1

Personal Theoretical Orientation

Hannah Good
Chadron State College
Counseling 541: Counseling Theories
June 29, 2022
2

Key Concepts of Your Approach

When it comes to counseling, I am a firm believer that my life perspectives and

approaches should also go into my perspective and approach when counseling. For example, I

believe that honesty is always going to be the best policy. In an effort to bring this into

counseling, I would want the client to understand that our relationship is built on trust. Even if it

is hard, I need to know the truth when it comes to the client. I will better be able to help them

work on solutions if I know the truth of the matter rather than trying to work eon something that

starts with a base of a lie.

Something else that I am a firm believer in that is that whatever you are going to be in

life, it is important that you are happy. If you are unhappy, then it is important to make changes

in your life that are going to result in you being the happiest version of yourself that you can be.

Something I previously mentioned in my discovering of my own theory was the idea of creating

and having a family. Some people believe that to be the highlight of their life and their reason for

being on this earth. If that is the case for someone, then that is perfect and if it provides them

happiness, then that is great. For others, they might see a family as a downside in life, and if that

is the case, then not having a family is going to provide them the happiness that they are looking

for.

When applying a cognitive approach with counseling these are key elements that will

also play a very important role in the therapy that will take place. By using Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy, you are using an approach that is directed to help the client throughout the rest of their

life. Rather than being a short-term solution, it is one that they will be able to use for the rest of

their lives.
3

View of Your Role as a Counselor

When it comes to my role as a counselor, I believe that my role is to help and assist

clients in being able to make choices for themselves and learn how to relieve the stress and

issues that they are going through. I also believe that it is my role as a counselor to make the

client feel heard and validated in their concerns. The client could be completely off base with

their thinking but letting them know that they are heard and there is nothing that they need to

worry about, you are easing the stress that they feel in their lives and that will help them in the

long run.

When it comes to the role of the counselor in cognitive behavioral therapy, the first step

is to show clients how they are able to change their irrational absolute thinking and change them.

The next step is to demonstrate how the clients are keeping their emotional disturbances active

by continuing to think illogically and unrealistically. When clients continue to have a negative

out view on their lives, it creates other psychological problems that will need to be addressed in

order to help the client. Ellis reminds us that we are responsible for our own emotional destiny

(A. Ellis, 2004b, 2010).

The third step in working with these clients is to help them change their thinking and

minimize their irrational ideas. Following what they did in step two, they are now actively trying

to change their thinking throughout their everyday lives. The fourth step in the process is to

encourage clients to develop their own rational philosophy of life so that in the future they will

avoid hurting themselves again or starting to believe their irrational beliefs again.
4

Therapeutic Goals

When working on therapeutic goals in using this approach therapeutic goals are one of

the main resources that are used in order to work with the client. The basic aim in cognitive

behavioral therapy is to teach the clint how to change their dysfunctional emotions and behaviors

into healthy ones. By tasking clients with realistic and unrealistic goals in an effort to

differentiate between these and also self-defeating and life-enhancing goals. Th overall goal

when using CBT is to teach the clients how to change their dysfunctional emotions and

behaviors into healthy ones.

Wright and Davis in 1994 state that the goal behind cognitive-behavioral therapy is to

change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people’s difficulties, and so change the

way they feel. When it comes to working with those clients, changing their “absolutes” into

something that is less severe and being able to change how they view themselves and

transforming it to allow room for growth and improvement is one of the more important aspects

of CBT. Absolutism when it comes to categorical imperatives are known to generate depression

and negative self-image which will cause that to be highlighted and examined. Depressive

subjects make this claim and that they feel a lot of suffering and that nothing can make them

better (Young, Weinberger, & Beck, 2001).

Relationship Issues you are likely to Consider

Some of the relationship issues that I would be likely to consider are having a warm and

caring relationship with the client. Obviously having a respectful relationship is going to be one

of the most important things to ensure that the client and therapist relationship is strong but still

professional.
5

Regardless of the approach that I take in therapy, I believe that having this relationship is

something that I will have throughout all of my counseling sessions. Building relationships is

one of the fundamental stones when it comes to building trust and successful therapy. If you are

able to have a warm, caring and respectful relationship, then I believe that the client will be

successful regardless of everything else that is going one.

A research article written by Keijsers et al in 2000 examined the impact of interpersonal

patient and therapist behavior on outcome in CBT therapy. It was a review of empirical studied,

and their findings aligned with many of the other research articles and information that we talked

about throughout this class. They found that there are two clusters of interpersonal behaviors that

were identified that were clearly associated with different CBT outcomes. The first one states

that the Rogerian therapist variables of empathy, non-possessive warmth, positive regard, and

genuineness align with a relationship between the counselor and the client that is similar to a

therapeutic alliance. The second set of interpersonal relationships was related to the client/patient

rather than the therapist/counselor. It states that the patient’s perception of the therapist as being

self-confident, skillful and active led the patient to choose more openness when it came to

discussing their problems. The patient’s pre-treatment predisposition to change and to accept

psychological treatment was a means of achieving this.

Overall, throughout this study, they found that they were able to conclude that

relationship factors in general (between the therapist and the client) have a consistent, but

moderate impact on CBT outcome.

6

Central Techniques you are likely to Employ

Central techniques that I would be very likely to employ are disputing irrational beliefs.

This is important when it comes to working with clients in order to change their beliefs to

something that is more rational. Not only doing this but also teaching the client how to challenge

and dispute this on their own is one of the bigger parts of the technique that is going to be very

important.

Another technique is doing cognitive homework. When working with a client this is

going to be a huge determining factor in whether or not things are working and if the clients is

doing the work that they promised the therapist that they would do. With clients recording and

think about their beliefs and how it can attribute to their problems, this will help both the client

and the therapist to determine where they are falling short and where they need to put extra work

into.

In applying cognitive methods to treatment, the main goal is to incorporate cognitive

methodology throughout the process. The techniques that are used throughout this process

include disputing irrational beliefs, doing cognitive homework, bibliotherapy, changing one’s

language, and psychoeducational methods. These are all used interchangeably in order to find a

pattern that is best going to help the client with their negative thoughts and be able to change

them into positive thoughts or simply get rid of those thoughts all together.

There are also emotive techniques to consider when it comes to REBT practitioners.

These different practitioners use a variety of different emotive procedures which can include

unconditional acceptance, rational emotive role playing, modeling, rational emotive imagery, and

shame-attacking exercises. These also serve as a purpose to dispute client’s irrational beliefs.
7

These strategies that are mentioned above serve the purpose of being used both in therapy

session and as homework assignments in their daily lives. It’s not to provide short-terms relief

but to change someone’s thoughts, emotions and behaviors.

How you would address Cultural Diversity

When it comes to addressing cultural diversity, this is something that I think it very

important during practice. When it comes to addressing cultural diversity the first think I think is

important is a diversity statement that you give to clients when they agree to services (within

their informed consent). While this is small and generic, I think that it is a great step to ensure

that clients understand that you are actively working on cultural diversity and regardless of who

you are, where you are from and what you believe, you will still see them as a client. On the flip

side of this, I think that when you have a diversity statement, I would make sure that I am

following through on that. For example, if I have one and don’t follow through, then I would

hope that my client holds me accountable for that and calls me out.

When working with any client, I believe that it is important to keep a multicultural

perspective in order to best be able to work with them. When the therapist is able to understand

the client and their core beliefs better, it will help them to be able to allow the client to explore

the values that they hold close and be able to fain a full awareness of their conflicting values and

feelings. After there is this deeper level of understanding, the client and the therapist will be able

to work together to modify those selected beliefs and practices.

The text stresses that counselors with a cognitive behavioral orientation function as

teachers, and clients are actively involved in learning skills to deal with the problems of living.

When it comes to the approach using CBT, it allows for the client to have a structured therapy
8

program, but there is still a part that allows the client to have a greater say in what they would

like their treatment to look like. Hays (2009) states that there is an “almost perfect fit” between

cognitive behavior therapy and multicultural therapy. This is because these perspectives share

common assumptions that make integration possible.

SOURCES:

Keijsers, G. P. J., Schaap, C. P. D. R., & Hoogduin, C. A. L. (2000). The Impact of

Interpersonal Patient and Therapist Behavior on Outcome in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: A
Review of Empirical Studies. Behavior Modification, 24(2), 264–297.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445500242006

Wright, J. H., & Davis, D. (1994). The therapeutic relationship in cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Patient perceptions and therapist responses. Cognitive and behavioral practice, 1(1), 25-45.

Young, J. E., Weinberger, A. D., & Beck, A. T. (2001). Cognitive therapy for depression.
Clinical handbook of psychological disorders: A step-by-step treatment manual, 3, 264-308.