Psychological Disorders: Adlerian Therapy

Adlerian Therapy is beneficial for people who have a psychological disorder that can cause them to be out of touch with reality, like anxiety, inferiority complex, or narcissistic personality disorder. The therapy focuses on both personal and social interactions. The social side of the therapy is the most crucial as it helps the person adjust to society in a healthy way. The client’s life, physical and mental, is analyzed to find the root of the problem and discover the flaws in his or her thinking. The therapists who practice this therapy believe that it is the actions towards a person’s environment and genetic makeup that determines behavior. Therapists try to keep an open and accepting environment as those who feel criticized and insulted

tend to engage in actions that are counterproductive. It gives the client a safe space where they can develop confidence and learn the power of his or her actions. The therapy starts by assessing the client’s family life, childhood, and lifestyle to try and uncover the main reason for the issue. The therapist helps him or her to understand the underlying issue, correct faults in his or her thinking, and connect the social aspect. The main steps for Adlerian Therapy are engagement, assessment, insight, and reorientation. Engagement is when the therapist and client form a bond that makes the client feel comfortable and allows the therapy to move forward. It is at this time that the therapist creates the encouraging environment and the client gets a sense of the future outlook of the therapy. Assessment is when the therapist listens to the client talk about their thoughts, beliefs, memories, family, and more to try and find patterns. They also listen for the client’s coping mechanisms to understand both how the issue has shaped his or her life. Insight is when the therapist shares his or her findings with the client. The client and therapist then discuss and uncover the underlying problem for both mental and physical problems. Reorientation is the last step where the therapist helps the client alter his or her thinking and understand the impact of his or her actions. With the underlying problem and thinking flaws addressed, the client is then able to better deal stressors and use appropriate behaviors.
Logotherapy is beneficial for people who have a psychological disorder where they feel a sense of meaningless, coined the existential vacuum, like post traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, and anxiety.

The basis of the therapy is that people are motivated by having a goal or meaning in life. It follows the principles that life always has a meaning, motivation comes from finding the meaning, and a person has freedom in how he or she acts in a situation. Victor Frankl, the creator of the therapy claimed that meaning can be discovered by completing work, experiencing people or situations fully, and the attitude towards a person’s suffering. Therapists follow certain assumptions that cannot be proven about mankind. These assumptions include that individuals are all unique, meaningful decisions respond to life’s demand, people have the freedom to find their own meaning, all people have a meaning, life has a meaning in all circumstances, and the human body is made up of the body; mind; and spirit. The three main techniques used by therapists are dereflection, paradoxical intention, and socratic dialogue. Dereflection is when the person’s thoughts are deflected from how the situation impacts the person and instead look at how it does, or would have, impacted someone else. The act of thinking about someone else can make the suffering seem minor. Paradoxical intention is when a person increases the thing that they most fear. In turn, this may decrease the unwanted

anxiety as it is then connected with more positive thoughts. Socratic dialogue is when the therapist uses the client’s words to uncover the problem. They listen for patterns or specific words that they then relay back to the client. The client can then figure out the meaning and see that the solution lies within him or her self. By forming a meaning behind a person’s life, the sense of meaningless will diminish, helping him or her overcome the issues caused by the hopelessness.
Object Relations Therapy is beneficial for people who have a psychological disorder that causes poor relationships, like various attachment disorders. The therapy focuses on the relationship between the client and mother during infantry. When a mother fulfills an infant’s needs, the infant will see the mother as good. Inversely, if the mother does not fulfil all needs, the infant will see the mother as bad. This view may not be the same as reality; however, it is this view that will impact the infant in years to come. Overtime, these views mature, but in unhealthy relationships, they may remain stagnant. The good or bad view develop a baseline in which the child develops a mature view relying on the initial aspect. The bad view may also develop into anxiety. Object relations refers to how the object is perceived, the perceiver in relation to the object, and the relationship between the object and perceiver. This therapy focuses on strengthening relationships by highlighting and fixing deficits in the client’s interpersonal skills. The therapist first listens to the client in an attempt to understand the family background, emotion, and needs. As trust is developed, the therapist may focus more on personal ideas compared to the initial big picture. These personal ideas will develop into a greater understanding and success in the therapy. The reactions not only give insight to the person in therapy, but also give insight to how others may view and interact with the person. The therapist uses encouragement, not judgment, which allows the client to be more open and learn more about him or herself. In turn, he or she may start to form a healthy relationship with the therapist which than may be transferred into outside relationships. The ultimate success is determined on the relationship with the therapist, as those who do not form a healthy relationship will struggle in other relationships. By being able to focus on the deficit formed early on in development, the success in relationships will improve, also improve the general psychological effect.
Motivational Interviewing is beneficial for people who have a psychological disorder that leads to adduction, like substance abuse or alcoholism.

The therapy focuses on the use of intrinsic motivation to alter behaviors. The therapist and client work together to strengthen the client’s want to change through communication. There is three basis of motivational interviewing: collaboration, evocation, and autonomy. Collaboration is the support of the therapist who works to understand the client not impose new thoughts. Evocation is helping the client uncover why he or she wants a change as the client’s realization is stronger than just being told by the therapist. Autonomy is the belief that the client is the expert and the therapist is there for support. Therapists must express empathy, support self-efficacy, understand struggles, and highlight discrepancies. The discrepancies highlighted focus on the differences between where the client currently is compared to his or her future goals. Therapists guide the client to change talk, statements and nonverbal cues, that show that the client is ready for change. They use open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries to elicit change talk. Open ended questions force the client to think more about the issue to lead to the possibility of change. Affirmations highlight the client’s strengths to increase both confidence and positivity, so the client sees the change as possible. Reflections are when the therapist guides

the client to seeing the negative of the issue and the positive of the change. Summaries are when the therapist reiterates what occurred during the session to show understanding and recap the important points. There are also some questions that may help cause change talk. The therapy tries to get the client to talk about changing as the belief is the more change talk occurs, the more likely change will happen; change is up to the client not the therapist. By forming intrinsic motivation in the client, change will occur stopping the addiction or abuse.
The Emotional Freedom Technique is beneficial for people who have a psychological disorder that causes an emotional imbalance, like depression, anxiety, or physical pain. It follows the same ideas as acupuncture but uses tapping instead of needles. Emotional trauma greatly impacts the body hindering it from fully healing both physical and psychological issues. The client first must pick an issue from which to work on, either general or specific, but it is believed that specific works better. The level of distress that the issue causes is then identified. Then the client rubs a specific spot while repeating an affirmation. The affirmation generally follows the idea even though there is the specific issue, there is a positive. Then he or she taps each main point, or tapping point, seven times while repeating a reminding phrase. The reminding phrase is generally this blank, placing the specific issue in the blank. Then the steps are repeated again and again until the level of distress is at zero. During each repetition, the affirmation phrase and reminder phrase should be altered. The reminder phrase remains similar only adding the word remaining. Though the therapy can be done individually, working with a therapist can have added benefits. Therapists can create a safe space, help uncover the reason for the issue, help overcome blocks, form effective techniques, and keep the client on track. Blocks are referred to as psychological reversals that make it impossible to overcome problems, no matter how much work is put in. Therapists can make sure that the client is completing the therapy correctly and following through fully. They can also help form both the affirmation and reminder phrase. As the therapy works better with specific issues, therapists are able to help uncover issues to work on. By removing emotional distress caused from past experiences, the body is then able to better deal with future stressors and heal itself.