COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Counselling and psychotherapy

Counselling and Psychotherapy

Introduction

This case study revolves around Helen, a twenty-year old white woman, who fears of losing her boyfriend just because in her view she does not look good. Also, she has had no sex with her boyfriend and now she wants to have an intercourse with him. This situation is taking a toll on her head and she has turned out to be a psychic patient. May be the case is that Helen does not feel like a girl. Now this is a psychological case and needs to be addressed with this particular context.

Approaches

There are many approaches to working therapeutically with partners (such as Helen and her boyfriend). These approaches differ in focus, process, and goals. A comprehensive review of all theories in the partner and marriage counseling field is too broad for the scope of this entry. However, several will be discussed briefly (Whisman, 2007).

Psychoanalytic partner counseling focuses on helping individuals recognize their own unconscious processes as well as those of their spouse or partner. This theory tries to uncover childhood conflicts that have gone unresolved and are therefore influencing the state of the current relationship. The psychoanalytic partner therapist attempts to understand current interactions and their connection with interactions that occurred at early developmental levels. One of the primary goals of this theory is to encourage each person in the context of the relationship to become a distinct individual self. The psychoanalytic approach views the individual as one who chooses a partner based on dynamics that existed in early parent-child interactions. As with traditional and individual psychoanalysis, this is a long and intense form of counseling (Taleporos, 2006).

Behavioral partner counseling is widely used and thoroughly researched and focuses on observable behaviors. This type of partner counseling focuses on improving the partner relationship by attempting to improve positive exchanges while decreasing negative interactions. Like individual behavioral therapies, behavioral partner counseling views the environment as a major influence on creating and sustaining the intimate relationship. The practitioner applying this theory pays particular attention to the cycles each member of a partner engages in to control the behavior of the other. Homework, assessment tools, and at-home and in-session observations are used regularly in this approach (McCabe, 2008). In general, this is time-limited and symptom-focused counseling.

Cognitive-behavioral partner counseling focuses not just on the behavior of each person in the relationship but on the interpretation that each makes about the other person's behavior. The goal of this counseling is to assist the partner in identifying the thoughts that contribute to the marital problems, to test whether or not the thoughts are valid or accurate, and to modify the thoughts accordingly. For example, when partners (such as Helen and her boyfriend) use language such as “always” and “never” when talking about each other, the counselor may encourage the partner to seek exceptions related to these statements. A cognitive-behavioral partner counselor might also seek to discover assumptions that are not accurate and assist the partner in discovering more accurate ...