Introduction to Counselling Concepts

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

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) define counselling, along with psychotherapy, as being “umbrella terms that cover a range of talking therapies” (BACP, 2012: 1). In addition, counselling is provided by practitioners who “work with people over a short or long term to help them bring about effective change or enhance their wellbeing” (BACP, 2012: 1). Those who practice counselling in a professional manner undergo intensive training and personal development, the latter of which has been “defined in terms of self-awareness and change” (Wheeler, 1996: 75). These changes, according to Johns, “influence the

Integrated approach to counseling is when you combined theories to cover the clients’ feelings, cognitive patterns, and behavior (Corey, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Pschotherapy 8e, 2009). Each theory focuses one of these key components of a client but in counseling you need to focus on each of these to fully help a client. The key to integrative counseling is to have multiple theories function in harmony (Corey, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Pschotherapy 8e, 2009).

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.

This essay will explore the counselling relationship along with the benefits and limitations as well as discussing other factors that have an important impact in relation to the outcome of counselling. Counselling is an interpersonal relationship between the client and qualified therapist, the relationship involves communicating with the client and using skills to explore the client's feelings. The counselling/ therapeutic relationship can be used in all types of counselling such as psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioural, person centred and cognitive therapy. As mental health disorders increase so does the need to deliver effective counselling, which means that the therapeutic relationship is more crucial than ever. (Miller, Hubble, Duncan and Wampold 2010; Norcross and Lambert 2011).

Firstly it’s important to distinguish between using counselling skills and being a counsellor. From my own research I think the distinction revolves

The British Association for Counselling’s Code of Ethics and Practice for Counsellors states that ‘Counselling may be concerned with developmental issues, addressing and resolving specific problems, making decisions, coping with crisis, developing personal insight and knowledge, working through feelings of inner conflict or improving relationships with others’ (BACP Ethical Framework).

Carl Rogers, Born in Chicago in 1902 as the 4th of 6 children in a strict Fundamentalist Christian household.

The concern for morality and ethics cuts across all endeavors of human existence. Focusing particularly on the helping professions – Pastoral care, Counseling, medicine, Psychiatry, Social Work, Law, and Teaching - the need for standard professional guidelines for conduct of practitioners becomes of paramount importance. Competence or knowledge of techniques of therapy is important; but A person who needs to be salvaged, who needs spiritual, psychological, emotional, psychiatric healing or direction would rather prefer to interact with an ethically seasoned” half trained

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

Counseling is a relatively young profession when compared to other mental health professions. In my brief personal and professional experience with the field, I have come to define counseling as a process of engagement between two people, both of whom are bound to change through a collaborative process that involves both the therapist and the client in co-constructing solutions to concerns.

At times people going through difficulties that needs counselling therapy might sometimes make a negative conclusion about themselves being the source of their problems. Though, getting the clear approach from the counsellor may possibly reduce the worries and stress. For the duration of the 15 minutes DVD recording session I followed the code of ethics and conduct of BPS and counsellors code of ethics by introducing myself, what my role will be, I was able to explain the code of Bps and the ethics code of counsellors by clarifying the concerns surrounding confidentiality and the time arrangement of the session. I also clarified the limitations of the counselling session that she is very free to stop the session at any time, and I also checked her understanding of the contract that is her choice to carry on with the session.

The aim of this assignment is to compare and contrast two theories or theorists of counselling from psychodynamic, humanistic or cognitive behavioural traditions and also to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This essay will focus on exploring the contrasting ideas and approaches of Carl Rogers who is a key figure associated with the person-centered approach and Fritz Perls who developed Gestalt therapy. Although they are both regarded as humanistic counsellors, they share a very different approach when working with clients. I have chosen to analyse these two theorists because of their contrasting styles, in particular my curiosity was sparked after viewing both Perls and Rogers sessions with Gloria. I found it fascinating how such different styles could still be successful in therapy. In particular fritz perls style really grabbed my attention as at first, I was really put off by his seemingly rude demeanour. However, after reading information on gestalt therapy and the ideas behind it I started to understand how it works.

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.