Approaches to Counselling/Psychotherapy
There are many different approaches to therapy today from Brief Therapy to Existential, from humanistic to solution focused.
At Edenville Counselling and Psychotherapy services at Dublin 2, the approach is person centred, married with a psychodynamic insight and existential exploration.
Person Centre Psychotherapy
Carl Rogers an American practitioner developed the non directional person-centred approach and the entire theory is built on a single “force of life” he calls the actualizing tendency. It can be defined as the built-in motivation present in every life-form to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible. We’re not just talking about survival: Rogers believes that all creatures strive to make the very best of their existence. If they fail to do so, it is not for a lack of desire.
Rogers theory stresses the following concepts necessary and sufficient for therapeutic change:
1. Congruence -- genuineness, honesty with the client.
2. Empathy -- the ability to feel what the client feels.
3. Respect -- acceptance, unconditional positive regard towards the client.
At our Dublin 2 counselling and psychotherapy centre Edenville endeavours to understand the client's life from their frame of reference.
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Precursors of Psychoanalysis
It often surprises people that psychiatry -- meaning the doctoring of the mind -- was not invented by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis -- a particular (and very significant) area of psychiatry -- was his area. Psychiatrists existed before Freud, and most, psychiatrists today are not Freudian.
Freud didn't exactly invent the idea of the conscious versus unconscious mind, but he certainly was responsible for making it popular.
The conscious mind is what you are aware of at any particular moment, your present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies and feelings.
Working closely with the conscious mind is what Freud called the preconscious, what we might today call "available memory" anything that can easily be made conscious, the memories you are not at the moment thinking about but can readily bring to mind. Freud suggested no-one has a problem with these two layers of mind. But he did suggested that these are the smallest parts!
The largest part by far is the unconscious. It includes all the things that are not easily available to awareness, including many things that have their origins there, such as our drives or instincts, and things that are put there because we can't bear to look at them, such as the memories and emotions associated with trauma.
According to Freud, the unconscious is the source of our motivations, whether they be simple desires for food or sex, neurotic compulsions, or the motives of an artist or scientist. And yet, we are often driven to deny or resist becoming conscious of these motives, and they are often available to us only in disguised form.
By noting patterns and themes that are present in our life journey and by looking back to our earlier experiences we can explore our history and how it impacts on our lives.
Edenville Dublin Psychotherapy working in psychodynamic way believes that the importance of earlier experiences and how we dealt with them are central to our understanding of how we are now.
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Existential Psychotherapy
Stumpf, Husserl, Heidegger, John Paul Satre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, May, Yalom are all connected with the concepts of phenomonology and existentialism.
Phenomology could be said to focus on the interpretation that we give to our experiences in our life, one person assigning an interpretation to one event perhaps different to the interpretation someone else may assign to the "same" event.
Existentalism could be said to be how we actually exist when we have taken that interpretation on board.
Existential counselling and psychotherapy aims to explore both concepts looking at it in the context of the client's life and day to day existence.
Existential psychotherapy is a powerful approach to therapy which takes seriously the human condition. It is an optimistic approach in that it embraces human potential, while remaining a realistic approach through its recognition of human limitation. Falling in the tradition of the depth psychotherapies, existential therapy has much in common with psychodynamic, humanistic, experiential, and relational approaches to psychotherapy. Edenville D2, counselling and psychotherapy place huge emphasis on the benefits of looking at life existentially.
Some sources include:
(webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html)
20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2, Dublin City
Adjacent to Dail Eireann on Kildare Street
Dublin Counselling and Psychotherapy D2
2010
