How Do Person Centred Counsellors Use the Therapeutic Relationship to Facilitate Change - and in What Way (S) Does Person - Centre Therapy Differ from Other Helping Relationships?D
How do psychodynamic counsellors use the therapeutic relationship to facilitate change?
The word psychodynamic means the active mind. This is when much of our mental activity is unconscious, which results in a mental struggle in the hidden unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) used the term psychoanalysis (1896) to describe his theories and techniques for finding and curing the mental problem of his patients.
The approach of psychodynamic therapy is to enable a person to deal successfully with their inner emotional differences. The belief is that if someone can understand what happened in the past and what is going on at an unconscious level within their psyche, they can better deal, at a conscious level, with situations that are happening in their life now. This essay will discuss how psychodynamic counsellors use the therapeutic relationship to facilitate change. I will do this by looking at the different psychodynamic approaches and methods that Freud pioneered that counsellors normally use in their therapeutic relationship with their clients.
Transference is a defining aspect of psychodynamic therapy but occurs outside the therapy room in every human relationship. Therapeutically transference can be understood as the client’s repetition of the past often child-like patterns of relating to significant others that are brought to the present in relation to the therapist (Jacobs, M, 2004).
It is a misplace thoughts, feelings, perceptions and emotions. This occurs where the client redirects their feelings to the counsellor unconsciously of characteristics that are associated with parents or significant others. Repeated experiences of this sort help reveal to the client their repressed feelings.
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An example of this is when Dr. Josef Breuer, Freud’s mentor and friend told him about a client he had work with. She was a young woman whom Breuer called Anna O. Anna came to Breuer suffering from exhaustion as she had been looking after her dying father....