Counseling

Defining Psychotherapy: The informed and intentional application of clinical methods and interpersonal stances, derived from established psychological principles, for the purpose of assisting people to modify their behaviors, cognition, emotions, and/or other personal characteristics in directions that the participants deem desirable.

Theory: In scientific usage, a consistent perspective on human behavior, psychopathology, and mechanisms of therapeutic change.

Common Factors shared by all psychotherapies and not specific to any one. Most consensual common factors: client’s positive expectations and facilitative therapy relationship.

Jerome Frank: in Persuasion & Healing three important factors: confiding relationship, a healing setting, a rationale, and a therapeutic ritual.
If a patient believes the rationale, they are more likely to believe in the therapeutic ritual.

Positive Expectations: * Positive expectations frequently correlate with positive outcomes * Responsible for up to 1/3 of successful psychotherapy * Necessary but not sufficient for treatment success * An active, common ingredient in all forms of psychotherapy

Therapeutic Relationship: * Greatest area of theoretical convergence is development of strong therapeutic alliance

Rogers’ Facilitative Conditions:
1)

2)

3)

Hawthorne Effect:
-People improve as a result of having special attention paid to them
-Psychotherapist gives special, undivided attention to client
-50% of public speaking phobias show improvement following attention placebo
-Placebo groups are used to control for Hawthorne effect

Specific Factors: how the different theories disagree. -In addition to common factors, psychotherapies have factors relatively specific to them. -Psychotherapists cannot practice “nonspecifically”- they say & do specific things -Processes of change are specific or unique contribution of each therapy system

Awareness or Insight Therapies: Processes