What Is Your Understanding Of The Basic Essay Example

as well as pre-modern ritual healing which led the way for modern day therapy. Going over material repeatedly helps find clarity for both counsellor and client. Winnicott termed this element “working through” (pg. 8). The Setting is essential to the therapeutic process and acts as a skin wherein containment can take place.

It provides instant sanctuary for the client and the way in which they adopt to the setting can give meaning or insight to her behaviour. The Temporal aspects allow for a fixed length and frequency of sessions. A regular schedule and duration of counselling adds to this structure and allows the client to feel a sense of security. The unpredictability of counselling is given a predicable framework.

The Spatial aspects stress that counselling is conducted on an individual basis that the counselling room is quiet and unchanging. The idea of ritual and repetition is reverberated here. The Contractual element of the setting allows for a sense of security of both the client and counsellor. The agreed contract reflects the aim and purpose, clarifies the financial side of things as well as highlighting confidentiality and acknowledging that no relationship exists outside of the room for both parties.

The counsellors conduct and attitude is the final part of the setting and brings attention to the therapist’s role.An attitude of neutrality is adopted, focus is always on the client, speech is understanding in nature and recognising the difference between symbolic and real, wish and deed is essential for the counsellor. Freud adopted an attitude of listening to his patients as he was at a loss to what was wrong. He acknowledged his ignorance and listened to his

patient’s speech and observed behaviour in an attempt to determine meaning. He found that the real significance was the therapeutic dialogue between patient and therapist.

This has become the fundamental principle for psychodynamic counselling. nothing takes place…. but an interchange of words between the patient and the analyst” (Freud 1915 pg. 17).

A process of mutual interaction is crucial to psychodynamic counselling. The interaction must not be directive, casual or linear as the unpredictable nature of the interaction can go in many tangents. The role of the counsellor is to articulate what is read between the lines and not to impose truths. To be the author of the therapeutic process rather than the central figure. To recognise the situation and like Gerassim in Tolstoy’s story, to not fear it and accept it.

The principle of Containment can be described as a psychological holding where a client can find sanctuary and seek meaning. Bion saw the therapist as an active and responsive container moulding in accordance to a patient’s experience. Containment involves putting a boundary around disturbing experiences in order to make them less disturbing. This spontaneous interaction between people happens without conscious effort and can solidify the quality of the experience leaving the client with a belief that their experience can be contained.Psychoanalytic theory is a conceptual framework and is used as a precondition for the psychodynamic counsellor. Theory doesn’t replace experience and isn’t a superior knowledge.

Theory is based on the developmental point of view. During Freud’s search for meaning in symptoms of psychological distress, he discovered defence mechanisms employed to deter anxiety. The initial defence was repression. This mechanism involved pushing unacceptable feelings into

the unconscious.

These feelings still found a means of escape and thus, the Return of the Repressed.Displacement is another defence whereby fear is placed onto an unrelated object. Projection is where displacement occurs onto another person. Phobias, Obsessional, Self-blaming, Hysterical, Idealizing and even Depression itself can all be used as methods of defence. Freud felt that it is the ego that set the defence wheels in motion.

The ego mediates between the mind and the external world deciphering what is acceptable or unacceptable. The ego functions as a link between the Id (hidden impulses and desires) and the Superego (moral structure, values and parental expectations).Freud studied clients with Depression (Melancholic) and found them to have a loss of self belief. This differed from Bereavement, although symptoms were similar, meaning differed.

In depression the ego becomes split in two. One part is self-accusing and the other is experiencing loss from separation of a loved one. Further study of the ego found Freud introducing the idea of an Oedipus Complex. This occurs between childhood and latency and is a pattern of relationships between a child and their parents. This structural concept suggests that all relationships are essential triadic.

This phase of psychological and emotional development explains how a child identifies with their parents whilst differentiating between sexes and generations. Freud suggests that the male child is torn between the idea of identifying and striving to be like his father whilst having feelings of hostility and rivalry towards him. His mother is seen as the love object and the father is seen as barrier to the desired object. A complete form of Oedipus comes when the child negotiated these

patterns of desire and identification and becomes independent of his parents.For the female child, the roles are transferred and the love interest is with the father hostility is felt towards the mother.

Freud introduced the ideas of objects in our mind. Klien divulges this further believing there is an entire inner world made up of object relations. This is developed from birth, is a counterpart to a clients external world and internal objects are characterised by external people only modified by phantasies and states of mind. Klien identified and observed structural concepts which individuals pass through.These positions are the ‘Depressive’ and the ‘Paranoid Schizoid’ and psychodynamic counsellors can shape intervention in accordance to a client’s predominant position. The Depressive is a combination of anxieties and defences around loss and grief.

Initially this can begin at weaning when milk is removed. The infant assumes it is due to greed and so destructive fantasies emerge towards the Breast/Bottle (Melancholia in statu nascend). Predominant moods are sorrow (over a loss) and pinning (over a loved one). Hatred can overcome love and defences include projection and are manic in nature.

Paranoid Schizoid is a counterpart to the Depressive. The main concern is that the very existence of the person is in jeopardy and that ones hatred for the loved object will result in obliteration of self. Paranoid anxieties dominate. The main defences employed are Splitting (rigid distinction between good and bad) and Evacuation or Projective Identification (evacuate the ‘bad’ to the external world leaving all the ‘good’ inside). For the client omnipotent thinking involves a denial of a separate existence from others therefore there’s little sense of subjectivity.

The Oedipus complex,

the Depressive and Paranoid Schizoid provide possible developmental explanations for a client’s behaviour and distress. It aims to give meaning to their experiences. Psychodynamic students are required to trust these theories prior to gaining practical evidence through counselling. Psychodynamic counselling differs from other approaches in psychotherapy as it recognises and puts emphasis on the concept of transference. This defining feature is a form of projection in which feelings, behaviours and thoughts from another are transferred onto the counsellor.

This can become a tool for understanding client’s relationships with others. By understanding the nature and type of transference, whether it is positive, negative, erotic or social and the counsellor recognises his counter transference, a picture of the client’s inner world is created. The element of repetition is reiterated here as the client is repeating with the counsellor ways of relating to others in the past. The counselling setting creates conditions for the development and management of transference.

All forms of transference can be seen as an expression of something new or provisional for the client – feelings that has been denied or repressed in the past. Counter transference is reactions from the counsellor to what the client has said. “most dynamic way in which patient voice reaches him” (Heimann 1950, pg75) The counsellor can monitor this counter transference effectively through supervision, experience and personal therapy. Spurling articulated that the relationship between counsellor and client is paramount to Psychodynamic counselling.The main aim in this type of therapy is for the client to experience containment. The therapeutic dialogue is vital for this therapeutic process.

This method of talking can give meaning and explanation to a person’s distress. Psychodynamic gives focus

to the unconscious processes of the mind. The counselling setting not only acts as a skin for containment but also creates conditions for the development and management of transference. Transference is inevitable within psychodynamic counselling and can be used as a tool for understanding client’s relationships with others.Spurling demonstrates these fundamental principles clearly and concisely. Through examples of influencing theorists such as Freud, Winnicott, and Klien, various concepts provide possible developmental explanations for a client’s behaviour and distress, giving meaning to their experiences.

Bibliography •Spurling, L (2004) “An Introduction to Psychodynamic Counselling” Basic Texts in Counselling and Psychotherapy •Freud, S (1915) “Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis” •Heimann, P (1950) “On Counter Transference” International Journal of Psychoanalysis Vol. 31 p. p 81-4