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Psychodynamic & Person Centered Approach in counselling

Hey Guysss..
I really need some help right now, ive just started a course & im STUCK. its open uni so its kind of learn it all yourself sort of thing. I only started it two weeks ago so its pretty fast paced & with me not studying anything since i left school like 4 years ago im buckling under pressure.
Anyway,
I have an assignment to write on comparing and contrasting the psycho dynamic approach & the person centered approach & how these make use of a counselling relationship.
Can anybody give me any tips on how these relate and differ? Any other help would be sooo much help!! THANKYOU SO MUCH

Reply 1

sammy-lou

I'm only at A Level so not sure how much what I know is relevant to an open uni course, but I'll give it a shot!

Person-centered approaches are synonymous with the Humanists (Maslow and Rogers particularly). They focus on the subjective, private experience of the individual. For this approach, they'll use techniques such as unstructured interviews, Q-sort cards, and they'll consider everything that the person says as important in understanding their behaviour. A person centered approach also, most importantly, views each client as an individual, and doesn't try to fit any person in with general laws of behaviour. They don't believe there are any.

Maslow: Hierarchy of needs, self-actualisation. People strive to fulfill their needs and reach their full potential.
Rogers: congruence between perceived self and real self.

Therapies will aim to fulfill these needs and increase congruence.

Psychodynamic therapies are similar to the person centered approach in that they'll focus on an individuals private experiences. They'll use techniques such as free association and dream analysis, because they believe all behaviour originates from the unconscious mind. Psychodynamic therapies DO allow general laws of behaviour to be applied to every individual, however.

Both Psychodynamic and person-centered are 'talking therapies'.

I hope that gave you something to work with!