8/12/2019 Counseling Theories and Techniques

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Counseling Theories and Techniques

Ariel L. Ramirez Jr.

MP-IP-1

Jake in Adlerian Therapy

Reflection

Adlerian therapy focuses much on early childhood experiences, not so much on what the actual

experiences were, but how they are remembered. Jake, according to Ken Roberts, had focused

much on feeling inferior as the main theme in playing with Justine, up until the accident. This

has then led to compensation by being responsible in every sense of the word. I believe that

Jake was right in believing that it was his anxiety that was his main problem. This anxiety had

found a justification from the accident experience, prompting Jake to reinterpret the whole

event as being his fault, because he wasnt able to step up to Justine to say that what they weredoing was wrong.

According to the introduction of the Millers, though Jake was less excited about things than

Justine was, it had specifically stated that Jake had as much fun as Justine had in their play. They

were generally very happy and very healthy children from a very well off family. It is only after

the incident that everything changed drastically. The point is, Jake seems to blame his whole

disposition even before the accident as the whole cause of the accident itself. Just as Adler

taught, Jake reinterpreted his childhood to fit and justify his current feelings of anxiety. It is

perfectly normal for any child to feel fear when doing something new, yet Jake attributed it to

being one of his traits for compared to Justine, he did seem to be mostly fearful.

Perhaps, the main damage was done on Jakes and maybe also, Justines psyche was the lack of

attention of their parents to face the problem after the accident. This could be due to their denial

that the shock of such a change could bring. The lack of mention of the incident has led Jake to

make his own maybe misguided conclusions about the accident as his own way of coping. If

proper intervention was had right after the accident then Jake could have kept their

psychological health, though the scars can never truly be avoided to form.

Adlerian therapy does well to make Jake realize his mistakes by such techniques as spiting in

his soup, and fake it till you make it. These has taught Jake his wrong assumptions and

presented to him a way out of his anxieties.

However, I thought it was a cheap way to end the story by having Jake to suddenly have this

fulfilling project that would greatly help his growth. It was cheap because it was circumstantial,

not in any way the effect of Jake undergoing Adlerian therapy. If that didnt happen, Ken

Roberts would probably had suggested Jake to find such a fulfilling project on his own to hasten

his therapy.

8/12/2019 Counseling Theories and Techniques

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Counseling Theories and Techniques

Ariel L. Ramirez Jr.

MP-IP-1

Jake Meets an Existential Therapist

Reflection

Though admittedly, existential therapy has little empiricism, it is surprisingly effective as a

therapeutic technique. Compared to other technique, existentialism could be said to be a more

direct approach of therapy in that it trusts the client to be able to help himself by guiding him

into well founded philosophies. This works because the client, once successful, feels empowered

because he feels that it was mainly due to his own efforts that he had become well. Existential

therapy, in his view, had merely guided him.

Other therapies usually rely on covert psychological forces in order to treat patients. These

usually took the form of requesting or suggesting a task to a patient then asking what effect it had

on him. As such, other therapies had a relatively closed interpretation of the cause and effect of

the behavior as is stated from the theories that they have come from. Existentialism on the other

hand, urges the client to have his own conclusions or reinterpretations of his behavior, trusting

that with proper guidance, they would arrive at exactly the same conclusions as the main tenets

of existentialism propose.

As such, existentialist may have an effect of a fulfilling journey by letting the client discover

himself then suggesting that he has freedom and choice. Such concepts, once internalized, have

a very empowering and life changing effect on the client that he is forced to reinterpret his view

of the world in order to accommodate such ground breaking concepts into his philosophy.

In terms of efficiency, existentialism would be as efficient and as fast as the client is able to

realize and internalize the concepts it presents. Compared to the previous therapies in which, the

story did not end on the end of the therapy, existentialism was able to finish fast due to Jakes

enthusiasm and bright mind, enabling the story to finish even a little bit beyond the therapy

sessions.

Observing the effects of the therapy on Jake, existentialism had a very good effect from start to

finish, unlike the previous once, where the therapy took a long time before it started, or had Jakefeeling uneasy, anxious, or even sad as the therapy proceeded. This is mainly because the

previous therapies required much reminiscing in order to properly diagnose the client. Ideally

this is sound reasoning, something that lacks in existentialism. But instead of being bad, I believe

that it had a very good effect on the client not to dwell too much on the past. This is due to the

existentialist assumption that whatever happened to the client, however bad, he could always

overcome it by choosing to.