Person-Centered Theory, Freud's Theory, Cognitive Behavioral Theory

Person-Centered Theory, Freud's Theory, Cognitive Behavioral Theory

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to make an analysis on the three theories and determine the micro skills and techniques for these theories to be effective. The main theories selected in this paper are person-centered theory, Freud theory and cognitive-behavioral theory.

Part 1: Preferred Theories

The two preferred theories are person-centered theory and Freud theory.

Person-Centered Theory

As mentioned earlier, I will now focus on the Person-Centered Approach offering a synopsis explaining its theory for personality development, the areas of development that contribute to psychological imbalance, and finally the process to achieve the goals of therapy.

As an introduction, it will highlight some of the common terms synonymous with PCC and explain what they mean, so that the PCC can be understood. These include organism/self, self-concept, actualizing tendency (AT) self-actualization/fully functioning person, incongruence/congruence, ideal self, and conditions of worth.

The organism refers to the whole self that is all aspects of functioning these include the mind, body, emotions, behaviors, and cognitions besides all its inner capacities and resources (Rogers, 1951). The self-concept is a view of how one sees himself either from his own perspective (internal) or from the way he get the perception by significant others (external). The AT is an inherent motivational force within the organism to maintain and expand different components of the organism “expansion in terms of growth and expansion of effectiveness through the use of tools” (Rogers, cited by Koch, 1959,p196).

Incongruence is a feeling of anxiety created from the conflict between the self-concept and organism self, which is a source for psychological imbalance (Rogers, cited by Koch, 1959).This way when there is a congruence between the organism and the self-concept the term 'fully functioning' has its usage, Jordan (2008) points out “rather it is the congruence of self-experiences and organism experiences that represent optimal functioning” (Dobson, 2003, p. 34).

Ideal self refers to a view that is held to be the ultimate achievement and fulfillment of purpose for the organism, and conditions of worth are the conditions that influence a person's behavior, and focus in life, which can be independent or totally dependent on the outer views of significant others.

The basic theory of personality development has its basis upon the idea that growth and development of the organism starts from the day the child is born. It involves the significant others i.e. parents and the environment surrounding it, as well as the incomparable organism. The growth is a reference to the child's experience of different desires, emotions or behaviors, and get internalized in such a way that those experiences become the foundations and building blocks for its future, or in other terms “beliefs or prognosis concerns the reactions of objects to the experiencing child”. (Thorne and Lambers, 1998)

As this is taking place the need for positive self-regard is paramount, combined with empathic understanding, since as Thorne and Lambers (1998) explain part of the process to integrating ones experience, involves the child seeing an image that ...