Counseling is NOT about:

1. Providing information
2. Having a social conversation
3. Ordinary interviewing
4. Teaching
5. Making logical analysis
6. Advice-giving
7. Problem-solving

Counseling IS ABOUT:
1. The relationship (personal relationship between the counselor and the client - full of
compassion and openness)
2. The problem/issue (the reason: the client has an issue and they want to find someone to
work with. The couselor has to FIND the issue)
3. Goals (The counselor discusses goals with the client. *there’s a difference between just
venting and having a counseling session)
4. Treatment (developing a treatment plan: what should the client do to change their
situation and achieve the goal)

WHY counseling?
usually people come to counseling in moments of real hopelessness and despair

● Change
○ Stress, dissatisfaction or unhappiness which may be caused by disruptive or
difficult life situations
● Prevention
○ Predicting life events that cause stress
○ Adapting to changing life forces
● Life enhancement
○ People want to live a more fulfilling life, want to be more self-aware
○ Developing appreciation or wisdom about life
○ Self-understanding and self development on a deep level

Counseling and Theory

● Functions:
 ○ Set of guidelines to explain
○ A roadmap to:
■ Organize info and observations
■ Explain and conceptualize client’s problems
■ Order and implement particular interventions with clients

Conceptual orientations to counseling

● Psychodynamic
● Existential-Humanistic (focused on the belief in human’s capability to solve problems)
● Behavioral (changing the behavior through actions)
● Cognitive (changing the though patters)

Operative elements of counseling

● Responds to client’s feelings, thinking and action
● A basic acceptance of client’s perceptions and feelings, regardless of outside evaluative
standards
● Confidentiality and privacy
● Counseling is voluntary
● Minimal self-disclosure
● Importance of communication
● Multicultural experience
○ Avoid “cultural encaptusaltion” (don’t assume things, as every client is different
and there isn’t a single way to see things)

Desirable counseling outcomes:

- Different perception and a better understanding of problems and issues
- Acquisition of new responses to old issues
- Development of effective relationships

Sometimes it’s not about changing the outcome, or solving the problem, but learning new
approaches to problems and finding more effective ways of coping.

Stages of counseling
1. Rapport and relationship building - connecting with the cient
2. Assessment or problem definition - try to explore the issues “why counseling”
 3. Goal-setting - destinations out of therapeutic journey
4. Initiating interventions - develop action plans
5. Termination and follow up - evaluate the progress, if goals are achieved we can
terminate

Rapport and relationship building Rapport: psychological climate that emerges from
the interpersonal contact between you and the client
—> an ongoing process throughout the entire
counseling relationship

Skills:
- Reflection on client’s feelings
- Clarification of client’s messages
- Active listening
- Sincerity and genuinity
- Not being judgemental or reactive
- Good verbal and non-verbal skills

Assessment or problem definition ● Collecting main infor about the client (family
history, work history, developmental, reasons
for seeking counseling etc) - we should seek
to learn about the client in multiple ways,e.g
interviewing different people related to the
client, assessment tests etc
● Skills:
○ Observation
○ Inquiry
○ Recording (with a consent)
○ Analyzing (make sense of the things
you’ve heard to have a coherent
understanding)
○ Hypothesis-making

Goal-setting stage` *There should be always a clearly-defined goal for a

session, otherwise there is no direction

*But goals are not that rigid - when new info appear,
we may need to adjust the goals

● Treatment monitoring (how you’re

progressing towards a goal)
● Goals should be mutually defined by the
client and the counselor
● Long term and short term goals (“What are
you hoping to get from counseling?”)
● Skills:
○ Inferential skills (reading between the
lines)
 ○ Differentiation skills (clients may want
to achieve sth immediately, but we
may need to break it down into
smaller steps)
○ Negotiation skills (help the client to
think realistically)

Initiating interventions - A therapeutic plan that is related to the

assessment result, to their theoretical
standpoint of the issue and the resulting
goals that need to be agreed upon
- Skills:
● Knowledge and competency with a specific
intervention (theory)
● Observation skills to read client’s reactions

Termination and follow up If the client is going in the good direction

→ termination takes time, it isn’t something that

can be done in a single session (it may be a
difficult experience for the client)

● Counseling has its ultimate criterion achieved

- review with the client how far they’ve come
and give them suggestions for the future
● Relapse prevention, evaluation, suggestions
and feedback
● Sensitivity, intentionality and forethought
● “Creative crisis” by the client - some clients
may still try to see you after the goals are
achieved, but the goal isn’t to have the client
dependent on us, counseling is just a part of
the journey

Contexts of effective treatment

1. Therapeutic alliance
a. The bonding between the counselor and the client defines whether the
counseling will be successful
2. Characteristics of clients
a. If a client is cooperative and motivated, it’ll be easier to work with them
b. Maturity, capacity for relationships
c. Ability to establish appropriate interpersonal boundaries
d. Introspection and psychological - mindedness
e. High frustration tolerance
f. Understanding of their role in therapy
 g. Demographic backgound
3. Personal and professional characteristics of the counselor
a. We should take a look at ourselves (personality, upbringing, self awareness, self
presentation)
b. Integration of:
i. The person of the counselor
ii. Counseling knowledge
iii. Counseling skills

Counselor qualities:
*They may change throughout life as we go through different stages

(1) Self knowledge

● Aware of:
○ Own needs
○ Own feelings (e.g learning about feelings that we are not comfortable with
and how to deal with them)
○ Own anxieties and defenses (how do we react when people challenge us,
e.g challenge our qualifications, experience, look etc + what are our
defence mechanisms)
○ Own strengths and weaknesses
Its hard to help a client if you can’t deal with the same problems on your own.
We don’t want our personal issues directly in the counseling process

(2) Wholeheartedness

● Enthusiasm and adventurousness

● Characteristics:
○ Reading relevant professional books
○ Seek new life experiences
○ Try new ideas and approaches to counseling to increase competence
○ On-going evaluation of their work

(3) Good psychological health

● Meet needs for security, love, nurturance, power and sex outside the counseling
relationship
● Keep past and present problems out of counseling
● Aware of personal biases and weak spots, avoid projecting own needs onto clients
● Life-enjoying and stimulating (have work-life balance and life outside counseling)

(4) Trustworthiness
● Reliable
● Assure confidentiality
● Non-judgemental and accepting
● Predictable, responsible and professional

(5) Honesty (Congruence)

● Transparent and genuine (presesnt it in a clear and appropriate way, “set the stage” and
prepare the client to hear it. Disclose only what may be beneficial to the client)
● Real self = public self
● Realize that honesty may create anxiety in others
● Have a clear and reasonable understanding of limits of honesty
● Express negative reactions to client appropriately

(6) Strenght (psychological to withstand criticism, negativity etc)

● Set reasonable and appropriate limits (e.g sometimes you need to stop the client talking
and have the strength to say “no”)
● Able to say difficult things and make difficult decisions
● Flexible
● Able to separate from the client’s situation, clear self identity

(7) Warmth

● Kind, caring, compassionate

● Receive adequate warmth in their personal life and able to share it with others
● Distinguish between warmth and effusiveness

(8) Active responsiveness

● Ask questions, be attentive, not be too passive (but also not hyperactive)
● Balance between being hyperactive and passive
● Relate with people
● Challenge clients to become better
● Try to elicit meaningful responses from flients
● Share equal responsibility with clients

(9) Patience

● Allow situations to develop naturally

● Tolerate ambiguity (sometimes things aren’t clear right away)
● Allow clients to follow their own path
● Not afraid to waste time in the interest of growth
● Avoid bringing up insights and questions that would interrupt the growth
 (10) Sensitivity

● Conscious of their own reactions (“does what the client says trigger something in me?
Why? How can I control my reactions?”)
● Know when not to intrude (sometimes the client may need more venting time)
● Aware of own vulnerabilities (sometimes we may need time to pause or not to take some
cases up, e.g to resolve personal issues)

(11) Freeing

● We don’t make decisions for the clients and give them freedom to make their own
choices even if it isn’t the best choice (according to us)
● Place high value on freedom in own lives
● Exercise and value true freedom in the context of counseling friendship (the client will
have a sense of easiness and freedom to say either yes or no without pressure, and
won’t be motivated by intense emotions, guilt etc)

(12) Holistic awareness

● Aware of the whole person and doesn not approach the client with tunnel vision
(integrate different sources and give the client choices, be open to different options and
possibilities)
● Aware of dimensions of personality and their complex interplay (e.g culture, family,
religion)
● Familiari with and open tomany theories of behavior

Pitfalls of beginning counselors:

- Trying to do too much
- Teaching insteac of relating
- Being overly accommodating
- Attributing counseling problem to inexperience
- Assuming a “counseling personality”
- Ruminating after difficult sessions

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
● Freud
View of human nature:
● Deterministic
○ People’s behavior is determined by
■ Unconscious motivations
■ Biological and instinctual drives
■ Certain psychosexual events during the first 5-6 years of development
(they shape our future behavior)

Approaches:

The dynamic approach Nothing happens by chance, there’s always an explanation for
the human behavior and psychological world.
- E.g if you sleep in, its not because you forgot to set an
alarm, but because there’s something that you’re
unconsciously avoiding

Psyche = soul

● Drive theory or instinct theory

● Hypothesis of psychic determinism
● There’s an underlying psychological explanation for your
every though, emotion, impulse and behavior
● Two instincts: eros (life) and thanatos (death)
○ Eros: growth oriented, serves the purpose of the
individual, referred to as libido
○ Thanatos: engaging in dangerous activities,
tendency towards self-destruction, aggressive
drive and behavior

The topographical ● Conscious

approach ● Preconscious
● Unconscious
The developmental stage ● 5 stages of psychosexual development
approach ● The source of pleasure is different at different stages
○ In order to “move” to the next stage, the needs
from the previous stages have to be met.
○ Too much or too little gratification of psychosexual
needs may cause fixation and obsession (e.g
smoking, drinking, overeating)
● Oral stage (1) - birth to 1yo
● Anal stage (2) - 1-3 yo
● Phallic stage (3) 3-6yo
○ Oedipus complex (a sexual desire towards the
parent of the opposite sex)
● Latency stage (4) - 6-12yo
● Genital stage (5) - 12+ yo

The structural approach

Defense mechanisms

● Developed to ward off unacceptable ID impulses that are at odds with superego
standards or that would result in problems within the real world. - they help to combat
anxiety.
● Clients are often unaware of these mechanisms, but they’re affected by it daily. The
unconscious memories are acted out, rather than directly recalled.

REPRESSION Involuntary removal of painful memories or experiences

(unconsciously)

DENIAL Refusal to believe the reality (sometimes it may be helpful in the

critical period right after sth traumatic happens)

REACTION FORMATION Changing hard emotions to the opposite, e.g instead of loving
sth, you hate it in order to protect yourself

PROJECTION Internal unacceptable qualities or ourselves are seen as qualifies

of others - happens often in counseling

DISPLACEMENT We take our own frustrations onto innocent people (often in family
dynamics)

SUBLIMATION Unacceptable impulses are redirected to socially acceptable

goals, e.g sports, music

REGRESSION People try to go back to previous development stages (e.g

behaviors that are done by kids, babies or e.g adults behaving
like teenagers)

Therapeutic goals:
● To make the unconscious conscious
● To help the client develop greater ego-control or self control over unhealthy or
maladaptive impulses

Basic techniques (by Freud)

- Maintaining the analytic framework (keeping the same schedule of meetings, same
clothing, same place etc)
- Free associations (the areas where the client got stuck are the areas where sth is
blocking the client - “doors to the unconscious”)
- Dream analysis (“roads to the unconscious”)
- Analysis and interpretation of resistance (e.g client misses appointments, is unwilling
to talk —> these are hints)
- Analysis and interpretation of transference (e.g sometimes the client may blame you
and project many things onto you, which may be a hint about what’s bothering them)
BEHAVIORAL THERAPY
→ no belief in free will (things are determined by external forces, behavior is controlled by
environment)
→ derived from scientific reserach
→ originated in 1950s and 1960s
→ 3 major historical stages:
1. Behaviorism as a scientific endeavor (multiple experiments),
2. Behavioral therapy,
3. Cognitive behavioral therapy

→ Modern view:
● Person as both producer and product of the environment
● Action - oriented (we can change many things rather than be determined by them)
● Cognitive process
● Responsibility for one’s behavior

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS:
● Based on principles and procedures of scientific method
● Maladaptive behavior is the result of learning
● Behavior therapy deals with client’s current problems and the factors influencing them
● Clients involved in behavior therapy are expected to resume an active role
(action-oriented approach)
● Equipping the client with skills of self-management
● Focus on direct assessment of behavior, problem identification and evaluating change
● Based on collaborative partnership between therapist and client
● Emphasis on practical applications
● Finding ways to unlearn bad behaviors and build new ones
Important names

Ivan Pavlov Classical conditioninig

● When a specific stimuli is associated
with a specific response (e.g Pavlov’s
dog salivated on the sound of the bell,
because the bell meant that it’s
feeding time)

John Watson Learned neurosis

Experiment: Little Albert (11 months old)

● Thesis: fearful response is learned
● Tried to make little Albert fearful of
rats by associating a lound (scary)
sound with a rat, eventually worked
out

(He emphasized the importance of

studying observable behavior and
rejected the study of internal mental
processes. Watson believed that all
behavior is learned, and he aimed to
explain how it could be understood and
controlled)
Mary Cover Jones Counter-conditioning

Experiment: Little Peter

● Thesis: can we help unlearn fearful
responses?
● Little Peter was initially afraid of furry
object like rabbits, but then when
Jones made him associate his fav
food with rabbits, he stopped being
scared of them
B.F Skinner Operant conditioning
● Using rewards and punishment to
modify behavior
● What is rewarded is likely to be
repeated, what is punished is likely to
be stopped

Albert Bandura Social Cognitive Theory (formely: Social

Learning Theory
Major areas of development

Operant conditioning (Skinner) → behavior is a function of it’s consequences

● Reinforcement (the goal: to increase

behavior)
○ Positive: addition of sth
○ Negative: removal of sth
● Punishment (the goal: to decrease
behavior)
○ Positive: addition
○ Negative: removal

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov) Food → salivation

Food and bell together → salivation
Bell → salivation

Unconditioned stimulus (US) (food) —-->

unconditioned response (UR) (natural
response - salivation)

US (food) and Natural Stimulus together (bell

- usually doesn’t cause a response)

Neutral stimulus (bell) has become a

conditioned stimulus (CS) —> Conditioned
response

● If there’s no stimulus, the association

with response will eventually go
extinct

PRINCIPLES:
● Stimulus generalization - conditioned
response related to a new stimuli (e.g
 the fear is extended to new settings
and situations, things that are similar)
● Stimulus discrimination - conditioned
response is not triggered in new
situations
● Extinction - gradual elimination of a
condition or a response
● Counter conditioning - a new
associative learning, we’re learning a
new positive response to a
conditioned simulus (replacement of
fear with sth pleasant)

Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura) + Observational learning (modeling) - behaviors

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be learned by observation of others, e.g
others getting rewarded by a behavior, even if
we are not getting rewarded ourselves

(it’s important that the model is not “too ideal”

so the client feels that achieving the same
goals is possible)

● Attention
● Retention
● Motor production
● Motivation

Works well for clients who are:

- results -oriented
- Practical
- Problem-solvers,
- Have a short-term problem

“Philosophers’ types (insightful ones) may

find CBT too superficial)

Therapeutic goals:
● To help clients develop adaptive and supportive behaviors to different situations

Steps in treatment:
1. Describe the problem
2. Obtain a baseline (the standard for measurement how bad the problem is)
 3. Establish goals
4. Develop strategies to facilitate change
5. Client implements the plan
6. Assess progress and evaluate success
7. Make plans to promote maintenance of gains and relapse prevention

Assessment Issues and Procedures (Behavioral Therapy)

● Behavioral ABC
○ A = Antecedents - the trigger that triggers the behavior - stimulus
○ B = Behavior (problematic behavior
○ C = Consequences of behavior (is the behavior being reinforced?)
● Clinical or behavioral interview? (When does it happen? What
time/day/circumstances/context?)
● Self-monitoring (describing own’s behavior, e.g recording the behavior)
● Standardized Questionnaires
● Other measures
Therapeutic Alliance
● Role of the therapist
○ Consultant, supporter, role model, encourager, facilitator
● Clients
○ Take responsibility to present their concerns, identify their goals, implement plans
for change
○ Try out new behaviors, complete tasks between sessions, self-monitor, provide
feedback

Behavioral Strategies

● Operant conditioning and variants

1. Identify the behavior (increase or decrease them?)
a. What are the specific behaviors that you want to deal with?
b. Client has to help with identifying the ABCs.
2. Develop measurement system
3. Identify contingencies that either maintain the problem/discourage
desirable behavior
a. What may be the potential reinforcer/ things one likes
4. Modification of existing environmental and social contingencies
a. Specific time (e.g parents give $300 allowance on weekly basis,
every friday at 5PM)
b. Usually teenagers need multiple reinforcing practices
 c. If its a new behavior, positive reinforcement should be more
frequent, but once the desired behavior is achieved, it’s good to
space positive reinforcement out
5. Relaxation training (based on an assumption that muscle tension is a
reason for anxiety)
a. Progressive muscle relaxation
b. Breathing techniques
c. Modeling
d. Problem solving (e.g brainstorming different solutions in different
scenarios)
e. Skills training (e.g assertiveness training)
f. Exposure therapy (introducing clients to the situation that
contributed to such problems under carefully controlled conditions
(e.g imaginal, real life, VR etc)’

BEHAVIORAL VS COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL

BT: Stimulus —--> Organism —-> Response

CBT: Stimulus —---> Thinking process (individual interpretation) —-> response (depends on the
thinking process)

Attributes of CBT:
● Collaborative relationship between the client and the therapist
● Psychological distress is largery a function of disturbances in cognitive processes
(disturbances are related to one’s thinking)
● Time-limited and educational treatment focused on specific target problems
● Drawn from a variety of cognitive and behavioral strategies to bring about change

REBT vs CT

REBT - Rational Emotive Behavior Human nature

Therapy ● Neutral view of human nature
By Albert Ellis ● Humans are born with potential for
both rational and irrational thinking
● Humans have a tendency to thinking
in irrational ways

Emotions
● Humans learn irrational beliefs from
significant others during childhood
● We create irrational dogmas and
 superstitions by ourselves (e.g
traditions, customs, behaviors - we
internalize it)
● We actively reinforce self-defeating
beliefs by autosuggestion and
self-repeptition
● Blame is at the core of most emotional
disturbances

IRRATIONAL BELIEFS —-> MALADAPTIVE

THINKING
● They include absolute thinking, there
isnt much flexibility
● Self-centered approach - focuses only
on our own experience

“It is horrible when people and things are not

the way I want them to be”

“I should feel fear and anxiety about

everything that is unknown, uncertain or
potentially dangerous”

FIVE COMPONENTS OF REBT:

1. People adhere to irrational ideas
2. These irrational ideas cause people
distress
3. These idas are boiled down to a few
basic categories
4. Therapists can identify these irrational
ideas in the client’s reasoning
5. Therapists can teach clients how to
give up these irrational beliefs and
change into more adaptive thinking

ABC Theory of personality

● A: Activating event
● B: Beliefs
● C: Consequences (Emotional and
Behavioral)
● D*: Disputing intervention
● E: Effective Philosophy

The counselor has to identify A, B, C, we

hope that D, E will be better if the thinking
process changes

D: Disputing process:
1. Detecting → try to identify irrational
thoughts
 2. Debating → asking empirical
questions, trying to show a different
perspective
3. Discriminating → try to help the client
to develop healthy ways of thinking
(e.g thinking more realistically)

REBT TECHNIQUES:
→ cognitive methods
● Disputing irrational beliefs
(loosening/challenging the absolute
thinking)
● Doing cognitive homework (worksheet
with different types of irrational beliefs
and consequences)
● Changing one’s language (change
their “must”, “shoud” etc into softer
words. E.g depressing into awful)
● Using humor (making jokes to change
client’s perspective)

→ emotive techniques
● Rational-emotive imagery (client
closes their eyes and imagines a
situation that brings up negative
emotions. Later, they’re asked to
change their emotions to try to lessen
the feelings and then make them
disappear)
● Role-playing (role play with the
therapist, the client takes the side of
the counter-argument)
● Shame-attacking (after being exposed
to shame anxiety, after some time
you’re no longer afraid of it)

*These interventions may require the client to

be more intuitive and more in-tune with their
emotions

CT - Cognitive Therapy MALADAPTIVE THOUGHTS - they’re too

By Aaron T. Beck narrow, too broad, too extreme or inaccurate

Assuptions:
● Life events trigger maladaptive
thoughts derived from core beliefs
● These thoughts can be modified, they
don’t need exploring the past

Development of COGNITIVE
DISTORTIONS
1. Biological and genetic dispositions
(nature and nurture)
2. Life experiences
3. Accululation of knowledge and
learning

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS:
● Arbitrary Inference (jumping into
conclusion)
● Selective abstraction (“mental filter”
→ people focus on a minor negative
aspect and fail to see the big picture)
● Dichotomous or polarized thinking
(“black and white thinking”, no middle
ground)
● Magnifications and minimization
(overestimation of weakness and
underestimation of strengths)
● Overgeneralization (coming to a
strong conclusion based on one single
incident and you generalize
everything that comes after that)

LEVELS OF COGNITION (suface —->

depth)

1. Automatic thoughts (conscious

thoughts that are automatic that pop
up in our minds - easy to identify)
2. Intermediate beliefs (assumptions,
truths, values, expectations etc)
3. Core beliefs (deep rooted thoughts
about ourselves, may be hidden and
not that easily available, developed
through life experience)
4. *** Schemas (mental structures about
how we see the world, the
environment, culture etc)

CT TECHNIQUES
—> eliciting and rating cognitions
● Identified situation, time and date
● Asked clients to identify and rate their
automatic thoughts and emotions (if
we know our emotions, we can
change them)
→ determining the validity of cognitions
● Guided discovery through skillful
questioning and experiment to test
 validity of their thoughts
→ checking alternative explanations

Techniques to elicit automatic thoughts

● Collaboral empiricism → we work with
the client to analyze the thought and
find evidence from both sides
● “What was going through your mind?
Were you imagining something that
may happen or something that did
happen?

Questioning Automatic thoughts (to help

the client get a perspective without forcing
them to agree)
● What is the evidence? (supporting,
against)
● What is the alternative explanation?
● What is the wost that could happen?
Could I live through it?
● What is the best that could happen?
● What is the effect of my believing in
automatic thoughts?

CHANGING COGNITIONS
● Activity scheduling (sometimes
changing certain activities may make
us feel better eg instead of staying at
home, go for a walk)
● Thought stopping (teaching the
client how to stop their impulsive
thoughts)
● Diversions (imagining a stressful
scene → mental switching into
something nice)
● Self talk (try to encourage yourself
e,g like giving advice to a friend)
● RElabelling and reframing
(reframing the perspective)
● Cost-benefit analysis (what is the
benefit of holding onto this thought?)
PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY (Carl Rogers)
Individuals can:
● Take charge of life
● Make decisions
● Determine their own destiny

—> Humanistic view

● Locus of control and decision lies within the individual
● Interest in people in relationships (establishing a good relationship between the
counselor and the client is important)
● Focus on connecting with client and genuine listening skills

CHANGES WITHIN PERSON CENTERED THERAPY

1. Nondirective counseling (focus: not interpretation or intervention but creating a
persmissive environment for the client to express in)
2. Client-centered therapy (focus: on the client rather than the non-directive methods)
3. Becoming a person (focus: helping the client to become “the self the person truly is”)

Theoretical principles

SELF CONCEPT - Self is not a fixed structure, but a structure in

progres, capable of both stability and change

● Self concept (real self/self image)

VS
● Ideal self (ideal self-concept)

^ the more overlapping these selves are, the more

congruent a person is

- Congruence and incongruence

LEARNING AND GROWTH - Actualizing tendency in humans (= humans
POTENTIAL have a capacity to grow, blossom and fulfill their
potential)
- Inspiration: seeds/plants

CONDITIONS OF WORTH Learned needs:

1. Positive regard - to be prized and loved (natural
need)
2. Self-regard - greater consciousness of self

In the therapy process, the goal is to deconstruct these

conditions of love. IF the client finds a way to do it
themselves, they gain internal control

Rogers’ Theory of Psychotherapy

The therapeutic goals

● Help the client to be a fully functioning person

● More integration and independence of individual

Therapist Function and Role

● Establish a climate that helps the client grow

● Their “role” is to be without roles (permissive environment)
● Attitude of genuine caring, acceptance, respect, understanding, full and active
participation in counseling

Core therapeutic conditions

● CONGRUENCE (genuiness)
● UNCONDITIONAL POSITVE REGARD (acceptance)
● ACCURATE EMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING

SOLUTION FOCUSED THERAPY

Assumptions:
● Focus on present and future
 ● No such thing as an objective reality
● Positive orientation (belief in human capacity to construct solutions)
● Exceptions (they help the client to look for exceptions in their life)
● Small changes lead to big change
● Co-operative stance with clients

Solutions:
- No single solutions (there isn’t a single fixed solution, we can create more)
- Solutions are constructable
- Therapist and client can do the constructing (action-oriented)

STAGES:
1. Identify solvable complaints
2. Establish goals
3. Design an intervention
4. Strategic tasks for the client
5. Positive behavior and changes
6. Stabilization (making sure that the client is able to apply solutions long term)
7. Termination (it’s a short-term approach)

Solution Strategies:
● Natural and spontaneous changes (we help the client to observe which changes are
alreaedy within themselves)
● Repetitive and non-productive sequence of behavior (identifications of maladaptive
behaviors)
● Past solutions (“what have you done before in this situation?)
● Compliments (recognition of efforts)
 ● Development of new behaviors
● Practical and specific
● Expectancy for change (we want to create a sense of self-advocacy)

Therapeutic techniques:

1. MIRACLE: “If suddenly a miracle happened and all of your issues disappeared when
you’re asleep, what would be the first thing you’d notice that has changed?”
2. PRE THERAPY: “What has changed since you decided to sign up for therapy?”
3. EXCEPTION: Problems are not always there, there are always better moments. Finding
moments in which there isn’t a problem and how the client feels about that
4. SCALING: “On a scale from 1 to 10, how happy do you feel today?” we can measure it
from session to session
5. SOLUTION: solution-style talk, focus on open-ended questions, talking assuming that
the problem is temporary and highlighting client’s coping mechanisms, reframing,
hypothetical solutions

Therapeutic relationship: types of customers

1. CUSTOMERS: want to take action and find a solution to their problem

2. COMPLAINANT - usually forced to come to therapy, blame others for their problems.
 3. VISITOR - unmotivated, forced to come to therapy, no clear complaints or expectations
of change

PLAY THERAPY

Rationale for play therapy:

● Developmentally appropriate (Erikson, Piaget etc - children make sense of the world
through play and use sensory to express themselves)
● Meaning in play (child’s issues may be visible in the way they play)
● Evidence-based treatment (different types of play therapy for different types of children,
effective for internal problems like anxiety, anger, self esteem etc)
● Children like it (children can have a sense of control in teh playroom)

Main ideas:
● Complete therapeutic system
● Children have an innate capacity to strive towards growth and maturity
● Belief in resiliency and competence of children by constructively self-directing

PRINCIPLES:
1. Children are not minature adults (they aren’t fully developed)
2. Children are unique and worthy of respect
3. Have inherent tendency to growth and maturity (they act maladaptively becasue it is their
defense mechanism and they don’t know any different)
4. Children will take the therapeutic experience to where they need to be (they will have
their own way of interacting in the playroom)
AXLINE’S EIGHT BASIC PRINCIPLES

BASIC SKILLS:
1. Selecting, not collecting toys
a. Real life toys (cashier set, doll house)
b. Acting out aggressive release toys (dart guns, bags to punch)
c. Creative expression or emotional release toys (puppets, play doh, NO coloring
books)
2. Tracking behavior
a. Make statements of what the child is doing (“You are looking at the car now!” - to
show that we’re paying attention
3. Reflecting feelings and content (“oh you have this at home? That’s great!” –
paraphrasing feelings and words)
4. Returning responsibility and facilitating creativity (“In here you can decide what to
do”)
 5. Encouragement (we wnat kids to identify their own internal process - “you are very
observant”, “you’re very patient”)
6. Limit setting
a. Potential damage
b. Potential harm to a person
c. Interruption to the play session

→ Kids with psychotic disorders or severely autistic are not suitable for play therapy because
they have no limits