Archive for ‘The Schools of Psychology (Part IV)’

I particularly enjoyed studying Rogers and his theory about client centered therapy. For as long as I could remember, I always thought about counseling and therapy as a setting where the therapist controlled the conversation and directed the client toward the goal of therapy, which a lot of different kinds of therapies do. But in reading about Rogers, I really liked that he put the goal of therapy and how to get there in the client’s hands. Most people don’t like being told what to do or how to do it, since that it human nature to an extent, and client centered therapy gives them that reign of control for themselves. I went through therapy myself when I was younger for some family issues, but the therapist was always directing our sessions and I always felt like I wasn’t in charge of anything. They even told me how I was supposed to feel on some occasions. (That I vaguely remember because it was about 6 years ago) But I feel as though if I had gone through some type of therapy like Rogers described in his theory, I would have had a better experience than I did.

I really like Rodgers! I really like his perspective on the client. I agree with him about the client setting the goals of therapy and the direction to get there. I thought it was cool to learn that he came up with the idea of client, instead of patient. I think it makes the person feel like a real person, instead of a sick patient. When the client is engaged and involved in the process, it makes them feel like a productive participant. I do feel that deep down that we all have the answers inside; its just a matter of digging deep to find the truth. Also, I found the battle between rodgers and Skinner to be interesting. Enventhough they had there differences, they both have contributed to the school of psychology. Though they dissagreed, I am sure that deep down they had some sort of respect for one another. I find it also interesitng that the way they were raised by there parents had such an impact in there lives. I really learned many valuable theories in this course. I will be able to use these theories to help others in my career. I feel that we all have something to offer the school of psychology.

In reading about the theorists and their personal lives I was really struck by two things in particular. The first thing that I found really interesting was the deep connection between how their personal lives influenced their theories. Taking your life experiences and moving towards learning about humans and making other’s lives better is a really an accomplishment. This also made me very thankful for research and it’s support of these theories. Working without the support of research has the potential to be very damaging.

The second thing that I found really interesting was how many of the theorists had many personal issues or traumatic situations in their lives that reflects in their work.  I think this shows that despite difficulties that people may have experienced they can work through it to make it useful or beneficial for others. No one’s lives are perfect, and I think it’s important to stop focusing on the imperfections and focus on doing something worthwhile.

I’ve always thought that Carl Rogers’ humanistic theory had a neat perspective.  The three characteristics of unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding, and congruence allow the main focus to be on the development of wholeness and identity in the client.  Although the idea that the therapist does not give the client any answers can be controversial in regards to how effective the approach is, I think it’s extremely influential on a client’s ability to develop a self-identity and individual beliefs without influence of another opinion.  A client-centered approach based on genuineness really creates an open environment for a client to feel comfortable in being accepted for all of their weaknesses as well as their strengths.  It gives a client the confidence to be genuinely honest with the therapist if the therapist returns the genuine response in therapy.  I think that this approach carries with it much significance because it allows the client to have a mind of his/her own, which I think is greatly important.  It allows a client to develop a solution to his/her own problem after contemplating many perspectives and thoughts, and they can discover for themselves their confidence and worth as a person who is insightful and can make wise decisions.

In both my previous philosophy class and this psychology class, I’ve always really gotten into the study of third-force psychology–more specifically, existential psychology. Many of my favorite philosophers–Viktor Frankl, Soren Kierkegaard, and others–were existentialists, and I really respect and admire the way they put so much effort into truly living life to the fullest. Frankl, for instance, was a Holocaust survivor, and the fact that he could go through such a tragedy and still find meaning and purpose in a world that was so cruel to him is very impressive. All of these philosophers were very interested in the idea of living life “authentically,” or living true to your ideals and personality despite the external pressures that the world throws your way.

I love this idea, and I think that if everyone lived authentically, in theory, the world would be a better place. However, with authenticity comes the idea of subjective truth. If everyone is deciding what is best or true for themselves, then there are going to be many different truths bouncing around. That may be ok, to a point, but it also means that people who are very committed to a less than admirable goal are also being authentic by being “true” to their devotion to the idea, whatever it may be. For example, does that mean Hitler, who was very devoted to his cause and really thought he was in the right, was living authentically? I don’t know, but it’s a scary thought.

We just went over Rogers in class. Now I’m glad we saved the best until now. If I had had to listen to Freudian psychoanalysis after a far better theory(of Rogers) I probably would have fallen asleep. Basically, Rogers was a beast. He observed the “truth” around him, discerned its falsehood, and had the balls to step up and not only shed light on the almost worthlessness of Freudian theory, but invent a new, much better form himself.
Why does Rogers’ theory work better than Freud’s?
Rogers’ is easily falsifiable(compared to Freud’s)
Rogers’ is powerful because it motivates the client to help himself, instead of having faith in the counselor.
Rogers’ doesn’t have assumptions. It tackles everything it can through an honest and open relationship.

If I go to counseling, it’ll be Rogers-inspired. If I ever preform counseling, it will be Rogers-inspired. And if I ever tell a joke about counseling, it will be Freud-inspired.

I think that I can relate most to Carl Rogers’ theory. It seems like it would be simply to apply it to a typical modern therapy session for someone who has emotional problems – someone like me. It is also applicable to other major disorders, but I feel that the other theorists have had more extreme theories that seem harder to reach and put into practice. His three qualities of an ideal therapeutic relationship simply create a comfortable environment for the client. This seems like something that I can actually do, something that interests me as a naturally compassionate person. It creates a different type of challenge for the therapist to aid the client in trusting them and discovering their own insecurities and flaws without any criticism or judgment. This fosters actual change of heart in the client, and breakthrough in behavior follows. Genuineness is something that is essential in all healthy relationships. Empathy is vital as well, because putting yourself in someone else’s shoes puts a whole new light on your view of their situation. Overall I agree most with Rogers’ theory over the other theorists. All have some truth to them, with things to pick and pull to use in developing my own theory.

I was actually saving this class till I was an upperclassman because I was scared about the difficulty of the course. But now looking back over the semester, I think I have learned more about how to be an effective asset in counseling more than any other. By learning about all the different schools and techniques It has taught me that there is no right way to counsel people. All of these great theorists have developed very effective techniques in helping people. In the beginning of the semester when Dr. McAnulty asked me if I thought that studying these theorists was important. I had no idea how important it was actually going to be. I feel much more educated in my field and have realized that studying these psychologists will make me a better counselor in the long run.

Being a very concrete and realistic person makes accepting subjective data very hard for me.    Behavioral therapy is probably my most favorite because of the objectivism and empirical evidence that can be drawn from it.  But at the same time, the unconscious aspect of the mind intrigues me greatly.  I also find techniques that attempt to tap into and evaluate the unconscious very interesting.  I greatly enjoy reading about and trying to understand techniques such as hypnosis, dream analysis, free association, and even ink blot tests.  It makes me think of the old saying, “We only use 10% of our brains.”  Although this statement is widely disregarded by the scientific community, I think that it sheds light onto the vast and relatively unexplored unconscious.  I think that Freud and his followers did a great job of raising awareness and attempting to explain this unconscious portion of the mind.  I think that as technology advances and our understanding of the mind becomes more complete, that we will see some astonishing progress in this area.  I for one would love to see more of these techniques that are supported by sufficient objective facts.  I am interested in whether or not you guys think that objective data will ever be able to measure the dynamics of the unconscious.

Sigmund Freud was a very interesting man with some very interesting ideas. In my opinion, however, Freud makes some very questionable leaps in his theories. While I do agree that there are many processes that take place subconsciously, I tend to disagree with Freud that obscure symbols in dreams always have some sort of hidden meaning. I also disagree with the jumps that he makes in his interpretations. For example, Freud once interpreted a boy’s fear of horses to be a fear of his father because the horse wore blinders and had prominent parts and the father wore glasses and was fully grown. Things like that kind of reminded me of the clip from Monty Python that we watched at the beginning of the year about a woman accused of being a witch. To determine whether or not she was, they made giant leaps in logic that are really very comical. The other criticism that I have with Freud’s psychoanalysis is that you can’t tell if it actually does any good. As Dr. McAnulty said during class, “Psychoanalysis is like mental masturbation. It’s interesting and it feels good, but it doesn’t get anything done.” I feel like with Freud’s interpretations, he could just make anything mean whatever he wanted, and that what he did, for the most part, probably didn’t help that many people.