Psychoanalysis is an approach to psychotherapy that was originally developed by the Austrian Sigmund Freud. Treatment involves the client, or “analysand” discussing fantasies, dreams and experiences in a manner known as “free association”, where the client is able to talk about anything that comes to mind. The therapist then analyses this information to determine the unconscious conflicts that are believed to be causing the the maladaptive emotions, thoughts and behaviours of the client. The psychotherapist then interprets these unconscious conflicts for the client, helping the patient to develop insight into causes and possible resolutions of psychological problems.

In psychoanalysis, the problems of the present are always rooted in conflicts of the past and the client is required to give the therapist a great deal of detail about the life experiences of the client, in order to provide the therapist with a picture of the life in which conflicts have developed.

There are a number of listening and reflective skills that a counsellor must develop, in order to begin the therapeutic process with a client. A few of these micro-skills are discussed following.

Reflection of Feeling:

Reflection of Feeling involves the counsellor listening attentively and then repeating back to the client the feelings that have been expressed, either verbatim, or in the counsellor’s own words.

Example:

A client discusses being overwhelmed and the therapist either reflects back this same expression, saying “You are overwhelmed” or by using another descriptive word or expression of the counsellor’s choosing, such as “You are feeling overcome by the events of the last week.” While repeating the same words can sometimes be effective, the selection of similar words and expressions is generally preferred, to keep the client from feeling that the therapist is “parroting” him or her.

Reflection of Content:

Reflection of Content involves listening to a client and then repeating back to the client either verbatim or the essence of the facts that were given to the therapist. When the counsellor reflects back the essence of what has been said, rather than the exact content, it is referred to as “paraphrasing”. While reflection of feeling involves discussing the emotions of the client, reflection of content emphasises facts and statements.

Example:

A client tells his or her therapist about a very stressful week that the client has been having. While never using the word “stressful”, the client goes into great detail about all of the things that had to get accomplished and the feelings that accompanied these tasks. The therapist feels empathy for the client and says “It sounds like you had a very stressful week.” The client nods after hearing this paraphrasing of the content of what s/he just said.

Questions:

Questions are used in counselling, but not as much as some might think. Questions are used to help the client to self-explore or to help the client develop insight, but not simply to satisfy the curiosity of the counsellor.

Summarising:

Summarising involves reflecting back feelings and content and paraphrasing, but rather than dealing with a few brief sentences, summarising covers the important topics that a client discussed over an extended number of client statements. While reflecting and paraphrasing have objectives such as encouraging the client to talk further and to show the client that the therapist hears and understands him or her, summarising is often used to give a client an overview of what has been discussed or, if used at the end of the counselling session, to help wrap up the counselling session.

Those with issues of excessive anger and resulting outbursts often find it difficult to learn to deal with their anger and the behaviour that follows. The first thing to do is for the individual or client to realise that they have an issue with anger. Without this realisation, there can be no movement towards insights into causes of anger, the development of strategies for dealing with anger and the process of modifying one’s thoughts and reactions over time.

Within a formal counselling environment, the client with anger management issues is allowed to discuss events and episodes that lead to angry outbursts. After discussing these “triggers”, the client is allows to look for common trends, common thoughts, common emotions and other things that accompany the anger episodes. Once triggers and maladaptive thoughts have been identified, the client is then able to begin to develop strategies for dealing with their thoughts and feelings that bring on anger and look for ways to develop more emotionally and socially productive responses.

If you are looking for help with your own anger management issues or those of a loved one and would like to discussing counselling options, please feel free to contact us using the “Contact” link at the top of all pages on this site.

The video clips on this page is a good introduction to Carl Rogers, the psychotherapist who developed Client-Center Therapy (later called Person-Centered Therapy). Rogers helped to bring in the Humanistic movement in psychotherapy and counselling, which emphasises the ability of the individual to grow and develop psychologically.

In the first of these videos, Carl mentions the three attributes necessary in a therapist for change to occur – congruence, empathy and unconditional positive regard. This video is followed by four more that make up the taped session of Roger’s meeting with Gloria.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

Part Five:

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Gestalt Therapy

This is a series of videos of a Gestalt therapy session, involving Frederick Perls, the therapist, and the client “Gloria”

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Frederick Perls and “Gloria” (1/3)

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Frederick Perls and “Gloria” (2/3)

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Frederick Perls and “Gloria” (3/3)

This counselling session with Gloria can be compared to the Carl Rogers counselling Gloria session.

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Rational Emotive Therapy with Albert Ellis

This series of videos covers a therapy session with Albert Ellis, as therapist, and the client “Gloria”.

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Albert Ellis (1/4)

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Albert Ellis (2/4)

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Albert Ellis (3/4)

Approaches to Psychotherapy – Albert Ellis (4/4)

To see other counselling techniques with this same client, see also Carl Rogers with Gloria and Frederick Perls with Gloria.