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Counseling and Psychotherapy

     The month of April is National Counseling Awareness Month. The American Counseling Association met with counselors at a convention who were delegates from thirty-one counseling organizations. They came up with a unified definition of counseling. Professional Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.

     The American Counseling Association is a not-for-profit, professional and educational organization that is dedicated to the growth and enhancement of the counseling profession which was founded in 1952, and is the world’s largest association exclusively representing professional counselors in various settings. Their mission statement is to enhance the quality of life in society by promoting the development of professional counselors, advancing the counseling profession, and using the profession and practice of counseling to promote respect for human dignity and diversity.

     The more than 50,000 members of the American Counseling Association take considerable pride in both their work and their accomplishments and seek to make the importance of counseling and the role of counselors better known throughout the nation and the world. To this end, ACA designates April of each year as Counseling Awareness Month, a time of advocacy for the profession and celebration of the outstanding efforts of counselors in myriad settings as they seek to facilitate the growth and development of all people.

     The types of counseling are: (1) Individual Counseling, (2) Couples Counseling, (3) Family Counseling, and (4) Group Counseling. People come to counseling when their attempts to deal with their concerns are no longer effective. Counseling can be helpful in areas such as:

• Addiction and abuse of alcohol and other drugs
• Adjustment issues, including adjustment to college life
• Anger management
• Anxiety
• Communication
• Depression
• Eating disorders
• Gender identity and sexual orientation
• Grief
• Relationship difficulties
• Relationship violence and physical abuse
• Sexual assault
• Stress management
• Thoughts of suicide or preoccupation with death
• Trauma

    The difference between a counselor and a psychotherapist is a counselor works with shorter term life issues, such as bereavement, and relationships, issues, while a psychotherapist works over a complicated or enduring mental health concerns. There are five approaches to psychotherapy: (1) Psychoanalysis, (2) Behavior Therapy, (3) Cognitive Therapy, (4) Humanistic Therapy, and (5) Integrative or Holistic Therapy.

     Psychoanalysis is a system of therapy which aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free associations. The purpose or goal of the therapy is to gain insight into a person’s inner world and how it affects his or her emotions, behaviors, and relationships.

     There was a case where a healthy twenty-year old male had an irrational intense fear of mice. He nor the therapist know the root case of his fear. Through dream interpretation and association techniques they discovered that he had been bitten by a rat when he was a toddler.

    In another case a middle-aged woman had an inability to establish and maintain long-term relationships.  She would become suspicious a check her partner’s text messages and emails because she was fearful of being betrayed or harmed. It was discovered that her parents had a very stressful marriage. Her father physically harmed her mother, and he eventually abandoned her mother. She learned that all men have destructive or unhealthy behaviors. It functions on the idea that all behaviors are learned and that unhealthy behaviors can be changed. The focus of treatment is often on current problems and how to change them. The therapy can be used to threat:

• anger issues
• eating disorders
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• bipolar disorder
• ADHD
• phobias, including social phobias
• panic disorders
• obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
• self-harm
• substance abuse

    There are four types of behavioral therapy: (1) Cognitive behavioral therapy, (2) Cognitive behavioral play therapy, (3) System desensitization, and (4) Aversion therapy

     Cognitive behavioral therapy combines behavioral therapy with cognitive therapy. Treatment is centered around how someone’s thoughts and beliefs influence their actions and moods. It often focuses on a person’s current problems and how to solve them. The long-term goal is to change a person’s thinking and behavioral patterns to healthier ones.

     Cognitive behavioral play therapy uses pictures or toys to create scenes in a sandbox. Treatment involves teaching children different methods of expressing themselves. The child will eventually warm up to the therapist and feel comfortable expressing themselves with the toys and in drawing pictures without thinking of the consequences of them expressing their fears or anger through play.

     System desensitization relies heavily on classical conditioning. It’s often used to treat phobias. People are taught to replace a fear response to a phobia with relaxation responses. A person is first taught relaxation and breathing techniques. Once mastered, the therapist will slowly expose them to their fear in heightened doses while they practice these techniques.

     Aversion therapy is often used to treat problems such as substance abuse and alcoholism. It works by teaching people to associate a stimulus that’s desirable but unhealthy with an extremely unpleasant stimulus. The unpleasant stimulus may be something that causes discomfort. For example, a therapist may teach you to associate alcohol with an unpleasant memory.

Signed: Renee D. Warring of Uniquely and Wonderfully Made Ministries.

RESOURCES:

https://www.counseling.org/aca-community/learn-about-counseling/what-is-counseling

https://www.counseling.org/Resources/CAM_Celebration_Guide.pdf

https://www.counseling.org/about-us/about-aca/our-mission

https://www.sfasu.edu/counselingservices/182.asp