While psychodrama can combat major social issues like bullying, it can also help to overcome day-to-day issues in counseling sessions. With the supervision of a counselor, “the intentional use and processing of psychodramatic enactments allows for creative and spontaneous self-expression as well as increased engagement in the supervision process. As with other creative approaches to counseling supervision, psychodrama frees conscious and unconscious information that guides the learning process” (Graham 419). The goal of the counselor is to direct the flow of conversation and character so that understanding comes in a meaningful way. One way for a patient to easy get into character is though role talk or the “naming an attitude or aspect of …show more content…
The warm-up stage is vital in preparing the patient to transition into their role. Simply, “[in] the warm-up stage, participants engage in… introductory conversations and experiences… that prepare them for action” (Graham 420). Next comes the action stage where the patient takes the role of a person or embodies a problem. They counselors job changes from a psychiatrist to that of a director, where his or her part is to shape the flow of dialogue in a way that helps the patient. Furthermore, “[in] the action stage, participants become fully engaged in adopting psychodramatic roles. New roles and behaviors are identified and practiced” (Graham 420). Once the patient has released all of their frustration and negativity through the character, the counselor can analyze and conclude upon the information. This “final stage, sharing [and processing], allows participants to remove themselves from the role and to focus on processing of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, as well as integrating the experiences of the action stage into their identity development” (Graham 420). Role talking counseling is a very interesting twist on old school methods, and a great leap in …show more content…
The actors engage in symbolic play when they act and communicate with each other. It has been shown that “play and drama therapies are widely used in the treatment of children and adolescents—particularly those with histories of disadvantage and trauma” (Bernstein 448). The play can also bring the cast and the director closer together as they must spend many hours rehearsing and preparing. When “clinicians do their part by initiating sessions and joining with clients and clients do their part by being actively involved rather than merely compliant,” a stable relationship is formed where the patient can become more comfortable and feel safe (Bernstein
For example, adolescents are often forced into therapy by their parents or school as a result of an inability to cope with stress in a socially acceptable way. Patients at this stage are too old to engage in play therapy, where therapists analyze a child’s behavior during play and when presented with toys. Also, patients acting out during adolescence are often too young to obtain the maturity to verbalize their emotions in a socially acceptable form. Art therapy is useful at this stage of development because similar impulses expressed in play therapy are expressed through drawings, meanwhile not requiring verbal communication. Art therapy introduces the mature defense mechanism of sublimation to the patient, guiding them to achieve better self control as they learn to communicate their impulses through art and talking about their art. A particular form of therapy is managed in groups, and adolescents are encouraged to engage in conversation about their drawings while they are creating them. This creates an environment of low anxiety, allowing patients communicate internal conflict and disregard their normal defense mechanisms that are used to conceal these emotions. The defense mechanism of sublimation is apparent in this process, as the use of color, composition, space and shapes to provide an
One theme of the book that stands out is the counselor as a person and a professional. It is impossible to completely separate one’s personal and professional lives. Each person brings to the table certain characteristics of themselves and this could include such things as values, personality traits and experiences. A great point that Corey, Corey, and Callahan (2010) make is to seek personal therapy. Talking with colleagues or a therapist will keep counselors on their toes and allow them to work out any issues that may arise. This could also prevent counselors from getting into a bad situation. Another good point made in this book was counter transference. Therapists are going to have an opinion and some reactions are going to show through. It is not easy to hide one’s emotions, but a good therapist will keep the objective in sight and keep moving forward. After all, the help counselors are providing is for the client.
The counseling session should be centered on the client and their understanding of their world and/or problems not heavily weighted on the counselor interpretation of the client’s situation. The role of the counselor is to examine a problem needs changing and discover options in overcoming their problem. Bringing about change can help change the client’s narrative on their problem in the future and/or on life in the process.
Next, I am going to discuss the person-centred interventions I exercised through the therapeutic process with my client in session four. Within this I am going to explore how these interventions impacted my client’s responses and how I could improve my skills in future sessions.
Establishing a theoretical counseling orientation is an important step in developing professional identity. Theories provide counselors with explanations of human nature, help with conceptualizing clients’ problems and deliver procedural guidance in predicting clients’ change. Contemporary counselor is expected to be integrative and eclectic, drawing inspiration from many approaches. It is also my hope to synthesize a variety of concepts and a diversity of strategies from different theories and integrate them into a coherent, comprehensive perspective.
To explain, the client should not be inferior to the counselor; the environment should be two people discussing an issue and ways to make a difference. A therapist should occasionally share similar experiences; therefore, sessions should make clients feel comfortable. To add, the client should feel safe due to the positive atmosphere the therapist brings to the session. The goal is to finally give the client a chance to be heard, regularly people are muted and feel like they are insignificant to society. Similarly, to Person-centered therapy where communication with the client is unconditionally positive. The therapist needs to genuinely care about the client needs for them to fully express themselves successfully. Furthermore, clients should be encouraging to make their own choices which model how to identify and use power responsibly. Hence, this will help the client feel more confident in everyday life when making a meaningful
Corey, G. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (9th Edition). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
In this paper, the readers will learn that I, Chantiara Johnson, played the role of a therapist. My friend, who is a college Sophomore played the role of client. I will use the techniques that I learned during the first three weeks of this course; these techniques will help me conduct the interview with my client. Throughout this interview, I will mock and reflect a therapy session of a client who is facing the feeling of loneliness and the feeling of not being enough.
The counselor accomplishes the above by expressing empathy, developing discrepancies, going along with resistance and supporting self-efficacy. Moreover, the counselor guides the client toward a solution that will lead to permanent posi...
Counseling skills has provided me with a valuable insight into the helping relationship and how it is both created and maintained in order to encourage growth and development in the client. The factors involved within the helping relationship include considering Roger’s core conditions, congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy as the three main characteristics necessary in a helping relationship. In order to fully incorporate all three of Roger’s core conditions, I as the counselor must be self-aware, as a lack of self-awareness may inhibit truly listening and understanding the client; self-awareness can be enhanced through exercises such as Johari’s window. Counseling skills such as body language and active listening also plays a role within encouraging the client to open up and can help me as the counselor convey empathy.
Understanding the counseling session from the client’s perspective is a very important aspect in the development of a therapeutic relationship. A clinician must be an excellent listener, while being to pay attention to the client’s body language, affect and tone. The dynamics in the counseling session that is beneficial to the client include the recognition of the pain that the client is feeling. The detrimental part of this includes a misunderstanding of the real issues, a lack of consideration of the cultural aspects of the client, and a lack of clinical experience or listening skills. In this presentation, we will discuss the positive and negative aspects of the counseling session from the client’s perspective which includes the client’s attitudes, feelings, and emotions of the counseling session. We will next examine the propensity of the client to reveal or not reveal information to the counselor, and how transference, and counter-transference can have an effect on the counselor-client relationship.
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.
Through the psychoanalytic therapeutic approach, the counselor analyses the client and the occurring problem as well as teach the client how to comprehend the behavior and how it is related to the client’s past experiences. Focusing on the Adlerian approach, the counselor’s role becomes to create mutual trust and respect as well as identifying previous mistaken goals as well as teaching and encouraging the client to a brighter future. The client-therapist relationship becomes mutual towards determining goals and is built on equality. The role of the counselor with the focus of CBT is as a teacher. The counselor teaches the client to change his or her cognition to create a better cognitive schema and a more positive view in the future. However, the relationship is collaborative, meaning that the counselor helps the client identifying the problem and how to solve it. Lastly, the postmodern approaches, creates a collaborative partnership. However, the client-therapist relationship is different in the postmodern approaches compared to psychoanalytic therapy, Adlerian therapy, and CBT, where it is a teaching environment, with the counselor being the expert. In the postmodern approaches, the client is the expert on his or her life and takes control over developing a future-oriented goal with assistance from the counselor. Creating an
In conclusion, the role-play interview helped me have a better view of my interview skills, including skills that I am able to apply appropriately and those that I have to keep practising. Through this session, I came to know that I am good at using questions to know more about my clients. However, I need to improve my listening skill in order to understand my clients’ points of view. This may also help me to respect their values after learning more about the situations. Therefore, I will be less led by my biases after understanding my clients’ perspectives. Hence, I believe that self-reflections help counsellors to be aware of their strengths and improve their counselling skills in order to help others.
This theory suggests that play plays a vital role of treating children’s disorders, children are able to gain some sense of control and alleviate their negative emotions including anxieties, fears and traumas through playing (Heidman & Hewitt, 2010; Freud, 1961). From the psychoanalytic perspective, play has a cathartic effect for children as it can assist children to cope with adverse feelings (Wolfberg, 2009, p. 32). Therefore, play is regarded as a therapeutic method to deal with the emotional problems (Wolfberg, 2009, p. 32). Moreover, this theory is of the view that play is an avenue to connect children’s past, current and future inner life (Willians, 2009, p. 575). Sigmund Freud was the pioneer who made a considerable contribution to this theory and he called “play” as the “royal road” to the child’s conscious and unconscious world (Willians, 2009, p. 575). He believed that play allows a combination of fantasy with reality, children should spend time playing every day as it is very healthy and necessarily (Willians, 2009, p. 575). Children are able to resolve psychological dilemmas, soften their worries and develop their understanding of life experiences (Wolfberg, 2009, p. 32). Erikson had further developed this theory, he recognized that the particular events are critical to shape the nature of