Personal Therapy Model

An Introduction to My Personal Model of Therapy
The very first thing we learned about at the beginning of the quarter in MCP 630, Theory and Techniques of Counseling Psychotherapy, was that becoming a professional counselor or psychologist requires the therapist to develop a personal theory of counseling. Such a theory encompasses a variety of theories, extensive knowledge within the field, experience, ethical foundation, and personal attributes. When personal models of therapy were discussed initially in class on the first day, a few therapies came to mind right away that I knew I would want to include in my personal model of therapy, such as Client-Centered Therapy, Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Therapy. Yet as the quarter went on and

I learned about different psychotherapies, I began to expand my personal model of therapy to include existential psychotherapy, contemplative psychotherapies, and positive psychotherapy.
It is obviously impossible to follow all of these therapies exactly as they were intended to be followed when used in tandem, as they will be in my personal model of therapy. Yet there are points from them that I find to be valuable and will be able to incorporate into my personal model of therapy. Therefore, I will go through each of these therapies and psychotherapies individually in the following pages and explain which parts of them I will be taking in order to form an eclectic model of therapy for myself.
Client-Centered Therapy
Client-centered therapy was developed by Carl Rogers who commented that, “This theory is basically phenomenological in character, and relies heavily upon the concept of the self as an explanatory construct” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 113). The concept of self is, in my opinion, important to consider in therapy in order to understand how one is impacted by a variety of factors such as disorders. Rogers’s theory includes empathetic understanding which is, “an active, immediate, continuous process involving the therapist’s cognitive processes, affective responses, and expressive behavior” and unconditional positive regard, “are warm acceptance, nonpossessive caring, and a non-judgmental openness to the client as a person, his or her behaviors, beliefs and values” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 117-118). These concepts can be used in conjunction with a variety of different therapies, such as the one’s I will be discussing later. “In the client-centered approach, therapy begins immediately, with the therapist trying to understand the client’s world in whatever way the client wishes to share it” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 119). This is an interesting process, although it is important to find a diagnosis of a client getting to that point can occur over time in a way that the client is comfortable.
Client-centered therapy is unlike other therapies because it “does not use techniques, treatment planning, or goal setting to achieve” the enhancement of life functions and self-experiences of clients (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 123). Due to this therapy not using specific techniques, could potentially open it up to working well with other therapies that do use techniques. This therapy is also different from others, “Because client-centered therapy is not problem-centered but person-centered, clients are not viewed as instances of diagnostic categories” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 123). Therefore, there are no limits to the populations that this therapy can work with, which could prove helpful with clients that are more difficult to understand. In terms of diversity, it is understood that “each person is completely unique in terms of what his or her history, ethnicity, religion or lack of it, and racial identity mean” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 136). This therapy provides an ability to form therapeutic relationships based on openness appreciation, and respect which can be taken and used to help in all sorts of multicultural situations. Client-centered therapy, to me, seems to provide a good base to build upon with other therapies.
Behavior Therapy
Behavior therapy, developed by psychologists such as Ivan Pavlov, B.

F. Skinner, and Albert Bandura, focuses on changing the behavior of clients. This type of therapy “aims to decrease the frequency of maladaptive behaviors, and increase the frequency of adaptive or helpful behaviors” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 194). Behavior therapy does this by using trait theories of personality and assuming that “each individual has unique, enduring patterns of behavior that can be observed across a wide range of situations and that these patterns can be understood in terms of specific personality characteristics – traits – that vary in intensity from low to high” (Corsini & Weddin, 2014, p 199). Behavior therapy also uses concepts such as classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning “is a form of learning in which one stimulus, a conditioned stimulus, comes to signal the occurrence of a second stimulus, an unconditioned stimulus…[an unconditioned stimulus] is typically a stimulus that naturally causes a characteristic response, known as an unconditioned response” and operant conditioning “is a form of learning in which the frequency, form, or strength of a behavior is influenced by its consequences” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 200-201). Concepts like these, including reinforcement and punishment, can be wide spread and used in various types of situations which is why this therapy is a good one to use with other

therapies.
When it comes to the theory of this psychotherapy the therapeutic relationship is something that, “Behavior therapists are sometimes faulted for ignoring the importance of” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 202).

Due to this, it would make sense to combine this therapy with one that is better able to build therapeutic relationships, such as client-centered therapy. The process of behavior therapy is diverse because it can consist of “individual meetings with a therapist, but it may also be administered in groups or with families or couples…interventions are usually administered by a therapist, but they may also be directed by others” including parents, teachers, and health-care professionals (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 203). Such a process allows behavioral therapy a widely accessible form of therapy to various people, not just therapists. Behavior therapists once relied on learning principles such as reinforcement, punishment, and extinction to explain the effects of treatment, however now “models based on information processing, emotional processing, and cognitive reappraisal have been advanced to explain the process by which clients change during behavior therapy” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 205). The cognitive aspects that behavior therapy speaks of can be easily related to and used with cognitive therapy. The use of behavior therapy has been demonstrated in numerous studies with a vast majority of psychological problems “including anxiety disorders, depression, substance-use

disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders” and the list goes on and on (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 205). With the number of disorders that behavior therapy can help treat it is not surprising that this therapy is a popular one to combine with other therapies, especially the therapy I will be discussing next. A challenge for behavior therapy comes in “finding ways to encourage clients to use methods that may not fit with their cultural assumptions and beliefs or to adapt behavioral methods so they are more consistent with the client’s values or expectations” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 219). Therefore, it is advised that therapists become more aware of their own biases and learn about the cultures of their clients. These techniques of relating to clients of various cultures can be used with a variety of other therapies.