

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Active, directive didactic therapy
Evaluate present actions to see if desire to change
Develop specific plan for change and make commitment to follow through

Techniques - Cognitive behavioral therapy

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Diverse methods tailored to meet individuals
Active, directive, time-limited, present-centered, psychoeducational, and structured
Engage in Socratic dialogue
Collaborative empiricism
Debating irrational beliefs
Carry out homework assignments
Gather data on assumptions
Keep a record of activities
Form alternative interpretations
Learn new coping skills
Change language and beliefs
Role playing
Imagery
Confront faulty beliefs
Self-instructional training
Stress inoculation training

Techniques - Behavior therapy

2009-03-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

Reinforcement
Shaping
Modeling
Systematic desensitization
Relaxation methods
Flooding
Eye movement and desensitization reprocessing
Cognitive restructuring
Assertion and social skills training
Self-management programs
Mindfulness and acceptance methods
Behavioral rehearsal
Coaching
Multimodal therapy techniques
Contracts and homework assignments

Techniques - Gestalt therapy

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Experiments designed to intensify experience
Experiments are co-created
Invent own experiments

Techniques - Person-centered therapy

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Therapists strive for listening, reflection of feelings, clarification, and being there for client

Techniques - Existential therapy

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Stresses understanding first and technique second
Borrow techniques and incorporate them into existential framework
Address freedom and responsibility, isolation and relationships, meaning and meaningless, and living and dying

Techniques - Adlerian therapy

2009-03-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

Pay attention to subjective experiences
Gathering life history data
Sharing interpretations
Offering encouragement
Assist in searching for new possibilities

Techniques - Psychoanalytic therapy

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Interpretation
Dream analysis
Free association
Resistance and transference analysis
Help gain access to unconscious conflicts

Goals - Family systems therapy

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Help family members become more aware of relationship patterns that are not working. Create new ways of interacting.

Goals - Postmodern approaches

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Change the way problems are viewed and what can be done about them. Establish specific, concrete goals leading to change. Create a self-identity that can resolve present and future concerns. Assist clients in viewing themselves in positive ways.

Goals - Feminist therapy

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Bring transformation in client and society. Assist clients in using personal power to free themselves from gender-role socialization. Confront all forms of institutional policies that discriminate or oppress.

Goals - Reality therapy

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Help people become more effective in meeting all of their psychological needs. Get reconnected with people they have chosen to put into their quality worlds. Teach about choice theory.

Goals - Cognitive behavior therapy

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Challenge clients to confront faulty beliefs with contradictory evidence. Help them seek out their faulty beliefs and minimize them. Become aware of automatic thoughts and change them.

Goals - Behavior therapy

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Eliminate maladaptive behaviors and learn more effective behaviors. Identify things that influence behaviors. Encourage clients to take an active role in setting goals and evaluating how the goals are being met.

Goals - Gestalt therapy

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Assist in gaining awareness of moment-to-moment experiencing and expand capacity to make choices. Foster integration of the self.

Goals - Person-centered therapy

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Provide a safe environment for clients to self explore to recognize blocks to growth and experience all aspects of the self. Enable client to move toward openness, greater trust in self, willingness to be a process. Find meaning in life and experience it fully. Become more self-directed.

Goals - Existential therapy

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Help people see that they are free and become aware of their possibilities. Challenge them to recognize that they are responsible for events they thought were happening to them. Identify factors that block freedom.

Goals - Adlerian therapy

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Challenge client's basic premises and life goals. Develop socially useful goals and increase social interest. Develop client's sense of belonging.

Goals - Psychoanalytic therapy

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Make the unconscious conscious. Reconstruct the basic personality. Assist clients in reliving earlier experiences and work through repressed conflicts. Achieve intellectual and emotional awareness.

Key Concepts - Family systems therapy

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Verbal and non-verbal communication patterns within a family. Relationship problems are passed from generation to generation. Present is more important than the past. Include exploring power coalitions, family-of-origin dynamics, functional versus dysfunctionla interaction patterns, and differentiation.

Key Concepts - Postmodern approaches

2009-03-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Brief therapy that addresses the present and future. Person is not the problem; the problem is the problem. Look for exceptions to the problem. Therapist and client collaborate to co-create solutions. Identify instances where the problem does not exist and create new meanings for themselves.

Key Concepts - Feminist therapy

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Personal is political and a commitment to social change. All types of oppression are recognized. Women's voices are valued and experiences are honored. Focus on strengths.

Key Concepts - Reality therapy

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Focus on what they're doing and how their actions are working for them. People are motivated to satisfy their needs, mainly for significant relationships. Rejection of the medical model, the unconscious, transference, and dwelling on the past.

Key Concepts - Cognitive-behavior therapy

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Problems may be rooted in childhood, but are reinforced by present thinking. Internal dialogue plays a central role in behavior. Focus on examining faulty assumptions and misconceptions and on replacing them with effective beliefs.

Key Concepts - Behavior therapy

2009-03-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

Based on the priniciples of learning theory. Normal behavior is loearned through reinforcement and immitation. Developing specific goals and treatment plans. Abnormal behavior is the result of faulty learning.

Key Concepts - Gestalt therapy

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Emphasis on the here and now of what is happening to help clients accept all of themselves. Include holism, figure-formation process, awareness, unfinished business and avoidance, contact and energy.

Key Concepts - Person-Centered Therapy

2009-03-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

Client has the potential to become aware of problems and the means to resolve them. Mental health is based on bringing the ideal and real self together. Give attention to the present and what the client is experiencing and feeling.

Key Concepts - Existential therapy

2009-03-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Interest is on the present and what one is becoming. Stressing self-awareness before action. Personality is based on the uniqueness of the individual. The sense of self develops from infancy.

Key Concepts - Adlerian therapy

2009-03-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Unify the personality. Life goals give direction to people's behaviors. People are motivated by social interest and finding goals to give life meaning. Understand the family constellation. Therapy provides encouragement and assists clients in changing their perspectives.

Key Concepts - Psychoanalytic therapy

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To resolve the psychosexual stages of development, in which faulty personality developments can occur. Repressing conflicts results in anxiety. Unconscious thoughts are related to current behavior.