Compare and Contrast the Ways in Which the Psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches to Counselling Understand and Make Use of the Counselling Relationship.

Compare and Contrast the Ways in Which the Psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches to Counselling Understand and Make Use of the Counselling Relationship.

by Edyta Larsen

The relationship between the therapist and the client is viewed as one of the basic pillars of counselling today. Its significance seems to be indisputable when we consider that clients seek out therapists not only for advice and psychological help but also for safety and understanding. However, this therapeutic relationship seems to be full of ambiguous mutual interactions, on both conscious and unconscious levels, which as a consequence may produce unintended effects during the therapy session. Therefore, the impact of different types of relationships is one of the causes of disputes between two of the main approaches to counselling: psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural.
Psychodynamic approach has its origins in the ideas of Sigmund Freud. The most distinctive features of this approach lie in the assumption that the client’s problems have ultimately originated from his childhood experiences and, because of that, the client may not be consciously aware of true motives hidden behind his actions. Therefore, despite of the fact that psychodynamic approach has moved away from Freud (and his focus on sexuality in childhood, for instance), basic fundamental concepts stayed the same. Counsellors working in a psychodynamic way use similar techniques of approaching the client to those used by Freud himself during his therapies. In order to get to the core of a problem of an adult patient the therapist must analyse his childhood and understand how it was shaped by his family and surrounding environment. Psychodynamic therapy seems to acquire a number of techniques, “systematic use of the relationship between the counsellor and client” being one of them (McLeod, 2008, p.97). Counsellors tend to present themselves as a ‘blank screen’ in order to enable the client to project his or her fantasies or deeply held assumptions onto it. They are experts who do not share their own feelings or private lives with their clients. The aim of such an approach is...

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