Counseling Theories: Exam 1

Are you meant to give advice to clients?

No!

Push them to an idea they might not have had before instead

Suggesting

What do you do if a client expresses suicidal ideation?

Stop everything and address it!

Do they have the means to do it?

No? good!

Yes? worrying

Corey mentions in the textbook an important thing that will happen with your relationship with your client. What is it?

Client slowly feeling like your best friend and less like client and therapist

Develops a sense of trust, rapport

Empty chair counseling

Tell an empty chair what you feel, out loud

Angst/negative feelings go away or alleviate

Good when you don’t have the opportunity to talk to the person you have negative feelings for, or can’t talk to them.

Magic wand method

Waves 3 times

What would you change each time?

Gives you a good sense of what’s wrong or bothering you

Eclectic Counseling

Using parts of various theories in your practice.

What are supervisors?

People who you can turn to for help or advice

Not exactly in charge of you

Psychoanalytic theory

Created by Sigmund Freud

Human behavior is driven by unconscious desires most of the time

Unconscious state —> dreams are the key to your unconscious

Person-Centered therapy

Created by Carl Rogers

Unconditional positive regard: every person is a good person with good intentions

Let client set pace and realize the value of their input

Behavior Therapy

Created by B.F. Skinner

Believed we were all blank slates and our experiences shaped our behavior

What happens now will build our character

We’re the product of things that happen to us

-Genetics don’t matter

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Most common type of therapy

How you think governs how you act

Thinking —> actions

What should the client feel after leaving the 1st session?

a. sad

b. worried

c. optimistic

d. self-conscious

c. Optimistic!

What happens if you take your work home? Take someone else’s problems as your own?

Get burn out

Work will become tiring and you won’t enjoy it anymore

What should we do with silence?

Let it be

Don’t try to fill the silence every time

Leave room for reflection

What should you do instead of give advice to clients?

Give them the tools to make their own decisions.

What should you do to avoid burnout?

Don’t take work home

Exercise

Have your own therapist

Good nutrition

Be in nature

Have good relationships with your family and friends

What is flooding?

Being surrounded/flooded with a stimulus.
Part of behaviorism

What is positive reinforcement?

Reinforcing a behavior by adding a reward.

What is negative reinforcement?

Strengthening a behavior by removing an unpleasant stimulus.

What should you look for as an observer?

Body language

-Posture

-Sweaty palms

-Eye contact

What they’re wearing

Neat, dirty hair

Sitting close or far

Mood

Personality (serious, humorous, anxious)

What is a tell?

Something someone does without noticing

(Ex. eye twitching, fidgeting)

Why do you need to listen 100% of the time?

Clients might throw a topic out of nowhere into conversation as if it doesn’t matter. That’s what you should pay attention to; red flag of something they want to avoid talking about that’s important.

How can you use positive affirmation?

By building them up.

Ex. I’m glad you came in; what you said was very brave.

What is paraphrasing?

Reiterating what a client said

About a sentence or so

What is summarizing?

Reiterating a lot of dialogue that the client said, summarizing it.