I.

COUNSELING THEORIES, TOOLS, AND TECHNIQUES

 Counseling
- Is an honest and supportive mirror
- A relationship that builds confidence
- Aims to empower diverse individuals

 Kinds of Counselors
1. Non-professional – listens to others’ problems without license
2. Paraprofessional – someone who takes units in counseling (e.g. teachers, social workers)
3. Professional (w/ RA 9258) – with license; those who passed their board exam or were given the
grandfather’s clause

 Nine characteristics of the Effective Counselor

1. Empathy – senses feelings
2. Acceptance – unconditional positive regard
3. Genuineness/Congruence – authentic, open, and in touch with his or her feelings
4. Wellness
5. Cultural Competence – belief and practices
6. The “It” factor
7. Compatibility with and Belief in Theory
8. Competence – expertise and mastery
9. Cognitive Complexity – critical thinker

 Counseling Process
1. Relationship Building – building rapport
2. Assessment Stage – what is the need/the goal of the counselee?
3. Goal-setting stage – how the session goes?
4. Intervention & Action Stage – solving strategies
5. Evaluation & Reflection Stage – termination of counselees

 Counselor Communication Skills

1. Attending
2. Listening (nonverbal)
o Eye contact
o Voice tone
o Facial expression
3. Responding (verbal)
o Minimal verbal response – occasional nodding
o Paraphrasing – statement interchangeable
o Probing – open attempt to get more information
o Reflecting – understanding of his/her concern
o Clarifying – understand the basic nature of counselee’s statement
o Reframing – another probable & positive view point on a situation
 o Silence – no verbal response
o Summarizing – synthesize what has been communicated

 Ethical Principle (Hermann, 2011)

1. Beneficence – doing good & preventing harm
2. Nonmaleficence – not inflicting harm
3. Autonomy – respecting freedom of choice & self-determination
4. Justice – fairness
5. Fidelity – honoring commitments & promises
6. Veracity – truthfulness

 Telebehavioral Health (ACA)

- Digital platform that provides secure, encrypted, audio-video conferencing to
communicate with client in real time.
 Telepsychology/Telemental Health (APA)
- Provision of behavioral and /or mental health care services using technological
modalities in addition to traditional face-to-face methods.

A. Psychodynamic Theories
1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939)
- Deterministic – man has no control of his destiny
- Unconscious motivations
- Self-gratification (aim)
- Psychic energy

 Structures of personality
1. Id – pleasure principle
2. Ego – reality principle
3. Super Ego – morality principle

 Levels of Awareness
1. Unconscious – repressed material that are inaccessible
2. Subconscious – information that is not available at a given moment but accessible
3. Conscious – in our awareness

 Psychosexual Stage of Development

1. Oral (0-2) – gratification through such as feeding, thumb sucking, and babbling
2. Anal (2-3) – bowel and bladder control
3. Phallic (3-7) – becomes aware of sexuality
4. Latency (7-11) – sexual urges are relatively quiet
5. Genital (11-adult) – learn to deal maturely with opposite sex

 Defense Mechanisms
1. Repression – unconscious forgetting
 2. Denial – refusal to accept
3. Reaction Formation – opposite of one’s feelings in an exaggerated way
4. Projection – attributing one’s unacceptable thought onto another
5. Displacement – redirection to a less threatening object or person
6. Rationalization – good reasons to explain a bruised ego
7. Sublimation – diverting negative energy to socially acceptable channels
8. Regression – return to less mature way
9. Introjection – taking in the values and standards of others
10. Identification – development of role models that people identify or imitate
11. Compensation – making up for limitations

 Techniques:
1. Talk Therapy – allows emotional release
2. Free Association – the counselee says whatever comes to his/her mind
3. Dream Analysis – remember dreams; manifest content (obvious meaning) & latent content
(hidden meanings)
4. Parapraxes – “Freudian slips of tongue”

 Application:
1. Intensive therapy
2. Not a particular problem
3. In pain

 Limitation:
1. Lengthy training for therapists
2. Much expense and time for clients
3. Not applicable for solving specific problem

2. Analytic Theory (Carl Jung, 1875-1961)

- Past and future events
- Human nature to constantly develop

 Key Concepts:
1. Conscious ego – awareness of self
2. Personal unconscious – forgotten/repressed
3. Collective unconscious – ancestral experiences

 Archetypes (contents of Collective Unconscious)

1. Persona – masks adopted by a person
2. Animus/Anima – male and female side
3. Shadow – all instinctive and impulsive aspects
4. Self- unite all aspects of personality
5. Concept of Synchronicity – manifest in one’s experience or in an external event
 Techniques:
1. Dialect Method – encouraging dialogue
2. Word Association
3. Dream Analysis
4. Active imagination – to access repressed thoughts or feelings
5. Amplification – amplify symbols found in counselee’s lives

 Application:
1. Gender Identity issues
2. Personality Issues
3. Mid-life crisis

 Limitation:
1. Difficult to validate collective unconscious
2. Difficult to learn
3. Needs a lot of time and money

3. Individual Theory (Alfred Adler, 1870-1973)

- Optimistic
- Self-determination
- Goal oriented

 Key Concepts
1. Creative Self – potential of each person to interact with the world
2. Teleology – life movement towards purpose and goal
3. Phenomenological Psychology – focus on subjective experiences
4. Social Interest – ability to participate and willingness to contribute to society
5. Holism – one’s personality is a complete unity
6. Family constellation – describes the composition of family
7. Birth order – eldest (center of attention), middle (feels squeezed), youngest (baby of the
family), only child (not share/cooperate)
8. Inferiority complex – feel inferior to others

 Techniques:
1. Establish relationship
2. Performing analysis and assessment
3. Promoting Light
4. Reorientation

 Application
1. Child Guidance
2. Parent and Child counseling
3. Marital and family therapy
 4. Individual counseling for all ages
 Limitation:
1. Weak precision
2. Testability
3. Empirical validity

B. Phenomenological Theories
1. Person-centered/Humanistic Theory (Carl Rogers, 1902-1987)
- Positive
- Self-actualizing
- Rational
- Full of potential
- Forward moving

 Key Concepts
1. Actualizing tendency – urge to grow
2. Self-concept – a person’s view of self
3. Real or organismic self – real inner life of the person
4. Disclosure – counselor’s sharing of personal information

 Techniques
1. Active Listening
2. Reflection of feelings
3. Paraphrasing
4. Probing
5. Clarification
6. Summarizing
7. Responding appropriately
8. Being there

 Application
1. Individual and group counseling
2. Initial crisis intervention
3. Marital and family, community, administrative, and managerial, HR

 Limitation
1. Therapist are passive & inactive
2. Client needs distraction

2. Gestalt Therapy (Fritz, 1893-1970 & Laura, (1905-1990)

- have the capacity to self-regulate when aware; strive for wholeness and interaction; self
determined; self-actualizing

 Key Concepts
 1. Experiential – focusing in the here and now
2. Holism – nature is unified and coherent, figure (conscious) & ground (unconscious)
3. Introjection – uncritically accept others’ beliefs, top dog (authoritarian) & underdog
(defensive & apologizing)
4. Projection – reverse of introjection
5. Retroflection – turning back to ourselves
6. Deflection – distraction
7. Confluence – differentiation between self and environment

 5 layes or Neurosis (Jones-Smith, 2012)

1. Phony – reacting inauthentically
2. Phobic – avoidance of psychological pain
3. Impasse – inability of usual support
4. Implosive – deadness associated with disowned part of ourselves
5. Explosive – a release of life’s energy

 Techniques
1. Using “Now” Language
2. I-Thou Communication
3. I-It Language
4. Experiencing the Present

 Application
1. Crisis intervention
2. Marital and family therapy
3. Behavior problems in children

 Limitation
1. Intense emotional expression
2. Confrontational styles can intimidate the counselee
3. Therapist must have high level of personal development

3. Existential Theory (Viktor Frankl, 1905-1997; Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, James Bugental)
- Freedom of will – can decide
- Will of meaning – free to achieve
- Meaning of life – responsibility to be the best

 Key concepts
1. Uniqueness of individual
2. Search for meaning
3. Role of anxiety
4. Freedom of responsibility and being and nonbeing

 Techniques
1. Dereflection – people put too much emphasis on themselves
2. Paradoxical intention – direct counselee to do something contrary to one’s actual intention
3. Socratic Dialogue – raise counselee’s consciousness about personal possibilities
 Application
1. Developmental crisis
2. Transition in life
3. Making choices
4. Personal enhancement

 Limitation
1. Some concepts are fuzzy
2. Lacks systematic statements
3. Not applicable to functions

C. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies
1. Behavioral theory (Ivan Pavlov, B.F Skinner, Albert Bandura, Joseph Wolpe, & Arnold Lazarus)
- Neutral
- A person is not inherently good or bad but becomes what the environment dictates

 Key Concepts/Techniques
1. Classical Conditioning – Pavlov (dog) – automatic conditioned response that is paired with a
specific stimulus
2. Operant conditioning (Skinner) - change in the consequences of a response will affect the rate at
which the response occurs (mouse/rat)
3. Social Learning Approach (Bandura) – importance of observing, modeling, and imitating the
behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others
4. Reinforcements:
o Positive reinforcement – reward
o Negative reinforcement – removal of an aversive stimulus
o Shaping – reinforcement of successive approximation of desired behavior
o Chaining – each behavior is both consequence or reinforcement
o Extinction – elimination of behavior
o Punishment
5. Self-efficacy – “believe you can”

 Exposure therapies
1. Flooding – safe version of fearsome stimulus
2. In vivo – takes place in client’s actual environment
3. Implosive – variation of flooding uses exaggerated imagine scenes
4. Aversive Therapy – highly harmful
5. Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing – rhythmic eye movement; treat traumatic
stress disorders and fearful memories

 Application
1. Phobic disorders
2. Depression
3. Social Fears

 Limitation
1. Changes behaviors not feelings
 2. Ignores relational problems
3. Does not provide insight

2. Cognitive Theory (Aaron Beck, 1921-2021)

- personality reflects the individual’s cognitive organization & structure
- how one thinks largely determines how one feels and behaves

 Key concepts
1. Cognitive schemas – framework that organize and interpret information
2. Cognition in Mental Health – perceive, interpret, & assign meaning to events
3. Cognitive vulnerability – predispose to distress
4. Schemata – fundamental beliefs & assumptions

 Techniques
1. Collaborative empiricism – counselor & counselee both determine goals of treatment
2. Socratic Dialogue – to change negative thinking (what is the evidence of that thinking?)
3. Guided discovery – learn to modify maladaptive beliefs
4. Decatastrophizing – “what if”
5. Reattribution Techniques – test counselee’s automatic thoughts
6. Redefining – mobilize clients
7. Decentering – mistakenly believe that they are the focus of attention
8. Homework – assignments to collect thoughts
9. Change record – recording automatic thoughts

 Application
1. Depression
2. Anxieties
3. Phobias

 Limitation
1. It requires a great deal of training, skill, hard work & practice to use various procedures
2. Less tolerance for error

3. Rational Emotive Theory (Albert Ellis, 1913-2008)

- ability to be both rational and irrational thinking

 Key Concepts
1. Emotional disturbances rooted in childhood
2. Self-damnation – emotional disturbance “I can’t stand it/this”
3. Irrational Beliefs – “I must act perfectly, I must be lovable at all time”

 Techniques
1. Cognitive Methods – disrupting irrational beliefs
2. Emotive Techniques – rational emotive imagery
3. Behavioral techniques – operant conditioning
4. Research efforts
 Application
1. Moderate anxiety
2. Neurotic disorders
3. Character disordes

 Limitation
1. Play down emotions
2. Not focus on the unconscious & past
3. Premature termination

4. Reality Theory (William Glasser, 1925-2013)

- survival, love and belongingness, power, freedom, & fun

 Key Concepts
1. Success and failure identity
2. Self-determining
3. Responsibility – we choose our total behavior
4. Control therapy
5. Choice therapy – with 10 axioms (e.g the only person whose behavior wa can control is ours)

 Techniques
1. Counseling environment
2. Procedures that lead to behavior change
3. WDEP (Wants, Doing, E for Self-Eval., Plans)
4. Active
5. Directive & didactic (convey instruction)
6. Change and commitment

 Application
1. Initially designed for youth offenders in detention facilities
2. Behavior problems
3. Relationship enhancement

 Limitation
1. Play down social and cultural environments in influencing behavior
2. Discounts feelings, the past and unconscious
3. Fix clients quickly

5. Transactional Analysis Theory (Eric Berne, 1910-1970)

- people have the capacity to determine their own destiny but few people acquire the
necessary awareness to become autonomous

 Key concepts
1. Parent, Adult, Child Ego states
2. Games – learned patterns of behavior
3. Life position – one-down, healthy, hopeless, one-up
 4. Script – life plan
5. Injunctions – doesn’t, shouldn’t, must nots
6. Counter injunctions – do’s, should, musts

 Techniques
1. Motivation and Awareness – desire to change
2. Treatment of contract – brief and to the point
3. Deconfusing the child – accept responsibility ------ Psychoanalytic technique: 1. Regression
analysis, 2. Interpretation
4. Redecision – change aspect of a script
5. Relearning – integrate new decision
6. Termination –
7. Sculpting – arrangement will determine the life of the child at home
8. Decontaminating – it’s okay to make mistakes

 Application
1. Variety of setting
2. Group setting

 Limitation
1. Not enough empirical research
2. Possible misuse
3. Too simple and superficial

D. Postmodern Theories

1. Solution Focused Theory (Milton Erickson, Bill O’Hanlon, Steven Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg)
- future focused
- goal-oriented
- constructing solutions

 Basic Concepts
1. Social reconstruction – there’s no single right way to live one’s life
2. Brief and focus on the present and future
3. Person is not the problem – “the problem is the problem – the individual is the individual”
4. Similar to reality theory

 Techniques
1. Narrative
2. Miracle question
3. Scaling questions
4. Pre-therapy change; formula first session task (FEST)
5. Exception – “recall the time”

 Application
1. For individuals, couples, families and organizations
 2. Diverse range of troubles
3. Narrative therapy (Michael white & David Epston) – name the problem to separate self from
it.

 Limitation
1. Effect of therapy may not be long lasting
2. Little validation of effectiveness
3. “Know nothing” stance

2. Feminist Theory (Jean Baker Miller, Carolyn Zerbe Enns, Olivia M. Espin, & Laura Brown)
- Gender – fair – explains difference about men and women in terms of socialization
- Flexible – multicultural – concepts and strategies that apply to individuals regardless of age,
race, culture gender, ability, class or sexual orientation
- Interactions – concepts specific to thinking, feeling, and behaving dimensions
- Life – span oriented – human development as a lifelong process

 Key concepts
1. The personal is political – problems originate from political or social concept
2. Egalitarian – counseling relationship
3. All types of oppression are recognized
4. Commitment to social change
5. Women’s and girl’s voice are heard

 Techniques
1. Empowerment
2. Gender role analysis
3. Assertiveness training

 Application
1. Feminist & multicultural issues
2. Self-help groups
3. Teaching

 Limitation
1. Therapists do not take a neutral stance
2. Fail to develop “safety plans”
3. Narrow viewpoint

3. Family therapy theory (Alfred Adler, Murray Bowen, Virginia Satir, Carl Whitaker, Salvador Minuchin,
Jay Hayley & Cloe Madanes)

- Family is interactive systemic

- A change in one part will change the entire system

 Key concepts
1. Communication patterns (verbal & non-verbal)
2. Functional vs. dysfunctional interaction patterns
3. Here and Now interactions
 Techniques
1. Genograms
2. Asking questions
3. Family mapping

 Application
1. Marital distress
2. Power struggles
3. Crisis situations

 Limitation
1. Problems in being able to include all family members in therapy
2. Some family members are resistant

 Sikolohiyang Pilipino

 Virgilio Enriquez
o Ama ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino
- Emotion & experienced knowledge (kalooban & kamalayan)
- Awareness of one’s surroundings (ulirat)
- Understanding (isip)
- Behavior (diwa)
- Soul (kaluluwa)

o Filipino values based on indigenous cultural perspective

1. Diwa (psyche)
2. Kapwa (shared identity)
 8 levels of interaction:
- Ibang Tao: 1. Pakikitungo (civility)
2. Pakikisalamuha (interaction)
3. Pakikilahok (participation)
4. Pakikibagay (conforming)
5. Pakikisama (adjusting)
- Hindi Ibang tao: 6. Pakikipagpalagayang-loob (mutual trust/rapport)
7. Pakikisangkot (active involvement)
8. Pakikipagkaisa (full trust, being one with)

 Fr. Jaime Bulatao

- Co-founder of PGCA & PAP
- Hypnosis & astral projection
- Phenomena of human consciousness
- Publications:
o Techniques of Group Discussions
o Self & the group
o Split level Christianity
o Phenomena & their interpretation: Landmark essays
 o Consciousness mapping: understanding your relationships through star
matrix

 Alfredo Lagmay
- National scientist of the Philippines
- Development of Scientific Psychology in the Phil.
- Elaborated “Bahala Na”

 Dionisio Miranda
o Coined “Loob” – inner self

- Concepts:
1. Taleology – Jung & Adler
2. Determinism – Freud
3. Causation – Freud
4. Holism – Gestalt

II. GROUP PROCESS

 Group
- collection of two or more individuals
- dynamic entity that have direct and indirect impact on its members

 Group Dynamics
- interaction of forces and energies of the environment called process elements
- everything that goes on in a small group (Lewin)

 Field theory (Kurt Lewin)

- person must be understood or seen in the light of how he/she views the world (subjective
reality)

B = f (P,E)

B – Individual and Group Behavior

f–
P – People
E – Environment

 Primary Affiliation Groups – family or peers (exert greater pressure on individuals)

 Secondary Affiliation Groups – people least identify (city or confederation)
 Group Technique – leader’s explicit & directive request of a member; the tools and interventions
used to facilitate what is going on in a group
 Group Content – information within and purpose of the group; the purpose and the actual
information exchanged within a group
 Group Process – interactions and relationships among members within the group; the
interaction of group members within one another; Who am I?, Who am I with you? & Who are
we together?
 Group work – application of knowledge and skill in group facilitation to assist an interdependent
collection of people to reach their mutual goals; What do we have to do? & What do we need to
do to accomplish our goals?

 Important Events and Persons:

 Hull House (Jane Adams in Chicago) – increasing “individual self-determination” and “self-
respect”
 Joseph Hersey Pratt – tuberculosis patients
 Jesse B. Davis & Frank Parsons – modern-day counseling
 Alpha & Beta Intelligence Tests (WW1) – Alpha (literate) – Beta (cannot read English well)
 J.L. Moreno – philosophical paper on group methods; pen name J.M. Levy; Theater of
Spontaneity; psychodrama; American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama (ASGPP)
 Alfred Adler – collective counseling; prison & families
 Wilfred Bion – group cohesiveness; progression and regression of the group
 Helen I. Driver – first textbook in group work
 Carl Rogers – coins the term basic encounter group
 George Bach & Fred Stoller – devise marathon group; 24 – 48 hours extended periods
 William Schuts – interpersonal needs
 Jack Gibb – competitive vs. cooperative behaviors
 Irving Janis – groupthink
 Walter Lifton – “antidemocratic and morally degrading”
 Irivin Yalom & George Gazda – 11 curative (therapeutic) factors
 George Gazda – first president of AGPA

 Types of Group Work

1. Task Groups – foster accomplishment/accountable to the boss
o Purpose – application of group dynamics principles and processes
o Team – special type of task group composed of “two or more people who interact
dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively and who share at least one common goal
or purpose
2. Psycho-Educational Groups – prevention focused, growth oriented or remedial
o Life-skills development group – special group which focuses on helping persons identify
and correct deficits in their life-coping responses and learn new, appropriate behaviors
3. Counseling Groups – interpersonal processes and problem-solving strategies that stress
conscious thoughts, feelings, and behavior
4. Psychotherapy Groups – experiencing severe and/or chronic maladjustment
5. Brief Groups – groups that are time limited

 Types of Group Process

1. Contagion – member behavior elicits group interactions
2. Conflict – significant issues in people’s lives
3. Anxiety – discomfort or uneasy feeling/ emotion
4. Consensual validation – checking one’s behaviors with a group of other people
5. Universality – similar experiences and feelings
6. Family reenactment – families of origin continue to influence; groups resemble families in many
ways
7. Instillation of Hope – members may feel hopeless; group members be helped to come to terms
with their own issues; realize their issues are resolvable.