Psychotherapy Paradigm Analysis

This essay will cover topics on Psychopathology, conformity as an effective behavioral response, as well as touch on three different bias, the self-centered bias, the unassuming bias, and the group-serving bias. Psychopathology is defined as the origin of mental disorders, the symptoms they reveal themselves as, and how they develop. In this essay, I will be going over 2 perspectives on Psychopathology. They are the Relativist Perspective, and the Universalist Perspective. The Relativist Perspective revolves around how different cultures define, explain, and develop treatments for mental disorders. The Universalist Perspective, however, centers around the idea that each mental disorder has a “constant”. This constant doesn’t change,

Psychiatric knowledge has become the dominant ideology people use to distinguish between behaviour that is considered to be normal behaviour and abnormal behaviour. Mental illness is treated as deviant behaviour and this theory unravels the ways in which our society, tries to control this deviant behaviour, through social stigma if we do not comply with medical treatment. Essentially, it helps change my experience because although I viewed mental health services institution as helpers, it also uncover how they oppressed marginalized groups like people with mental illnesses. There seems to be a clear division in the role of these services as they are becoming less interested in helping people with mental illness cope, but are more invested in trying to normalize

In my personal opinion and experience, I find that the field of psychology is lacking in diverse cultural competencies as much as the society is diverse in its population. I believe that as with using any theoretical model, the therapists’ cultural knowledge needs to include understanding of the many cultural considerations influencing the effectiveness of treatment when dealing with clients from diverse backgrounds. When servicing the individuals in the family, care and attention needs to be directed towards family and community norms and values around help seeking, secrecy and confidentiality, family roles, child rearing and spiritual practices.

There is no doubt that the counsellor needs to be aware of the complexity of culture (Pedersen & Ivey, 1993). Culture results from the interaction of a number of variables including ethnographic, demographic, socio-economic, and relational factors. Within a culture, people develop patterns of behaviours based on a number of assumptions they have learned either directly, observationally or vicariously (Mitchell & Krumboltz, 1996). People also develop a cultural identity by

In the film, the mental health professionals acknowledged this irony, however they misdiagnosed three of the five participants with a mental illness. I valued the mental health professional’s credentials and felt their status would lead to a high percentage of proper diagnoses. The result of the professionals mislabeling two of the ten participants with a history of mental illness, made me aware that a certain amount of experience, education, or status does not prevent

As social workers, it is our responsibility to use the most effective method of practice to engage our clients, assess their situation, and help them create goals that will produce positive outcomes. Every client will present a unique set of challenges; therefore, the social worker must be careful in choosing an approach that will meet the client’s needs, compliment the skills of the therapist and are in line with the agency’s mission. According to Robert and Watkins (2009), psychotherapy is a therapeutic interaction between a trained therapist and a client that is

I am committed to embracing cultural diversity and social responsibility in my counseling practice (Corey, et al., 2015, p. 112). I am committed to my own cultural competency and, although I am not perfect, I am open to learning and growth (p. 118). I invite you to challenge my assumptions. Many therapy approaches reflect Western patriarchal values that do not fit the needs of all cultural perspectives (p. 117-118). I consider your disclosure of personal information to be an important aspect of therapy, but I will encourage you to self-disclose according to your own timeline, not mine (p. 120). Some people hesitate to speak due to respect and cultural norms, so I encourage you to let me know when I am being too direct or assertive in my questions (p. 122). Therapy sometimes assumes a goal of individualization, buy I realize this might not be your goal, so I am open to exploring issues of collective responsibility as well as self-actualization (p. 123). Finally, I come from a Western cultural orientation, both personally and professionally, and am often unconscious of my nonverbal behaviors, so I encourage you to let me know when I treat you disrespectfully in my use of eye contact, facial expression, or gestures, or when my interventions feel uncomfortably personal or intrusive (p. 123). “Recognizing our own cultural and historical embeddedness can remind us that our assumptions about what a person is and what a person should be or become

Is the quote above a fitting metaphor for the current state of mental health care in this country? As of 2017, most Americans consider themselves inclusive towards mental illness, despite little evidence that perceived tolerance translates to tolerance in

Every day, people judge others because of how they look, how they dress and what they believe, all because other people do not want to accept the fact that society is changing. Not everyone has the same beliefs and will act like the person next to them. People in society continuously change the way they act and the things they believe, but some people just do not want to accept this. In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the characters in the mental hospital feel that they do not fit into society and that everyone just treats them poorly, so they decided to leave society and admit themselves in a hospital where they are surrounded by patients in the same situation as them (Kesey 184). In today’s society, in the United States alone, “approximately 3 percent of the population has a severe mental illness.

The social model of mental illness emphasizes the social environment and the roles people play. Thomas Scheff maintains that people diagnosed as mentally ill are victims of the status quo, guilty of often unnamed violations of social norms; thus the label "mental illness" can be used as an instrument of social control. I agree with Scheff's analysis, and I strongly concur with the view Thomas Szasz takes on the notion of mental illness. Szasz argues that much of what we call "mental illness" is a myth; it is not an illness, but simply "problems in living", troubles caused by conflicting personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so forth (Szasz 13). It thus follows that the widely

I believe that the art of psychotherapy is more important than empirically validated treatments (EVT). I feel that the art of psychotherapy lies in the common factors, which include the therapeutic relationship, client and therapist factors (e.g., personality), helping clients deal with problems, and hope or expectancy factors (Reisner, 2005). Although I do believe that empirically validated treatments may enhance the therapeutic process, the treatments themselves are by no means the most important or fundamental aspects of therapy. There appears, at least to me, to be much more of an art involved in developing the relationship with the client and understanding the client’s perspective. It takes art and skill of a therapist to examine,

Federn (1961) states that individuals separate their internal experience from the external world through psychological boundaries. In addition, these boundaries allow an individual to maintain the distinction between oneself and others (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975). In the context of therapy boundaries between the therapist and client provide an environment that fosters safety and trust enabling exploration. This dynamic places mental health professionals in a position of power over the client (Simon, 1992). This power differential creates a responsibility for the therapist to create and maintain appropriate, professional boundaries. When speaking about departures from commonly accepted clinical practice it is necessary to distinguish between boundary crossing and boundary violations. Whereas boundary crossing may or may not benefit the client, boundary violations have the potential to seriously harm the client or the therapeutic process (Simon, 1992). It is important to note that either the client or the therapist has the ability to cross or violate boundaries. However, the duty to put the client’s therapeutic care and goals first lay with the clinician alone.

According to Corey (2009) learning more about how your cultural background will influence your thinking and behaving. Corey (2009) suggested for the therapist to identify underlying assumptions, especially as they apply to diversity in culture, ethnicity, race, gender, class, spirituality, religion, and sexual orientation (Corey, 2009).

Being aware of culture in the field has many benefits. The main benefit would be that it would help in providing better therapy for the client in question. Understanding how culture affects a client’s life can help explain the clients various roles and identities in life. Apart from that, understanding socio cultural settings will help the psychologist be more aware of the needs of their clients. For example, Indians are less comfortable in seeing a psychologist and are less liable to tell their family and friends that they are in currently undergoing therapy (Zhang, Snowden, & Sue, 1998). The psychologist should use information about the clients’ culture to personalise the therapy in order to enhance the effectiveness of it as well as to not discourage the client as well as to understand how culture affects the client and the disorder. The involvement of culture would also make the psychologist more aware of their own personal biases and mind-sets that maybe prevent the therapy from being effective. Creation of guidelines to help psychologists in the assessment of clients from varied cultures are important.

Counselors must gain awareness, knowledge, and skills in counseling diverse groups of clients (Corey, Corey, & Corey, 2014). Some ways to become culturally competent include, but are not limited to, respecting religious and spiritual beliefs as well as family roles; understanding the impact of adverse social and environmental factors when assessing problems and providing interventions; and providing group members with the expectations of the group process (Corey, Corey, & Corey, 2014). In order to create a respectful, productive, and beneficial group some ways to become a more culturally competent counselor include continuing to self-reflect on my own cultural identity, values, beliefs, and biases; read about, practice and implement group interventions that have been shown to be effective with different cultural groups; gain supervision when needed; and avoid imposing my own personal worldview onto the group members (Corey, Corey, & Corey, 2014). By doing these things as well as seeking out opportunities to learn more about the various cultures that I will be working with can help to expand my knowledge of diverse groups, continue to expand my personal self-awareness, and improve my skills towards becoming a more culturally competent