Dilemma Of Approach To Psychology

Dilemma of approach As a college student majoring in the discipline of psychology, I feel daunted by the seemingly constant shifting of approach and methods to counsel a mentally ill client toward mutual goals. Obviously the mechanism of client referral is significant. In the scenario of a new client interaction the first question that I thought of was; did the client self assess and recognize need for change due to inability to perform or function or emotional pain or did another professional or family member intervene to require that services be provided?. Once the client comes to the session how does the novice set up a dialogue that allows growth from both parties? I am beginning to understand that phenomenology according to Corsini
Also how does the therapist and client decide their mutual goals? I always thought the end result of therapy was to heal brain dysfunction and assist the client in processing and interpreting his life in a healthy self sustaining manner. As a topic of personal interest and often the cause severe mental dysfunction is dissociative identity disorder. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness -5(2013) the criterion for dissociative identity disorder requires two or more altered states that have a distinct patterned changed affect, sense of relationship with environment ,sensory-motor functions, perceptions and cognitive behavior and memories and time gaps for important personal information and must be unable to function in at least one aspect of daily life. My initial interest in this pathological state is from the exaggerated media examples. From the Psychology Today website, NYU professor Robert Muller noted that dissociated states are often uncontrolled ,disruptive, where alternate identity takes over the individual and self is not often conscious of the other’s presence , thus the passage of time without recall or memory, called dissociative
MacIntosh discusses that Emily came to her through self referral as her long term therapist of ten years was no longer in practice. The author describes Emily’s abuse and chronic childhood trauma in the setting of an impoverished family. From a young age Emily was cared for by her father in order that he have sex with her,also her brother and, brother’ s friends gang raped her. Emily’s mother appears to have looked the other way. Her mother even performed an abortion on her. From my limited perspective Emily appears to have had no chance for secure attachment, trust and nurturing. The case starts when Emily is forty-eight and the counselor is conflicted as to therapeutic strategy to use to help Emily become integrated, after three years of using primarily the trauma model theory approach. MacIntosh’s goal appears to be integration of Emily’s alters into one interconnected accessible self. The author infers that Emily’s goal may be different. The author describes the multi phase process used by the prior therapist and herself as that of the trauma model techniques. Emily is given a safe haven and containment for experiencing her traumatic memories. The counselor would try to work through the described memories with Emily as she has no memory of them except