Week 2: Additional counseling theories (Adler, Existential, Reality Therapy, SFBT, MI, Freud, Jung)

Adler - Core Concepts

Inferiority, striving for significance/superiority, social interest, family constellation, birth order, lifestyle

Adler believed people are strongly influenced by their attempts to overcome feelings of inferiority and strive toward significance/mastery.

He also emphasized social interest—our capacity to cooperate with and contribute to other people and society.

⭐ Adler - Private Logic

Personal beliefs/rules about how self, others, and life work. “MY rules about life.”

Adler - Early Recollections

Used to understand a client's lifestyle and worldview

Adler - Social Interest

Concern for, connection with, and contribution to others/society

Existential Therapy

Meaning + freedom + choice + responsibility + authenticity

Viktor Frankl

Logotherapy; finding meaning, including in unavoidable suffering

Irvin Yalom

He is an American Existential Psychiatrist who focused on Existential concerns: death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness

⭐Existential vs. Glasser

Existential = meaning/choice. Glasser = current behavior + wants + “Is it working?”

Glasser / Reality Therapy

Choice, responsibility, wants, current behavior, effectiveness

⭐ WDEP

Wants → Doing/Direction → Evaluation → Planning

⭐ WDEP - Evaluation

Evaluation meaning: “Is what you're doing working?”

SFBT - 4 techniques

Miracle + Exceptions + Scaling + Coping

SFBT - Miracle Question

“If the problem disappeared overnight, what would be different?”

SFBT - Exception Question

“When was the problem absent or less severe?”

SFBT - Scaling Question

Rate something 0–10; explore movement toward goal

SFBT - Coping Question

“How have you managed to keep going despite this?”

MI - OARS

Open questions, Affirmations, Reflections, Summaries

⭐MI - Double Sided Reflection

Reflects both sides of the client's ambivalence

MI - Change Talk: DARN-CAT

Desire, Ability, Reasons, Need → Commitment, Activation, Taking steps

MI - Main Approach

Explore ambivalence and evoke the client's own reasons for change

Freud - Psychoanalysis

Unconscious, early childhood, id/ego/superego, defenses, transference, dreams

Id

Pleasure principle: “I want it NOW.”

Ego

Reality principle: balances id, superego, and reality

Superego

Internalized morals, ideals, right/wrong

⭐Projection

Attribute your own unacceptable feeling to someone else. “I'm angry → YOU'RE angry.”

⭐Displacement

Redirect emotion toward a safer target. “Mad at boss → yell at partner.”

⭐Projection vs. Displacement

Projection changes who HAS the feeling; displacement changes who RECEIVES it

⭐Denial

Refusing to accept reality

⭐Repression

Distressing material kept outside conscious awareness

Rationalization

Create a reasonable-sounding excuse/explanation

Sublimation

Channel unacceptable impulse into a socially acceptable/productive outlet

Jung - Analytical Psychology

Collective unconscious + archetypes + introversion/extroversion

Collective Unconscious

Jung's universal unconscious material shared across humanity

Archetypes

Universal symbolic patterns/images within the collective unconscious

⭐Jung vs. Adler

Jung = shared/universal unconscious; Adler private logic = personal rules

⭐Beck vs. Ellis

Beck = thoughts + evidence 🔎; Ellis = beliefs + must/should + disputation 🚨