This essay elaborates on presenting an essay on company two theories of counselling in light to different academic sources. The two chosen theories for this purpose are psychodynamic theory and behaviour theory.
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Running head: THEORIES OF COUNSELLING Theories of Counselling Name of the Student: Name of the University: Author note:
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1THEORIES OF COUNSELLING Counselling theories are considered to be the building blocks of profession. Some of the leading counselling theorists include Albert Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Rogers etc. (Leighton, 2016). This essay shall elaborate on presenting an essay on company two theories of counselling in light to different academic sources. The two chosen theories for this purpose are psychodynamic theory and behaviour theory. These two theories are two major theories of personality and they view personality from two different perspectives. Firstly, it is to mention that psychodynamic approach or theory is guided by a core principle that claims that unconscious human mind harbours the deep rooted memories and feelings that have the possibility of affecting their behaviours (Hanna, 2015). This theory was evolved from the work of Sigmund Freud during his investigation of the unconscious mind and this is why this theory is based on his idea that “true knowledge of people and their problems is possible through an understanding of three areas of human mind”. These areas include- the conscious, the unconscious and the subconscious. However, in contrast to the psychodynamic theory, the behavioural theory of counselling focuses on the assumption that it is the environment that determines the behaviour of an individual. The way in which an individual responds to a particular situation is the outcome of his or her past learning and his behaviour that has been reinforced in past. It is to note that this theory was developed by Wolpe during 1950s and it was evolved from the psychological theories and research of learning that are concerned with the observable behaviour. Secondly,psychodynamictheorybelievesthateveryhumanbeingexperiences conflict and tension in between three different elements of their personalities and they are the Id, the ego and the superego (Janis, 2016). The Id is that part of human personality that is concerned with some satisfying instinctual basic needs for pleasure, food and comfort. Ego, on the other hand, can be referred as the realistic awareness of one’s self. According to (), it is a common and logical sense side of human personality. Finally, superego is developed
2THEORIES OF COUNSELLING from the age of three in a child’s life. It controls and curbs the basic instincts of the Id and might be socially unacceptable by many. It is also to mention that this theory argues that experiences that one experiences that an individual gain during his childhood have a significant impact on their overall development of their adult personality. On the other hand, the behaviourists believe that human behaviour are learned and therefore, they can be unlearned when required (Curtis, 2014). Human personality is viewed as a pattern of the learned behaviours that are development through either operant or classical conditioning and are then further moulded by reinforcing rewards or punishments. It is to note that classical conditioning refers to the process of learning through association and this suggests that individual learns to get connected with neutral stimulus with a reflex response like delight or anger. Operant conditioning on the other hand refers to the process of learning through the results of behaviour. Furthermore,ascomparedtothepsychodynamictheory,aweaknessofthe behavioural theory is that it ignores a part of unconscious. It is to note that as per Goodman and Goodman (2014), cognitive factors can never be overlooked when learning is required to be understood. He have also claimed that punishing or rewarding shape the personality of an individual and cognition has a great impact on the same. With the same, the behavioural approach have mainly tested on animals and this implies that some findings might not be applied to the human beings as humans are much more complex than animals. However, a majorstrengthofbehaviouraltheoryoverpsychodynamictheoryisthatintermsof testability, it focused only on the behaviour that could be observed and tested and this makes it very useful for experiments that are done under laboratory settings where the behaviour could be verified and observed. Psychodynamic theory cannot be scientifically observed and verified.Evennoonecandesignanexperiencethatcouldeffectivelyrefutethe
3THEORIES OF COUNSELLING psychodynamic theory. This makes it difficult to prove where the unconscious do exist or whether the notion of retrained memory is real or not. Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that in terms of testability and methodology, behavioural theory of counselling is much more encompassing as compared to the psychodynamic theory. Unlike the psychodynamic theory that cannot be tested or observed scientifically, the behavioural theory can be easily tested and observed and can thereforebeusedinlaboratorysettingsaswell.Also,behaviouraltheorytakesinto consideration the external environmental influences. Lastly, it is also to mention that majority of the evidences in the psychodynamic theory have been taken from the case studies by Sigmund Freud and they are very subjective and are hard to generalise the outcomes to larger population.
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4THEORIES OF COUNSELLING References: Curtis,K.(2014).Learningtherequirementsforcompassionatepractice:student vulnerability and courage.Nursing Ethics,21(2), 210-223. Goodman, Y. M., & Goodman, K. S. (2014). Vygotsky in a whole language perspective. InMakingsenseoflearnersmakingsenseofwrittenlanguage(pp.98-114). Routledge. Hanna, T. S. (2015). COMMON GROUND: PASTORAL COUNSELING AND ALLIED PROFESSIONAL INTERVENTIONS.Understanding Pastoral Counseling, 181. Janis, I. L. (2016).Psychological stress: Psychoanalytic and behavioral studies of surgical patients. Academic Press. Leighton, T. (2016). Faith as a therapeutic companion: Instructing counselling students on the importofreligion.CanadianJournalofCounsellingandPsychotherapy/Revue canadienne de counseling et de psychothérapie,50(3).