Personal Therapy Model

An Introduction to My Personal Model of Therapy The very first thing we learned about at the beginning of the quarter in MCP 630, Theory and Techniques of Counseling Psychotherapy, was that becoming a professional counselor or psychologist requires the therapist to develop a personal theory of counseling. Such a theory encompasses a variety of theories, extensive knowledge within the field, experience, ethical foundation, and personal attributes. When personal models of therapy were discussed initially in class on the first day, a few therapies came to mind right away that I knew I would want to include in my personal model of therapy, such as Client-Centered Therapy, Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Therapy. Yet as the quarter went on and

F. Skinner, and Albert Bandura, focuses on changing the behavior of clients. This type of therapy “aims to decrease the frequency of maladaptive behaviors, and increase the frequency of adaptive or helpful behaviors” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 194). Behavior therapy does this by using trait theories of personality and assuming that “each individual has unique, enduring patterns of behavior that can be observed across a wide range of situations and that these patterns can be understood in terms of specific personality characteristics – traits – that vary in intensity from low to high” (Corsini & Weddin, 2014, p 199). Behavior therapy also uses concepts such as classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning “is a form of learning in which one stimulus, a conditioned stimulus, comes to signal the occurrence of a second stimulus, an unconditioned stimulus…[an unconditioned stimulus] is typically a stimulus that naturally causes a characteristic response, known as an unconditioned response” and operant conditioning “is a form of learning in which the frequency, form, or strength of a behavior is influenced by its consequences” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 200-201). Concepts like these, including reinforcement and punishment, can be wide spread and used in various types of situations which is why this therapy is a good one to use with other

Due to this, it would make sense to combine this therapy with one that is better able to build therapeutic relationships, such as client-centered therapy. The process of behavior therapy is diverse because it can consist of “individual meetings with a therapist, but it may also be administered in groups or with families or couples…interventions are usually administered by a therapist, but they may also be directed by others” including parents, teachers, and health-care professionals (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 203). Such a process allows behavioral therapy a widely accessible form of therapy to various people, not just therapists. Behavior therapists once relied on learning principles such as reinforcement, punishment, and extinction to explain the effects of treatment, however now “models based on information processing, emotional processing, and cognitive reappraisal have been advanced to explain the process by which clients change during behavior therapy” (Corsini & Wedding, 2014, p 205). The cognitive aspects that behavior therapy speaks of can be easily related to and used with cognitive therapy. The use of behavior therapy has been demonstrated in numerous studies with a vast majority of psychological problems “including anxiety disorders, depression, substance-use