Exam Paper Stage 3 Counselling

Carl Rogers (1902-87) was the founder of the client-centred or person-centred approach to counselling and therapy. (McLeod 2001)

How does Person-centred counselling, influence the understanding of the development of concept of self? (245 words)

Many Scottish people have over the centuries been themselves victim of stereotyping and prejudice by the English neighbours. Discrimination. This is why they are unhappy about it. But to be on the receiving end of something that is historical and for which I have no responsibility for his painful and irksome and makes me feel somehow invisible and unvalued as a person with individuality and a contribution to make to the present moment.

Having unconditional positive regard from the beginning will display to the client there is no hidden agenda and that the counsellor is non-judgmental, this will support the client to develop the working relationship and show the client they are valued and wanted, they will start to relax to open up freely and loosen up their attitude towards the session.

The decision to take this course was rooted in a deepening interest in psychotherapy, self–development, the welfare of other people and in a desire to gain a theoretical base to enrich my current arts and health practice.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy is widely short-term and concentrates on enabling clients to deal with very particular problems. Often six weeks to six months sessions of course depending upon the problem it is pacifically goal directed and places great weight upon self-help as a long term coping tool that the client can take away with them and successfully use. Cognitive-behavioural therapy believes that clients can learn the wrong ways of developing and making sense of information during their cognitive development. This can often lead to distortions in the way they identify reality, it’s the job of the therapist to enable them to work this out.

For this part of the assignment I am using examples from a 50 minute session recorded within the learning environment. I play the role of the counsellor, and another student plays the role of the client. In order for me to answer the learning outcomes, I have watched the DVD recording.

“Therapeutic building blocks” (Young, 2001, p. 30) is a phrase used to describe the helping relationship and the components of that counseling relationship. The ability to facilitate the client into relaying their story is the basis of therapy for change. I have listed my therapeutic helping skills below, and have described an example of each.

The counselling process is based on the exchange of emotions between the client and the counsellor which aims to form an alliance (Hough, 1998). It involves the counsellor using skills in which they possess in order to communicate effectively with clients (Hough, 1998). This reflective essay clearly articulates my application of counselling skills used in this practice session and suggestions for improvement. It will provide a summary of the session, identification of a range of skills used and a brief explanation of the reasons for using the skill. It will also provide an evaluation of my application of the skills chosen, including verbatim examples, suggestions for improvement, also including verbatim examples to demonstrate what could

Defense mechanisms are a way help cope with stressors in our life in a protective way. They can be healthy and unhealthy. They form a barrier from those who want to harm us, protect us from anxiety, and are a tension reducer. Defense mechanisms change unacceptable impulses into acceptable ones by unconsciously blocking impulses, which reduces anxiety.

Others will repress those bad memories by trying to live in the unconscious world. The outcome of this repression is often very different and according to Freud, the cause of repression is always connected to the conscious mind (Freud

Defense mechanisms are coping methods used by people to ease their minds during stressful situations. Defense mechanisms can either be thoughts or actions people use to distance themselves from events they deem hostile. Many times, defense mechanisms are unconscious, which means that people don’t even realize they are using them. Sigmund Freud was the first to depict how the “Ego” uses mechanisms to handle struggles between the “id” and “super ego.” However, Ann Freud went into detail about the different types of defense mechanisms.

Do you think an experience can be so traumatizing that the brain pushes it into an inaccessible corner of the unconscious to later recall it years later? This concept on the mind is expressed as repressed memories. These are types of memories that are blocked unconsciously due to the high levels of stress experienced during the event. This theory on memories are based on the idea that even though the memory is repressed it is still affecting the individual in their conscious aspects of life. Repressed memories are often associated with childhood sexual abuse. This relies on the idea that these memories of sexual abuse can be brought up either in therapy or by the victim themselves years after the abuse. The concept of repressed memories has been a huge controversy in psychology from the beginning of time. Many people believe that repressed memories in regards to childhood sexual abuse are possible while others believe they can’t be as accurate as some people believe.

Many people who are victims or others in general that have taken part in a traumatizing event have stated that they cannot recall what they have experienced or what they have committed. This is what we call today as repressed memory. Repressed memory is caused by how an individual experiences a stressful or traumatizing event. It happens because the victim of repressed memory faces a certain event like the one stated above, which then leads into the event being blocked out unconsciously. (Loftus, 1993) If we were to take a look at an article that talks about how victims have experienced repressed memory we can see that repressed memory can actually resurface. Lisa Nosal talks about how victims of repressed memory show up into her office and start questioning her on why the memories are coming back after a couple of years. (Nosal, 2015). One of her patients has said that “I’ve been fine for years. Now I have nightmares every night and can barely function at work. What’s going on?” (Nosal, 2015) This shows that when repressed memory resurfaces and hits the victim back, it could actually result in a major negative effect on their daily life. It gives each victim of repressed memory a sense of despair. It gives them a sense of despair because throughout their life that memory has been gone and all the sudden it came back at them. This will make the victim feel as if he or she is never going to be able to let go of this trauma. This could have a major impact on their life in many ways. Lisa has an explanation for the reason why repressed memory resurfaces and also has a solution for how victims of it can recover from it. Her answer to why repressed memory resurfaces is that “in my experience as a therapist, what’s happening is that some deep, inner part of you finally feels safe and stable enough to address the leftover emotional fallout that’s been patiently waiting for years.” (Nosal, 2015) This shows that the reason why the memory gets repressed is because the human mind represses it to avoid pain. It gets repressed so that when the victim is finally ready, the mind will slowly bring back the memory so that whatever is leftover can be taken in by the person. Lisa talks about how an individual can deal with the

Ego: In this second developmental stage, compromises in instinctive responses to environmental circumstances begin to develop. The ego mediates with the id by considering the rules of the real world and the consequences of actions taken in that world.