The Concept of Counselling in Education - Essay Example

Counselling In Education Introduction Before beginning to help the children through the use of counseling interventions and skills, it is essential to know exactly their problems and possibly explore them. This is the initial task, and a central issue which underscores many of the difficulties that children experience is that, there can be some discrepancy between who they perceive themselves to be and also who they would like to be. These concepts are relevant to humanistic counselling (Rogers, 1996). There exists a useful distinction between schools of counselling and approaches to counseling. A theoretical approach presents a position that regards the theory and practice of counselling. A school of counselling can be viewed as a grouping of different theoretical approaches, which are similar to each other in terms of fundamental characteristics, which distinguishes them from theoretical approaches in counselling schools. The three main schools, which influence psychotherapy practice and contemporary counselling are usually separated into three overlapping and distinct traditions or schools of theoretical approach that have informed the practice of counselling. They are the humanistic school, the psychodynamic school and the cognitive/behavioral school (Greig, 2007). The humanistic/existential school has its roots in the works of pioneers such as Rogers, Moreno, Maslow, Berne, Binswanger, May, Perls and Boss characterized by a belief in self-actualization and choice. The humanistic school sometimes incorporate existential approach hence gets the broader title humanistic-existential school. It is based on humanism, a system of beliefs and values which emphasizes the better qualities of human beings and individuals’ abilities to develop their human potential. The humanistic counselors often emphasize enhancing clients’ abilities to reason and behave in harmony with their underlying habits to actualize themselves as unique characters. Describing humanistic/existential approach to the development of mental disorders is a considerable challenge. Humanistic approaches in many aspects are philosophical in nature, speak to the nature of the individual’s condition, deal with values and prefer a holistic view of the person. The humanistic/existential approaches evolved as a reaction to the determinism of the early models of psychopathology. Many psychologists were disturbed that Freudian theory did not touch on the inner world of the client but categorized the client according to preconceived diagnoses. They described a client in terms of psychic complexes and blocked instinctual forces that made them victims of deterministic and mechanistic personality structure. The humanistic/existential approaches represent many schools of thought. However, they do share a set of assumptions which distinguishes them from other approaches. The first assumption is that people’s realities and dreams are products of unique perceptions and experiences of the world. Furthermore, how a person construes events is more crucial than the event itself. Therefore, to understand how people behave, psychologists need to reconstruct the world from individual’s point of vantage. The second assumption is those humanistic/existential theorists assume that individuals have got the ability to make free and fair opinions, and are in charge of their own rules and decisions. The third assumption is that they assume people have the ability to fulfill their capacities, become what they want and lead the lives best suited to them. Gestalt therapy, existential therapy and person-centered therapy are some of the prominent counseling and therapy approaches that exist within humanistic/existential school (Rogers, 1996). Gestalt therapy originated from Fritz Perls, who argued that once people lose touch with their senses and interference with their capacity to make contacts with the environment, they become neurotic. He said that therapy emphasizes vitality through awareness, experiments, frustrations, sympathy and dream work (Butler, 2007). Existential therapy originated from Irvin Yalom and Rollo May. It focuses on assisting clients deal with anxieties connected to death, isolation, freedom and meaninglessness. This therapy mainly focuses on the clients’ present situations with various interventions used according to nature of the clients’ enveloping fears (Butler, 2007). Person-centered therapy’s originator is Carl Rogers, who laid enormous stress on the origin of the subjective experience and how the clients gets out of touch with their organism experiences by interjecting others’ evaluations and treating them as one’s own. Therapy stresses on a relationship characterized by accurate respect, empathy and non-possessive warmth (Butler, 2007). The Humanistic Perspective One key contributions of the humanistic perspective are its positive view of the individual. Carl Rogers, one of the best humanistic psychologists reflects his concern with the human welfare and his conviction that humanity is best and trust worthy. The actualizing tendency The humanistic approach is concerned with assisting people actualize their potential and bettering the state of humanity instead of concentrating on behavior disorder. Humanistic psychological theory is based on fact and idea that individuals are motivated to satisfy their biological needs and also maintain, enhance and cultivate one’s image. The nature of this approach is the impression of self-actualization. This term was popularized by Abraham Maslow, which is a tendency to struggle towards the realization of someone’s full potential. This tendency is viewed as fulfilling a genetic blueprint. This tendency of life that pushes individuals forward is manifested in qualities such as creativity, curiosity, joy and discovery. Development of abnormal behavior According to Rogers, people were left free by the society and were allowed to develop and grow freely \, and the end results would be fully functioning individuals. The person’s self concept is defined as having worth only when others have approved it. Reliance on others forces the person to develop an altered self-concept which is inconsistent with his/her self-actualizing potential, inhibiting that individual from being self-actualized. A condition of incongruence is said to exist between the individual’s inherent potential and his/her self-concept. This incongruence state forms the basis of abnormal behavior (Lang, 1999). According to Rogers, giving unconditional positive regards is loving regardless of behavior. Some individuals may disapprove someone’s actions, but still love, respect and care for that person. The existential perspective is a set of attitudes and not a systematized school of thought. Both the existential approach and humanistic psychology share an emphasis on individual uniqueness, for freedom and responsibility, a quest for meaning in life and for responsibility and freedom. They also share a belief that a person has positive attributes, which are expressed unless they are altered by the environment. The humanistic and existential approaches differ in various dimensions (Lang, 1999). Humanism is more optimistic than existentialism. Existentialism focuses on difficulties, irrationality and suffering that all human beings encounter in life. Existentialism deals with individual alienation from the spiritual and social structures that do not provide meaning in an increasingly impersonal and technological world. Both humanistic and existential perspectives stress phenomenology. This is the idea of trying to understand people’s subjective world of experiences. Humanistic therapists try to reconstruct the subjective world of their clients from empathy. The two approaches differ in their views concerning responsibility. Humanistic approach stresses on individual responsibility where the individual is responsible for what he/she gets to achieve in life. Existentialism approach stresses on individual responsibility as well as responsibility to others where self-fulfillment in this case is not enough (Lang 1999). Just like other theories, other people find humanistic psychology relevant while others only view the flaws. Some of the humanistic theory’s strengths are positivity focus and goodness of humanity as well as free will to change. Contrasting biological approaches and Freud’s theory, focusing on the belief that cognition and human behavior are casually determined by prior actions and schedules such that individuals lack self-control. According to Maslow, he believes that an individual is quite powerful. Another strength of the humanistic theory is that many aspects of the theory easily integrate with many schools of thought. Quite a number of therapists have adopted humanistic undertones while working with clients. As the individual believes that humanistic theory does not cover the actual distance, they tend to understand the benefits of the core beliefs and values in changing individuals’ lives for the better. Humanism also has benefits that carry over into several other professions, example, in a business class; one will surely cover the topic Maslow’s hierarchy. While studying economics or finance the subject will in no doubt cover the concepts of moving up physically and financially, and to eventually become aware and enlightened of our position in this world and ofcourse who we are. This principle is also present in different professions like history, literature and criminology, since the basis of humanistic thoughts ring in everything that deals with human (Lang, 1999). Criticisms of both humanistic and existential perspectives point to their nebulous nature and the small population in which these two approaches can be used. Since these approaches have been creative in describing an individual’s condition, they have however, been less successful in the constructing theory. Nevertheless, they are not suited to experimental or scientific investigations. The stress on subjective understanding rather than control and prediction, on empathy and intuition rather than objective investigation and an individual rather than the general category all tend to change empirical study (Lines, 2006). Another criticism leveled at the humanistic/existential perspectives is that they work well with seriously disturbed clients. They seem so effective with well educated, normal and intelligent people that might be suffering adjustment difficulties. This disadvantage along the usual vagueness of humanistic and existential thoughts, have hindered wider application of these ideas to unusual psychology. According to Carl Rogers, he has expressed his many ideas as researchable propositions, but exceedingly difficult to verify scientifically the humanistic concept of people as inherently good, rational and moving towards self-fulfillment. Existential approach can be criticized for lack of scientific grounding since it relies on the unique, subjective experiences of people to describe the inner world. These data usually tend to be difficult to test and quantify. On the other hand, the existential concepts of freedom, responsibility, being, nonbeing and choice have a significant influence on contemporary thought beyond the area of psychology. The psychodynamic school has its roots in the methodology and theory of Freud, which is characterized by the unconscious conflict that is brought about by the instinctual repression and drives. One of the most crucial contributions of the child guidance within multidisciplinary work in the early days is the introduction of what came to be called psychodynamic approach. The term psychodynamic referred to forces in someone’s mind, and it was extremely assumed that the disturbances of behavior, feelings and thoughts that were dealt with, could be understood as a distorted balance of mental processes. In short, the word psychodynamic refers to the transfer of mental or psychic energy between the various levels and structures of consciousness within people’s minds. This approach emphasizes on the importance of unconscious influences on how different people function. Through counseling, it increases the clients’ abilities to exercise eminent conscious control over their lives. Further to the functions that social factors do play in developments, the most recent psychodynamic theories place significant emphasis on the conscious experiences and its interactions with the unconscious. Psychodynamic psychology tries to ignore science trappings and instead focuses on how to get into an individual’s mind in order get some sense of their experiences, relationships and how they view the world. The psychodynamic school includes all the theories in psychology that view human functioning based upon forces within the person and interaction of drives, particularly between different personality and structures. Psychodynamic theories are in agreement that the study of the human behavior needs to include factors like personality, internal processes, motivation and drives as well as childhood experiences. Some classic theories about roles of unconscious sexual aggressive drives on the other hand have been re-viewed to focus on the conscious experiences that result in the birth of psychology ego. Several psychologists have tried to propose theories that try to mention and explain the origin of word personality. Sigmund Freud, an Australian neurologist proposed the theory of psychoanalysis. All these theories are called psychodynamics theories collectively (Rogers, 1996). Psychodynamic approach assumes that people’s feelings and behavior are affected powerfully by unconscious motives. It also assumes these people’s feelings, behaviors and psychological problems as adults are mainly rooted from childhood experiences and that behavior is motivated by instinctual drives which are Eros (life instinct and sex drive) and the Thanatos (death instinct and the aggressive drive). Both of these drives come from the id. This approach also assumes that all behaviors usually have unconscious cause. Among these include the slip of the tongue, hence all behavior are determined. The psychodynamic approach assumes that personality is shaped when the drives are modified by various conflicts at various times of the childhood, i.e. during psychosexual development. It also assumes that personality is made up of tripartite, i.e. The id, ego and the superego and that parts of the unconscious mind (id and the superego) are constantly in conflicts with the (ego) conscious part of the mind. Sigmund’s psychoanalysis theory, was the first original psychodynamic theory even though the psychodynamic approach in general includes all the theories that were based on Freud’s ideas. These include theories from Adler (1927), Jung (1964) and Erikson (1950). In the early 1900’s, Freud developed mechanism/technique he called psychoanalysis. He used this mechanism to treat mental, depression and anxiety disorders. He formed his psychoanalysis theory by observing his patients. According to this theory, personalities arise due to attempts to resolve conflicts that exist between societal demands aggressive impulses to restrain these impulses. He believed that individuals could get cured by making conscious their unconscious motivations and thoughts hence gaining insights. The significant role of psychoanalysis therapy therefore is to allow the release of repressed experiences and emotions i.e. to make the unconscious conscious.  One of the main concepts of Freud’s approach to the psychodynamic is that psyche is divided into three different entities. These entities include the ‘id’, ‘ego’ and the ‘superego’, with ‘id’ and ‘superego’ being significantly unconscious (Rogers, 1996). The Id: It is a reservoir of instinctual energy which contains biological urges like impulses towards sex, survival and aggression. It is unconscious and normally operates according to the principle of pleasure, the drive to gain pleasure and avoiding pain. It is characterized by the primary process thinking that is irrational, illogical and motivated by the desire for immediate gratification of impulses. The Ego: This is the component which manages the conflict between id and constraints of the world. Some ego parts are unconscious and others conscious or preconscious. Ego operates according to the principle of reality, awareness that impulses’ gratification has to be delayed in order to take care of what this world demands. This ego is characterized by rational and logical secondary thinking process. The role of the ego is to counteract the id from appeasing its impulses in ways that are considered socially inappropriate. The superego: It is personality’s moral component. It contains all moral standards that are learned from the society and parents. The superego’s function is to force the ego to conform to reality and ideals of morality. Therefore, the superego’s role is to make individuals guilty of themselves when they turn against the rules of the society. Just as the ego, the superego also operates at all the three levels of awareness. Most of our troubles and anxieties then arise from trying to balance in between these impulses. The superego tries to control and suppress the unacceptable desires and also to protect the ego. It is because of these reasons these urges and desires can be forced into people’s unconscious and stopping them from causing damages. These issues though unresolved, can emerge in other different forms like psychological disorders, example, a phobia can exist if it tries to remind the patient of one of his/her anxieties. This process of getting away with unwanted experiences and thoughts is known as defence mechanisms. Repression is one form of defence mechanism where individuals’ memories and thoughts are locked away and forgotten unless one specifically tries to access them. Reaction formation is another defence mechanism whereby one convinces him/herself that he/she does not feel a certain way by acting completely in the opposite way. Another defence mechanism is the projection whereby one projects his/her issues onto a third party, example a friend or even a group, hence focusing one’s energies on to them. Sublimation, a similar process, is where an individual takes out his/her frustrations on something or someone else, example knocking the table or kicking the cat. A psychodynamic therapist can use some of these mechanisms to attempt and get to the actual source of an individual’s problems hence enabling them deal with the patients effectively. Psychoanalytic psychologists view psychological problems and errors as rooted in the unconscious mind and that the manifest symptoms are majorly caused by hidden disturbances. Psychoanalysis also assumes that treatment always focuses on bringing repressed conflict to consciousness, where it can be dealt by the client. Psychoanalysis is a superb example of global therapy (Comer, 1995). It has the role of helping clients bring out crucial changes in their perspective about life. This is argued on the fact that, assumption of the latest maladaptive perspective is closed to some deep-seated factors of personality. The global therapies maintain in contrast to the approaches that focus on a reduction of symptoms like problem based therapy which include behavioral and cognitive approaches. Anxiety disorders: Such as panic attacks, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorders are some of the critical areas where psychoanalysis theory assumes to be working. The main aim is to enable a client to come to terms with his/her own id impulses and recognize the origin of their latest anxiety in relationships during childhood which are getting relived in the adulthood life. Svartberg and Stiles (1991) shows that the evidence for anxiety disorders’ effectiveness is equivocal. Another theorist suggests that psychodynamic therapies are of little help to individuals with certain anxiety disorders like the phobias but may be of substantial help with the general anxiety disorders, Salzman (1980). Depressions: Can be treated with a certain psychoanalytic approach. Psychoanalysts try to relate depression way back to the loss children experiences when they realize separation from their parents in the early childhood. An inability to get to terms with this depression may live the person prone to depressive episodes in the future life. Treatment to depression starts by encouraging the client to try and recall the early experiences and also untangle the fixations which have been built up around it. Great care is given with transference while working with highly depressed clients because of their overwhelming need of being dependent on others. The main aim is for the clients to start becoming less dependent and start developing a functional way of trying to understand and accept rejection, loss or change in their lives. Shapiro et al (1991) argued that psychodynamic therapies become successful occasionally. One of the main reasons is that depressed individuals may be too unmotivated or inactive to take part in the session. In these cases, a more directive and challenging approach might be of significant benefit. Another reason can be that depressives may expect a faster cure \, and since psychoanalysis does not offer this, the individual might leave and even become involved in devising strategies which will maintain with the analyst a dependent transference relationship. According to Fisher and Greenberg (1977), they concluded that psychoanalytic theory is a complete structure having many parts and therefore, cannot be rejected or accepted as a package, hence some should be accepted while others rejected \, and others at least reshaped. According to Fonagy (1981), questions arise whether the validated Freuds approach has any validity themselves. He argues that Freuds theory questions the foundation of a rationalist, a scientific approach and could well be viewed as a critique of science, rather than science rejecting psychoanalysis since it is not responsive to contradiction. This method of case study is criticized since it is doubtful that generalizations might be valid since this method is open to several kinds of biased. However, psychoanalysis is mainly concerned with giving interpretations to the latest individual. Storr (1987), the known psychoanalyst, holds the idea that although many psychoanalysts have a lot of enlightenment at their fingertips from such cases; the outcome is expected to be contaminated with subjective individuals’ opinions and therefore, should not be considered scientific. Sigmund Freud’s theories had more emphasis on the unconscious mind, aggression, sex and the childhood experiences. Most of his ideas were based on clinical observations and case studies rather than scientific and empirical researches. Several concepts proposed by theorists of psychoanalytic are too difficult to quantify and measure. The main strength of the psychodynamic approach towards education is that it provides a clear and useful insights of how early relationships or experiences affects the adult personality, example, at the oral stage of psychosexual development like early separation from the primary caregiver. This can lead to psychological problems centered round eating or drinking. Jacob et al (1966) compared smokers and non-smokers and found that smokers appeared as being more oral significantly. Another psychodynamic approach strength is that it is the first to attempt and explain mental illness in psychological terms. This had an enormous influence on how to understand and treat mental disorders, example, dream therapy that aims to make the unconscious individual conscious, hence easier to deal with. According to Sandell (1999), he studied symptoms of over 700 individuals before and after state funded psychoanalysis and found that the patients had fewer symptoms after the therapy. The major criticism of the psychodynamic school is that it is unscientific when it comes to analysis of the human behavior. Several concepts that are central to Freud’s theories are mostly subjective and impossible to scientific tests. Example, it is not possible to study concepts like unconscious mind and the tripartite personality scientifically. It is with this respect that psychodynamic approach cannot be viewed as true since the theories cannot be investigated empirically (Lang, 1999). According to some critiques, some psychodynamic theories are not falsifiable hence unscientific. In support of this criticism, some proponents of psychodynamic theories find out that empirical research clearly shows that there exists unconscious mental processes, in that individuals have mental representations of other individuals and that various individuals use unconscious defense mechanisms in order to protect themselves from unpleasant emotions like anxiety. Another criticism is that most evidence for the psychodynamic theory is taken from Freud’s case studies, for example, Little Hans, Anna O. The major problem in this example is that the case studies are mostly based on studying an individual in details, and with Freud’s reference, the individuals in this case are mostly women from Vienna and middle aged women who happens to be his patients. This makes generalization to the entire population difficult, example, the whole world (Lang, 1999). Conclusion The humanistic school makes criticism that psychodynamic perspective is much deterministic hence leaving room for the idea of personal agency. Other critics claim that psychodynamic theories are formed by generalizing from a few patients to the entire population of human beings. Reliance of only case study often leads to faulty conclusions. Some critics still argue that some psychodynamic theories are not based on instructions and studies that follow individuals from childhood to adulthood. Instead of that, theorists of psychodynamic listen to descriptions of any adult patient’s past characters and tries to draw a suitable conclusion about the relevance of the experiences of childhood. However, as mentioned by Jung, memories are not always reliable. Bibliography Leiper, R. (2004). The psychodynamic approach to the therapeutic change: London, Sage Coren, A. (2006) short term psychotherapy. Other press, LLC Atkinson, K. (2000) creative therapies: a psychodynamic approach with occupational therapy. Nelson Thornes Coon, D. John, O. (2008) Introduction to psychology therapy: gateways to behavior and minds. Cengage Learning Gail,M. Frawley, O. Sarnat, M. (2007). Supervisory Relationship: contemporary Psychodynamic Approach. Guilford press. Mander, G. (2000). psychodynamic approach to therapy. 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