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Counseling Theories and Their Application in Schools Counseling in schools is more than scheduling students and career planning. Counseling in schools also includes counseling a diverse population with a variety of problems. Understanding counseling theories will help school counselors to effectively help the special populations on their campus. This paper will explore the key concepts, therapeutic process and applications of Deadlier Theory, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Solution Focused Brief Therapy.
These therapies will also be evaluated as to their appropriateness with school-aged and adolescent children. Deadlier Theory Key Concepts Alfred Adler is known worldwide as a philosopher and psychiatrist. He based his theories from his personal experience as a child growing up with multiple illnesses. He believed that although early childhood experiences, especially the first five years, have a deep impact on personal development, biology and physiology are less important than what the client makes of them.
His view of human nature is that our basic motivation is to belong and feel significant (leftward. Du, 2013). Deadlier therapy provides clients with encouragement and assists them in changing their respective. Therapeutic Process Deadlier therapy is optimistic, growth oriented and educational. The goal of therapy is to have a healthy, well-functioning adult who would conclude that they are “independent, emotionally and physically self-reliant” as well as able to cooperate with others for personal and social benefit. (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 63).
Adler believed that if you could help the client to be aware of their faulty logic, they could establish goals that are realistic and rewarding. After creating goals, the client an align to a lifestyle that diminishes feelings of inferiority, dependency and fears of failure. There are four stages in treatment under Deadlier therapy. The first stage establishes the therapeutic alliance between the clinician and the client. Adler placed a high importance on a cooperative interaction between the client and clinician that emphasizes mutual trust and respect.
Both parties will help the client to determine the goals of treatment. Once the goals are established, the clinician and client work together to complete an assessment, analysis and understanding of he person and the problem. The clinician will complete a lifestyle assessment that includes questions about the family constellation?sibling relationships, physical development, school experience, religious beliefs, fears, sexual development, parental influences, influence of neighborhood and community, and other influences and role models.
Through this assessment, the clinician is determining levels of satisfaction with the client and their relationships and looking for faulty logic. The third stage, called Reeducation, Insight and Interpretation, can be the most difficult or the clinician. During this phase, the clinician is tasked with being encouraging, yet challenging. The client will be made aware of lifestyles, evaluating reasons behind their behaviors and the negative consequences of their actions (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 71).
The final stage in Deadlier therapy is Reorientation, Reinforcement, Termination and Follow-Up. Clients are tasked with reorienting their lives and initiating new patterns of behavior. The key words through this process are to have rewarding and challenging goals. The clients during this phase are coming full participants in their social system and begin taking positive steps toward their new goals. (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 72). Application: Techniques and Procedures Deadlier therapy is useful for individuals and groups alike.
It also can be used in career development, education, training, supervision, and organizational development (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 73). One form of individual psychology adapted for a school setting is called Student Success Schools. Like individual psychology, ASS “assumes that students who feel connected to their immediate community will more likely thrive in that community. ” (Brigham, Limburger & Moore, 2010, p. 152). Students are asked to set goals and then are exposed to skills, structures and habits that will help them to boost their potential and social context.
Clinicians use a variety of interventions when working with clients including discussing the client’s earliest recollections and helping to change the client’s perspectives on their lifestyle. Deadlier therapy has a broad scope, including multicultural groups due to its focus on the individual and their aground. Clients with psychotic disorders are not good candidates for this type of therapy though because they are not capable of the self-examination required (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 74).
The appeal to Deadlier therapy in a school setting is the focus on social context. If you have ever spent any time in a school setting, you can see the social dynamics between the students. Children and adolescents fit well into Idler’s idea that people have the basic motivation to belong to a group and have the need for significance and self-worth. In the same token, Hess strong desires to belong highlight the need for interventions to help client’s change their perspectives on their life and world-views.
From a school perspective, I also like that Deadlier theory recognizes a person’s background, but also helps the client to see that they do not have to be victimized by their childhood and can change their perspective and in a sense overcome their circumstances. Students can set goals that will create the lifestyle that they desire. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence-based theory that is based on the dead that our feelings and behaviors are caused by our thoughts.
While CB gives credit that problems may be rooted in childhood, CB focuses on the present- thinking that causes behavior and thoughts. Through CB and also Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, the client and therapist will analyze faulty thought behaviors and replace them with effective beliefs. CB is a short-term, present focused therapy that has many uses, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Aaron Beck is the pioneer of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. One of his major concepts s schemas.
According to Beck, schemas are core beliefs?typical reactions and knowledge that you use without thinking about it. Schemas can lead us to have expectations about experiences, events and roles (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 276). If we have had a negative experience, all of our future experiences will be filtered through the negative one. Through Cognitive Behavior Therapy, one can change how they feel and act towards a situation although the situation does not change. Therapeutic Process Cognitive Behavior Therapy is short in duration. It is present-focused, work oriented and often lasts 6 to 8 sessions per identified issue.
The goal of CB is seeking to elicit and change people’s symptoms as well as their automatic thoughts, intermediate beliefs, core cognitions and underlying schemas” (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 276). The clinician challenges clients to confront faulty beliefs and minimize them. In early sessions, the therapist will explain the cognitive theory and the process of changing the client’s negative cognitions. During the middle sessions, the client is taught to identify, evaluate and replace negative automatic thoughts with more positive ones.
The final sessions involve reassuring the client in the progress that was made and discussing preventing a recurrence in the future. Throughout the treatment process, the therapist is a collaborator with the client. Goals are formed and regularly revisited to make sure that the client and clinician are on the same page. “Cognitive therapists strive to be nonjudgmental… Rather clinicians help their clients to develop the skills they need to make their own judgments and choices” (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 278). The client will be given homework assignments throughout the therapy process.
One particularly helpful assignment would be diaries to help the client to become more aware of their thoughts and feelings. Once the negative thoughts have been identified, they can be disputed. Application: Techniques and Procedures For the purpose of discussing CB in a school setting, the following strategies would be the most effective with school-aged and adolescent children. Thought stopping can be particularly useful. It is as simple as it sounds. Once the client recognizes the negative thoughts, they should actually say “Stop! ” to discontinue that thought process.
This can be used in people of all ages. Secondly role-playing or cognitive rehearsal can be helpful. Students can rehearse a new behavior to create a cognitive model of themselves (Salesman & Richening, 2010, p. 282). These could be done in groups of children with emotional disorders or done as a preventative measure to show students how to act when negative thoughts occur. Once the distortions have been labeled and the cognitions have been changed, treatment can be terminated. For each issue identified, a separate treatment plan should be devised.
CB has a broad range of topics for which it is effective. These can range from depression and in combination with a devastating medical diagnosis. It is effective with a broad range of ages and backgrounds. Solution Focused Brief Theory Solution Focused Brief Therapy is an action-focused treatment system where the client approaches the clinician with a specific problem. Therapeutic Process Solution Focused Brief Therapy is focused on the present, is positive in its approach and helps clients to identify exceptions, which is times when the presenting problem is absent.
While the therapy is brief in nature, it goes through overall steps: describing the problem, establishing a baseline, determining goals, developing strategies to facilitate change, implementing the plan, assessing and evaluating, reinforcing successes and maintenance (Salesman & Richening, 2010). SOFT is appropriate across cultural boundaries due to the fact that it is problem based. The client is seeking treatment for a particular problem and their background is not discussed as part of the therapy. Solution Focused Brief Therapy resonates most with me in a school setting. In my experience, students do not focus on long- term goals.
They are very present-focused, which is why SOFT would be effective. They have a current issue and want to solve it quickly. It is effective for students because it is positive in its approach and emphasizes behavioral change. One study looked at students who had received a behavioral referral to the principal. These students went through SOFT and it was suggested that therapy “combined with teacher training and consultation, may be one way to successfully address behavioral problems that could inhibit learning, particularly more exterminating acting out types of behaviors”.