Theories in Counselling COU101 Theory 2022

Running head: THEORIES IN COUNSELLING /COU101 1
Theories in Counselling /COU101
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THEORIES IN COUNSELLING /COU101 2
Theories in Counselling /COU101
Introduction
Stress is one of the major psychological challenges affecting individuals globally. In most
cases, stress results in severe health problems including depression and anxiety among others. To
avoid such diseases, stress victims are subjected to counseling sessions. Counseling is a
discipline that focuses on understanding individuals’ distress and looking into ways of
minimizing or avoiding such distress. These sessions are usually conducted by specialized
healthcare professionals such as psychotherapists and counselors. To easily comprehend
psychological challenges, counselors apply the psychotherapy theories (Capuzzi & Stauffer,
2016). Such theories provide the appropriate framework to understand the victims’ feelings,
emotions, thoughts, and behaviors for diagnosis and treatment.
Similarities
There are two major counseling theories; the person-centered therapy and gestalt therapy.
Although the two can be categorized as counseling theories, they can be compared and
contrasted in diverse ways. To start with, both theories possess limited focal points. They tend to
categorize all clients’ problems within a single diagnosis with the assumption that personal and
self-structured experiences are incongruent (Rijn & Wild, 2013). Thus, therapists and counselors
tend to apply the same counseling procedures for all clients. However, there is a need to put in
mind that clients’ mental problems come from diverse experiences, hence require diverse
counseling processes.
On another note, both counseling models focus on backing the status quo of the clients
rather than integrating all the factors that influence human behavior. When conducting the
therapy sessions, the counselors tend to ignore other equally influential factors of behavior such

THEORIES IN COUNSELLING /COU101 3
as the cultural as well as the socio-environmental factors (Joseph & Murphy, 2013). However,
aspects such as poverty, and racial abuse equally influence the clients’ behavioral conditions. As
a result, the therapists end up with the wrong interpretation of the clients’ behavior analysis.
Also, the two theories are based on the rigidity of the therapists. Such rigidity occurs
because most counselors’ work is dependent on the flaws and theoretical interpretations. Also,
this happens because the theories rely on the individual’s environmental experiences of clients
and counselors. Nevertheless, not all behavioral conditions will be analyzed by applying the
defined theoretical perspectives (Rijn & Wild, 2013). Such implies that counseling sessions
require the therapist to be flexible to diverse behavioral conditions of the clients.
The most plausible fact about these theories is that both strive to ensure an individuals’
psychological challenges are minimized or eliminated. Although each therapy has its deductions,
they tend to complement each other. For instance, while the person-centered theory mainly
concentrates on the person rather than the problem, the gestalt theory goes further to analyze the
influential factors leading to a person’s behavior. One of the major causes of crime in the world
today is the youth addiction to drugs (Kuhns et al., 2017). As a result, this poses a serious threat
to the future workforce in the global economy. However, with such fundamental theoretical
concepts, the global workforce economy is secured. Moreover, if such therapies are utilized
appropriately, the psychological problems will be minimized to a greater extent, if not
eliminated. The other plausible fact about these theories is that they can be applied over a wide
range of study fields. Although their work is mostly related to the healthcare sector, better health
is a basic requirement for all human beings. Similarly, mental health problems can affect anyone.
Without better health, there will be no productivity in the social, economic, and cultural sectors