The Theory Application Paper Essay

Abstract

The paper uses its methodologies to describe the various therapy/theories used in the counselling process to stabilize the mental status of a client. The two therapies described in the paper include psychoanalytic therapy and rational emotive behavior theory. The two therapies have almost similar but unique functionality in terms of their respective operations. The paper also takes a keen interest in analyzing two different situations that need attention. Harold and Maroli act as the clients who need assistance due to the social and psychological problems they experience in their lives. The two have gone through huge challenges that influence them to end their lives through suicide. But with the implementation of the psychoanalytic therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy, they may receive assistance and heal from their mental situations. The paper also tries to prove which therapy has effective outcome compared to the other. It gives an individual a chance to identify the best therapy to use in the counselling session. The paper concludes with an opinion about the application of the stated therapies towards the cases and their effectiveness.

Introduction to the assumptions and tenets

Psychoanalysis
The psychoanalysis therapy works with several tenets to provide a platform for solutions to behavioral dysfunctions. The therapy states that personality development begins from early childhood. The individuals’ behavior and perception receive influence from events experienced during the first five years of individuals’ lives. Irrational drives also have an impact on the personal attitudes, experience and thought of individuals. The therapy presents the drives as unconscious, and it states that they change into the awareness that meet resistance in the mind in the form of defense mechanisms (McKay, 2011). Neurosis, depression and anxiety result from conflicts that occur between the conscious and the unconscious state of the mind which appear as mental and emotional disturbance.
The conscious mind saves the operations of the unconscious minds through therapeutic interventions. The conscious mind alters the materials from the unconscious mind. All behaviors result into the slips of the tongue that occurs unconsciously. Behavior has a determined inception depending on socialization and the environment an individual receives socialization. The therapy assumes that personality consists of three parts that include the id, ego, and super-ego. Two factors usually motivate behavior, and they include sex drive/ life instinct and aggressive drive/ death instinct. The two factors originate from the id (Schimek, 1987). The unconscious mind undergoes a continuous state of conflict that gives rise to anxiety that receives control from the defense mechanisms.
Personality changes that depend on the different conflicts occur differently during the psychosexual development of an individual. The psychoanalytic therapy works with an insight purpose and focuses to create change through understanding of the past events. The past events in most cases affect the present life of an individual. Therapy sessions depend on the nature and level of the environment of the approach. The client talks freely with the therapist. The therapists fail to show a judgmental perception towards the client. The therapist listens carefully to the concerns of the client. He/she comes up with a methodology to identify the patterns or specific events that have importance in the present life of the client. The therapy states that the unconscious feelings and childhood events have a relation to the development of mental distress.
The therapists develop techniques to help solve the problem depending on the experiences of the client. The therapists may decide to use the free association technique. The technique entails the client talking to the therapist freely concerning whatever that comes from their mind. The process consists of the client failing to censor/edit the follow of ideas. The client also mentions past important events to allow the therapist to understand their problems and to identify the recurrent conflict patterns. Therapeutic transference involves transferring thoughts connected to influential figure in the life of a client onto the therapist. The technique may not have application in most cases (McLeod, 2007). It only helps clients develop strategies to adapt to how they interact and relate better with the people around them. It also identifies insight in the individuals for personal emotional growth.
The psychoanalysis works to read between the lines and interpret the problem in the possible manner. In the technique, the therapist keeps quiet and listens to the client as he/she talks freely concerning the problems. The therapist does not interrupt the client while he/she talks. The therapist makes notes and tries to interpret the problem as the client talks through the imagination of the nature of the events. The therapist may also ask about dreams in order for them to understand the unconscious part of the mind.
Psychoanalysis may have its implementation on emotional concerns and on anyone with an urge to explore their personality. Understanding the inner personal abilities enables one to develop a strong sense of self. The therapy forms one of the most practiced techniques in the world of psychology in matters concerned with the analysis of personality. It lacks effectiveness to individuals who dream of quick results. The psychoanalytic therapy takes a gradual step that stays for a long period. In most cases, the results create change in the life of the client. The therapy works well in general concerns related to anxiety, relationship challenges, low self-esteem, and sexual issues among other problems.

Rational emotive behavior therapy

The theory works with the assumptions that human beings fail to get upset by misfortunes/unfortunate outcomes. Nevertheless, they use their language, definite beliefs, world philosophy and their reasoning to develop their perception on reality. The concept has a relationship with the Greek Philosopher Epictetus, who used it in a number of his work. The approach begins with the client learning the operation of the A-B-C model (Ellis, 2004). The model argues that adversity does not normally cause dysfunctional emotional and behavioral outcomes which Cs denotes its meaning.
Nevertheless, it gives an inclusion of B that represents believe about A (adversity). Adversity in the case may either refer to the external stimuli introduced into the life of a client or a thought relative to the internal situation. The adversity may occur depending on the nature of time. Any disturbance in the past, current and the coming days may affect emotional and behavioral dysfunction (Ellis, 2007). The Bs bring out a definite meaning about the various events, desires and preferences found in individuals. The Bs, Beliefs have a fundamental operation and form a highly evaluative platform to the integration of cognition that has a relation to emotional and behavioral perspective.
When belief and Adversity have a good relationship, and the operation of the event remains rigid and dysfunctional, the emotional behavior tends to have a destructive outcome. The evaluative B with a preferential and flexible beginning makes the emotional and behavioral outcome constructive. When people understand the mediation purpose on an analytical and philosophical and illogic manner, they learn to identify their meanings and begin to challenge their weakness and identify them from health constructs. They would also develop an urge to motivate them come up with constructive constructs.
The rational, emotional, behavioral therapy works on the assumptions that both innate rational and irrational tendencies influence the thinking of human beings. People develop large emotional difficulties through conscious and unconscious processes. Some of the difficulties include self-pity, guilt, hurt, anger, and withdrawal. The difficulties result from their irrational thinking, emotions and behavior (McMahon, 2010). The therapy in most cases occurs to enhance concentration among students. The students identify their weaknesses and relate to improving their lives. The therapists ask the teachers to identify destructive behavior among the students. With the help of the therapists, the teachers make a list of the unrealistic, rigid and illogical beliefs that tend to affect the performance of the students.
Through therapy sessions, the teachers, and the students replace the rigid beliefs with rational and self-helping once. With the help from the therapist through the use of emotive and behavioral techniques, the client manages to gain more self-helping and rational thinking approach that makes him/her behave in a desirable manner. The main purpose of the rational emotive behavioral theory entails making the clients feel safe from any factor that makes them have stress. The therapy influences the clients to develop hope that they may redeem themselves from any impending danger.
The therapy shields an individual from negative emotional feelings like depression, panic, terror, horror and self-pity. The therapy has a personal goal that has a relationship to the choice an individual makes to improve his/her life. People who gain rational and self-constructive philosophy of their environment and the ones they interact with tend to have life-serving behavior.
The therapy assumes that human thinking, emotions, and the resulting actions work together for a similar outcome though they have an overlapping property. The property rarely works in a pure state. The therapy relates emotions to thought. It states that what people consider as emotions arise from the inward thinking of individuals. Emotions and behavior have a huge impact thinking (David et al., 2005). Humans work with an evaluation purpose in their daily lives. In most cases, they apply the evaluative motive in an enclosed circuit with a purpose of obtaining feedback.
Biasness occurs between the relationship of response and perception. Perception in some cases biases response and the later has the subsequent bias to perception. The occurrence may take place severally depending on the nature of the perception and response. Feelings of human beings have an evaluative element in terms of their operations.

Summary of the two cases

Harold and the claim on sexual abuse
Harold, a 52-year-old man, teaches math and coaches swimming in a high school where his wife also works. Harold possesses a 22 year experience in the same school. He has married twice in his life with the first one divorced many years back. Harold gave birth to two children with the first wife before she remarried and shifted with the children to a different state. Harold has a single and old father who supports him all the things he does. Apparently, Harold receives accusations of sexual abuse by a kid he hugged after he won a contest. The hug came as a way to congratulate the child for a good performance. Currently, the humble and energetic teacher has taken a paid leave of absence for a month and finds himself in a stressful situation.
His father believes that he committed the crime. He also fears that his wife would believe the same. He also keeps his life to himself, a factor that would prove that he has a guilty conscience. He lives a stressful life without hope of redemption.
The best technique for solving Harold’s technique would come from rational emotive behavior therapy. The therapy would help him cope what he experiences in his life. Harold should develop strength in order to cultivate happiness and remain alive both in his marriage and workplace. The case of sexual abuse discourages his efforts to thrive in life. He may lack the necessary capabilities to achieve his goals and purpose when the case remains in his mind. Through the assistance of a therapist, he may develop rational self-constructive outcomes that would improve his life.
The rational self-constructive technique would help him identify the various factors that cause sadness from the ones that cause happiness. The therapist would help Harold select the best factors that help him have a happy life. The approach also uses the relative emotional, behavioral technique that determines the causes of emotional and behavioral imbalance. The ABC model technique entails creating a balanced relationship between adversity, beliefs and outcomes. Harold should accept that he has problems with is marriage, but it does not affect his relationship with the students (Robertson, 2010). He should deny the accusation and tell the truth so as to get rid of the guilt conscience. The therapist should also request to talk to his father and ask him if he has done a similar act in the past.
The conversation would develop trust between Harold and his father. The father would use information concerning his son’s life to identify the status of the accusations. Harold should also talk to his wife and friends to clear the air of the issues that befall him. I chose the theory because it enables Harold to connect with his inner personality and his environment. The theory also enables him to make a choice of the factors that affect his life and contribute to his life in a positive manner.

Maroli and her horrific past

On the other hand, Maroli, a 27-year-old lady, escapes from her African country several months ago in order to avoid persecution. She has a married relationship to a pastor and relief worker. The couple has two children. Maroli witnessed her family undergo rape and torture before execution. America to her presents a new dimension in culture and community composition. Nevertheless, she suffers from nightmares and horrific memories of the past that affects her eating and sleeping pattern. The past experiences influence her to weep most of the time, and she has lost the considerable amount of weight. She has contemplated suicide and the option of her kids’ survival.
Psychoanalytic therapy works best on Maroli. Since she suffers from horrible flashbacks and nightmares, psychoanalytic therapy would provide the solution for transference, dream analysis, and free association (Morris, 2007). Maroli would see a therapy for help and mental analysis. The therapy would set a date to begin the session with her. The session would have a division of the various activities that would occur in each. The therapist would begin the first session with a platform to create a trustworthy and confident relationship. The therapist would tell Maroli of the reasons she applied for the therapy. The session would follow with Maroli describing the problem to the therapist without fear of distrust and emotional teasing.
The therapist would not interrupt Maroli while she talks. The first and session would use the Free Association technique which allows Maroli to have personal relationship with her emotion in relation to her past. The therapist would also ask Maroli to describe her nightmares so as to understand the cause of her distress. The therapist would interpret the dreams through the technique of dream analysis. Maroli would also apply the technique of transference to enable Maroli transfer her inner feelings to the therapist. The therapist would put him/herself in the shoes of the client and devise a way through which to help the Maroli. Maroli would have a chance to help herself redeem her status.
The therapist would involve Maroli more when deriving a solution to her psychological problems. I chose psychoanalytic theory since it has a relation to what Maroli goes through in her life. The techniques used by the theory would have a positive impact on Maroli.

Theory preference

I would have confidence using psychoanalytic theory in counseling and my work due to its nature. Psychoanalytic therapy has a high chance of coming up with desirable outcomes compared to rational emotive behavioral therapy. Psychoanalytic therapy gives detailed information concerning the whole life of an individual and the influence of the environment towards growth and development. It brings about the importance of the first five years of an individual’s growth (Leichsenring, 2007). The therapy states that the environment, genes, and many other factors affect personality. Maroli has a suffered a great deal of the occurrences of rape, torture and execution of her innocent family. She has stayed in America for eight months and still suffers from flashback and nightmares concerning her past.
The main challenge would present itself when Maroli demands quick recovery of her situation. She would also undergo a status of discourage when she fails to understand the nature of the therapy. She would either quit or continue depending on the level of assistance she desires to acquire from the therapy. The theory also does not explain everything concerning the id, ego, and super-ego.
Maroli may also hide many other things from the therapist he comes across in order to protect her image in the country. America consists of a constitution that follows justice to the latter. The law punishes anyone who commits the crime. She may also have committed a crime like murder that haunts her since she does fail to tell the truth. She lived with her husband in the African country before migrating to the United States of America. Her husband would also have knowledge of what Maroli goes through in her daily life. The two may have committed something though their crime affects Maroli the most. Psychoanalytic therapy in such a case fails to give detailed and the right information concerning the past of the client.
Psychoanalytic only depends on the oral narration from the client with an aspect of trust on the validity of the information. Sometimes the therapist may give solution on a problem depending on what the client says. The nature of the solution depends on what the client says. The client may lie, and the situation may cause the therapy to come up with a wrong interpretation of the problem at hand. The results derived from psychoanalytic treatment may have an opposite characteristic depending on the information the client provides to the therapist. Realistic and information with true nature creates validity in the results of the analysis while wrong information may affect the process. The therapy may think that he has helped the client, and yet nothing has happened concerning the therapy’s effectiveness.

Conclusion: opinion

The theories have their weakness and strength in terms of the results they provide to improve the status of the clients’ mental health. Psychoanalysis provides a framework based on different stages of the individual. A therapist may determine the personality of an individual by making the observation of the issues like fidgeting, biting of nails and concentration. The observation may occur while the session continues. Sometimes the therapist may know if an individual speaks either the truth or lies. Psychoanalytic provides an ongoing study course of the personality of an individual and provides an intensive work methodology.
On the other hand, the rational emotive behavioral technique has a significant impact on the life of a client. It uses his daily tasks to improve his life. It creates positivity in an individual in terms of making a choice for him/her to have an improved life. Relative emotive behavioral therapy tends to use the current factors that affect a client. The factors that the therapy analyzes come from the immediate environment (Thombs et al., 2011). The treatment provides the fast solution to any problem that affects a client since it involves the client in the decision-making process.
The client takes control of his life and makes desirable choices that tend to have a positive impact on his life. Rational emotive behavioral therapy has a high chance to solve a problem immediately compared to psychoanalytic treatment. Harold would receive fast information on how to deal with his problems, unlike Maroli. The various theories and therapeutic techniques used in psychology by the therapist in their work vary in their methodologies. People should not misuse them since they would give them wrong data concerning the status of the client.

References

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