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Chapter Four: Traditional and Contemporary Theories of Counseling
Chapter Overview
Chapter Four builds upon the overarching philosophical underpinnings of clinical mental
health counselors offered in Chapter Three by describing the specific traditional and
contemporary theories of counseling from which students may select to inform their personal
Therapies can be further divided into Albert Ellis’ rational emotive behavior therapy, Aaron
Beck’s cognitive therapy, and Donald Meichenbaum’s cognitive-behavioral modification.
Third-wave cognitive-behavioral therapies, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
(ACT) and Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), are also discussed in this section. Likewise,
Family Therapy theory can be broken down into many types. In this chapter, Bowenian family
Novice counselors are encouraged to try several selected approaches on for size to determine the
best fit for the counselor. The process of developing and consolidating theoretical orientation is a
continual process that requires openness and flexibility in order to attain and maintain excellence
as a skilled professional counselor.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter, students should be able to:
• Identify the basic inferential errors.
• Identify the major traditional theories of counseling and their key theorists.
• Compare and contrast the essential principles and concepts, goals of treatment,
and process and techniques of each of the traditional theories of counseling.
• Understand the process of developing counselor-specific theoretical orientation
and the potential pitfalls of eclecticism.
Key Words/Terms
• Availability heuristic- using a particular theory that is foremost in the counselor’s
awareness rather than the theory that is most relevant or applicable to the client.
• Boundaries- emotional barriers that protect the integrity of individuals,
subsystems, and nuclear families within the larger system
• Disengagement- boundaries are so rigid that little or no emotional transaction can
take place between family members.
• Ego defense mechanisms- unconscious distortion of reality in some way so that
• Free association- the process of saying whatever comes to mind in order to
produce unconscious material.
• Fundamental attribution error- the tendency to attribute one’s own behaviors to
the external situation while attributing others’ behaviors to their personal
characteristics.
• Single-cause etiologies- selecting one possibility as the cause of the client’s
problems while dismissing other viable possibilities.
• Superego- the component of personality guided by society and culture to lead the
ego in the direction of moral action and block unacceptable impulses of the id.
• Transference- the transfer of one’s thoughts and feelings about some other
Lecture Outline for Chapter Four
Traditional and Contemporary Theories of Counseling
I. Counseling theories provide a framework for the counselor to organize data, form hypotheses
about the nature of the client’s problem, and devise a plan for intervention.
II. Psychoanalysis
A. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
B. “Talking out” approach to reduce physical symptoms of hysteria
C. Conflict between impulses, societal rules, and reality.
D. Basic Assumptions:
2.Unconscious motivation: Most human behavior stems from factors that lie beyond our
1.Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious
F. Structures of Personality:
1.Reality Anxiety, Moral Anxiety, Neurotic Anxiety
1.Modify the structure of personality by making the unconscious material conscious, so that the
client will increase in awareness.
a.Transference
1.Behavior is goal-oriented, purposeful, and socially motivated.
3.Personality is best understood as part of a social system.
5.Each person develops a cognitive map, a lifestyle, which organizes behavior as the person strives
towards goals.
6.Fulfilment is found in acting for the general social interest.
C. Problems arise when the person becomes discouraged or holds faulty conceptions or
1.Establish a collaborative relationship
2.Analyze the client’s lifestyle through lifestyle assessment
3.Encourage insight into mistaken beliefs and self-defeating behavior.
4.Reorient the client to new choices and actions.
IV. Behavior Therapy
1.Dogs salivate when presented with food. If a bell is rung every time they are presented with
food, they will start to salivate when hearing the bell before they even see the food.
2.Acquisition, Extinction, Stimulus Generalization, Stimulus Discrimination
1.Behavior is followed either by reinforcers or punishers.
a.Reinforcers increase the chance of the behavior recurring, either by adding something desirable
2.Identify problem behavior.
3.Create specific interventions with concrete goals for changing the behavior.
a.Systematic desensitization
1.Problem: Automatic thoughts stemming from cognitive distortions.
C. Donald Meichenbaum: Cognitive-Behavioral Modification
1.Problem: Faulty behavior which can be changed through modeling, observation, and verbal
mediation.
D. Basic Principles:
2.Cognitive processes are the reasoning styles through which individuals process the ongoing
events of life.
3.Cognitive distortions include arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, overgeneralization,
1.REBT: ABC formula (Activating event, Irrational Belief, Emotional Consequence.) Intervene
by Disputing to experience the positive Effect.
2.CT: Guided discovery through Socratic questioning and personal experiments.
3.CBM: Similar cognitive and behavioral techniques but also adds self-instruction, self-
1.Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
a.Increase flexibility by helping clients more fully experience and embrace the present emotional
2.Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
a.Originally developed to treat BPD
2.People demonstrate actualizing tendencies- the inherent tendency to develop capacities in ways
that enhance the person.
4.People have a strong universal need to be loved and valued.
C. Problems develop because of conditional love from parents so that a state of incongruency
1.Counselors should be genuine and empathic, demonstrating unconditional positive regard.
2.Counselors should ask insightful questions.
VII. Narrative Therapy
A. Insoo Kim Berg, Steve De Shazer, Michael White, David Epstein
B. Basic Principles:
1.Clients have stories that they tell about their past and present. The client’s story is the client’s
reality (Personal Narrative Metaphor)
C. Goal of Therapy: Personal narrative repair or reconstruction.
2.Identify alternative ways of reconceptualizing the story.
3.Aid the client in reauthoring their personal story.
VIII. Feminist Therapy
A. Jean Baker Miller, Carolyn Zerbe Enns, Olivia Espin
B. Basic Principles
2.Value female characteristics and female-centered values
C. Goal of Therapy: Validate and empower clients while advocating societal change.
2.Teach client about repressive influences of gender roles and their negative impact on self-
concept.
4.Use assertiveness training to empower clients.
IX. Family Therapy
1.The family functions as a system and must be viewed within the context of the family system.
3.Pathology serves a family function.
5.Triangles are three-person subunit that is the smallest stable emotional unit
1.Fusion, Disengagement, and Emotional Cutoff may all occur.
2.Goal is to develop healthy differentiation through promoting self-awareness and learning to
balance personal autonomy with connectedness.
D. Minuchin’s Structural Family Therapy: Families are governed by their structure (covert rules
of family transactions.)
2.The goal is to create an effective hierarchical structure.
E. Haley’s Strategic Family Therapy: This is a brief problem-solving therapy in which the goal
1.The problem is related to the developmental attachment histories of the family members.
3.The goal is to understand dysfunctional patterns of interaction and help family members connect
in ways that lead to secure attachment bonds.
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