Intro to counseling mod 7

Person-centered, Carl Rogers

Core Frameworks & Pillars Roadmap

• on actualizing tendency and therapeutic conditions.

Existential Therapy, Yalom and Frankl

Core Frameworks & Pillars Roadmap

• on ultimate concerns and meaning-making.

Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls

Core Frameworks & Pillars Roadmap

• on holistic integration and here-and-now awareness.

Beyond Determinism

The “Third Force” in Psychology

• Directly challenging psychoanalytic reductionism and mechanistic behaviorism by centering human agency, choice, and conscious experience

Phenomenological Focus

The “Third Force” in Psychology

• prioritizing the client’s internal frame of reference. Understanding that subjective reality dictates behavior more powerfully than objective history.

Innate Growth Drive

The Actualizing Tendency

• Rogers posited that every individual possesses a natural constructive directional flow toward greater complexity, autonomy, and self-actualization if provided fertile conditions.

Conditions of Worth

The Actualizing Tendency

• Psychological distress arises when external evaluations are internalized, forcing the self-concept to diverge from organismic valuing processes.

Congruence

3 Necessary & Sufficient of Conditions

Key principle : These three attitudes must be experienced by the client to be effective.

1. (Authentic presence) - therapist transparency and authentic realness within the encounter.

Unconditional Regard

3 Necessary & Sufficient of Conditions

Key principle : These three attitudes must be experienced by the client to be effective.

2. (Radical Acceptance) - Total non-possessive warmth and acceptance without judgement. 

Empathetic Understanding

3 Necessary & Sufficient of Conditions

Key principle : These three attitudes must be experienced by the client to be effective.

3. (Deep resonance) - Accurate sensing of the client’s internal frame of reference.

Clinical Wisdom of Carl Jung

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”

Philosophy as Practice

Confronting Human Existence

• existential therapy is not a set of techniques, but an attitude toward human suffering. It invites clients to examine the given parameters of the human condition.

Agency & Responsibility

Confronting Human Existence

• We are the authors of our own lives. Avoiding this realization breeds anxiety, whereas embracing it unlocks personal liberation and authentic creation.

Viktor Frankl, Rollo May, Irivin Yalom.

Key figures of Existential Therapy

Freedom of Will

 Logotherapy & The will to meaning (Viktor Frankl)

• Dimension 1 : humans retain absolute autonomy to choose their attitude in any circumstance.

Will to meaning

 Logotherapy & The will to meaning (Viktor Frankl)

• Dimension II : primary human drive is discovering purpose, exceeding tension reduction.

Meaning to suffering

 Logotherapy & The will to meaning (Viktor Frankl)

• Dimension III :  Tragic optimism : finding profound significance through unavoidable adversity.

Creation & Work

Three pathways to discovering meaning

1. (productive action) - by doing a deed, creating a work, or fulfilling a professional/creative task.

Experience & Encounter

Three pathways to discovering meaning

2. (receptive connection) - by experiencing something or encountering someone (love, art, nature).

Attitude toward suffering

Three pathways to discovering meaning

3. (transformed stance) - by the attitude we take toward unavoidable, immutable human suffering.

Death

The Four Ultimate Concerns of Existence (Irvin Yalom)

Inherent Conflict

•  Inevitability vs. Anxiety, awakening to vital, authentic living.

Freedom

The Four Ultimate Concerns of Existence (Irvin Yalom)

Inherent Conflict

• groundlessness and complete personal responsibility for choice.

Existential Isolation

The Four Ultimate Concerns of Existence (Irvin Yalom)

Inherent Conflict

• Unbridgeable gulf between self and all other human beings.

Meaninglessness

The Four Ultimate Concerns of Existence (Irvin Yalom)

Inherent Conflict

• the terrifying task of constructing personal life purpose.
  
  

The Organismic Whole

Gestalt Therapy : Holistic Integration (Fritz Perls)

• focuses on the entire person—body, emotions, thoughts, and environment. Rejects intellectual fragmentation in favor of direct sensory experience and bodily awareness.

The “Here and Now”

Gestalt Therapy : Holistic Integration (Fritz Perls)

• shifts clinical dialogue from abstract past recollections to immediate present-moment awareness. “What” and “how” replace endless “why” analysis.

Core Maxim

Gestalt Therapy : Holistic Integration (Fritz Perls)

 “Lose your mind and come to your senses”.

Introjection

Contact & Boundary Disturbances

Boundary Disturbance

• swallowing beliefs whole without digesting or integrating them into true self.

Projection

Contact & Boundary Disturbances

Boundary Disturbance

• disowning aspects of oneself and attributing them outward onto others.

Confluence

Contact & Boundary Disturbances

Boundary Disturbance

• blurring the boundary between self and environment to avoid conflict

Person-Centered (Rogers)

Comparative Clinical Matrix

• nurturing climate, unconditional acceptance, removing conditions of worth.

Existential (Frankl & Yalom)

Comparative Clinical Matrix

• confronting ultimate concerns discovering meaning amidst life limitations.

Gestalt (Perls)

Comparative Clinical Matrix

• experiential experiments, present-moment awareness holistic integration.

Presenting Issue

Case Vignette : Applying Humanistic Lenses

• A 34 year old corporate executive reports chronic emptiness, burnout, and feeling like a fraud despite massive career success.

Therapeutic Intervention

Case Vignette : Applying Humanistic Lenses

• moving beyond symptom reduction to explore conditions of worth, existential meaninglessness, and repressed organismic desires using experiential experiments.