Counseling Theories Comprehensive Study Set

Vocabulary flashcards covering major counseling theories, founders, key principles, techniques, and terminology from the lecture notes.

Id

The personality structure in psychoanalytic theory governed by the pleasure principle.

Ego

The personality structure in psychoanalytic theory governed by the reality principle.

Superego

The personality structure in psychoanalytic theory governed by morality.

Free Association

A psychoanalytic technique in which the client says whatever comes to mind without censoring thoughts, allowing the therapist to observe themes, discrepancies, omissions, and excesses.

Transference

A psychoanalytic phenomenon where the client redirects feelings, patterns, and expectations from earlier relationships onto the therapist.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism involving the channeling of unacceptable impulses into constructive, socially acceptable outlets or activities.

Social Interest (Community Feeling)

An Adlerian concept describing a person's sense of connection, contribution, and concern for the welfare of others and the community.

Family Constellation

An Adlerian assessment structure that includes family membership, individual roles, and interaction patterns among family members.

Inferiority Feelings

Feelings of inadequacy that naturally motivate growth and striving for significance, but can become discouraging if excessive.

Early Recollections

An Adlerian assessment technique used to understand a client's lifestyle, interpretations, goals, and patterns of meaning.

Confrontation (Adlerian)

A curious, respectful therapeutic exploration of inconsistencies and discrepancies in the client's thinking or behavior.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of shared, inherited psychological patterns across humanity that are expressed through archetypes.

Archetype

A recurring universal symbolic pattern in Jungian theory, including entities such as the persona, shadow, and anima/animus.

Object Relations

A post-Freudian branch emphasizing that development, individuation, and adult relational patterns are shaped by the nature of early caregiver relationships and internalized representations.

Self Psychology

A post-Freudian theory emphasizing empathy, vicarious introspection, and early relationships that support a cohesive self.

Classical Conditioning

A behavioral learning process pioneered by Pavlov in which learning occurs through stimulus association.

Operant Conditioning

A behavioral learning process pioneered by B. F. Skinner in which behaviors are shaped and influenced by their consequences.

Positive Reinforcement

A behavioral procedure where a desirable consequence is added to increase the frequency of a target behavior.

Negative Reinforcement

A behavioral procedure where an unpleasant condition is removed to increase the frequency of a behavior; it is not punishment.

Modeling

An observational learning process identified by Albert Bandura where learning occurs through watching another person's behavior and its outcomes.

Functional Behavior Assessment (ABC)

A behavioral evaluation method that identifies the target behavior, its purpose or function, and its maintaining factors through Antecedents, Behaviors, and Consequences.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

A cognitive behavioral approach founded by Albert Ellis focusing on identifying and actively disputing irrational beliefs to create effective new beliefs.

Automatic Thoughts

Quick, habitual, situation-specific interpretations that shape immediate emotional and behavioral reactions.

Core Beliefs

Deep, underlying schemas and assumptions about oneself, others, and the world that influence ongoing interpretations.

Cognitive Restructuring

A cognitive behavioral technique of identifying, testing, and modifying unhelpful thoughts to develop balanced, adaptive interpretations.

Five Basic Needs (Glasser)

The core drivers in Reality Therapy: survival, love/belonging, power/achievement, freedom/independence, and fun/pleasure.

Quality World

A Reality Therapy concept representing an individual's personal internal pictures of desired people, activities, values, and things.

Total Behavior

A Reality Therapy concept comprising four inseparable components: acting and thinking (the front wheels under direct control) and feeling and physiology (the back wheels under indirect control).

WDEP System

Robert Wubbolding's Reality Therapy framework: Wants (exploring desires), Doing/direction (what the client is doing), self-Evaluation (is it working?), and Planning (achievable action).

Third-Wave CBT

Contemporary cognitive behavioral approaches that integrate traditional strategies with mindfulness, acceptance, values, and one's relationship to thoughts.

Dialectics (DBT)

A philosophical core of DBT developed by Marsha Linehan asserting that seemingly opposite truths—specifically acceptance and change—can coexist.

Wise Mind ACCEPTS

A DBT distress tolerance skill acronym: Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Pushing away, Thoughts, and Sensations.

Experiential Avoidance

An ACT concept referring to attempts to avoid, escape, or alter unwanted inner experiences in ways that lead to long-term suffering.

Cognitive Defusion

An ACT technique of stepping back to see thoughts simply as mental events or words rather than literal truths, facts, or commands.

Hexaflex

The six core processes of psychological flexibility in ACT: present moment awareness, acceptance, defusion, self-as-context, values, and committed action.

Decentering

An MBCT skill involving observing thoughts from an objective distance as passing mental events rather than reflections of reality.

Being Mode

An MBCT state characterized by nonjudgmental present-moment awareness, contrasting with the problem-solving and ruminative 'doing mode'.

Early Maladaptive Schemas

Enduring, self-defeating emotional and cognitive patterns developed during childhood from unmet core emotional needs, as conceptualized by Jeffrey Young.

Schema Coping Styles

The three primary ways individuals respond to triggered maladaptive schemas: surrender, avoidance, and overcompensation.

Limited Reparenting

A Schema Therapy technique where the therapist provides a boundaried, safe therapeutic relationship that partially meets the client's early unmet emotional needs.

Healthy Adult Mode

The adaptive Schema Therapy mode that nurtures the inner child, sets limits on maladaptive coping, and makes constructive, flexible decisions.