Theories of Counselling

Running head: THEORIES OF COUNSELLING
Theories of Counselling
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THEORIES OF COUNSELLING1
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, psychodynamic theory believes that every human being experiences
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