Abbreviations:
AT,
Jung’s analytical therapy; BT, behaviour therapy; CT, cognitive
therapy; ET, existential therapy; GT, gestalt therapy; LT,
logotherapy; MMT, multimodal therapy; PA, Freud’s
psychoanalysis; PCT, person-centred therapy; REBT, rational
emotive behaviour therapy; RT, reality therapy; TA, transactional
analysis.
ABCDE
theory (REBT)
A theoretical model for understanding psychological distress and change in which
A = Adversities or activating events in a persons life, B = Beliefs, both
rational and irrational, C = Consequences, both emotional and behavioural, D =
Disputing irrational beliefs, and E = Effects and/or effective philosophy of
life.
Active
imagination (AT)
is a technique devised by Jung to help people get in touch with unconscious
material. Clients begin by concentrating on a starting point. Then they allow
their unconscious to produce a series of images, which may make a complete
story.
Activity
scheduling (CT)
Activity scheduling involves planning and timetabling specific activities with
clients. A principle of activity scheduling is to state what activity the client
agrees to engage in rather than how much they will accomplish.
Actualizing
tendency (PCT)
is an active process representing the inherent tendency of the organism to
develop its capacities in the direction of maintaining, enhancing and
reproducing itself.
Adult
(TA) An
ego state oriented towards objective, autonomous data-processing and probability
estimating.
Anima
and the animus (AT)
The anima is the personification of the feminine nature in a man’s
unconscious, whereas the animus is the personification of the masculine nature
in a woman’s unconscious.
Archetypes
(AT) are
‘primordial images’ and ‘primordial thoughts’ rather than the
representations of the images or thoughts themselves. Archetypes provide
instinctive patterns for mental activity.
Assertive
training (BT)
involves training clients in the appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviours
for expressing both negative and positive thoughts and feelings. Contemporary
assertive training often focuses on thinking assertively as well as on behaviour.
Automatic
thoughts (CT)
are less accessible to awareness than voluntary thoughts, but not so deeply
buried as beliefs and schemas. Automatic thoughts are part of people’s
internal monologue — what and how they talk to themselves — can take the
form of words, images, or both, occur very rapidly, and are usually at the
fringe of awareness.
Autonomy
(TA)
refers to the capacity for non-script behaviour which is reversible, with no
particular time schedule, developed later in life, and not under parental
influence.
Awareness
technique (GT)
is a concentration technique in which clients are asked to become aware of their
body language, their breathing, their voice quality and their emotions as much
as of any pressing thoughts.
BASIC
I.D. (MMT)
Human personality can be divided into seven discrete, yet interacting,
modalities or dimensions: behaviour, affect, sensation, imagery, cognition,
interpersonal, and drugs/biology.
Basic
needs (RT)
Choice theory sees humans as driven by five basic needs that are genetic in
origin: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.
Behavioural
assessment (BT)
sometimes known as functional analysis, allows therapists to identify the
context, antecedents and consequences of the responses they wish to treat. When
conducted after initial sessions, behavioural assessment aims to assist both in
evaluating treatment effectiveness and in deciding whether to continue,
discontinue or alter treatment.
Being
(ET)
‘Being’ as a participle of a verb implies that someone is in the process of
becoming something, When used as a noun ‘being’ can mean potential.
Bridging
(MMT) A
rapport enhancement technique in which therapists deliberately tune in to the
clients’ preferred modalities before gently helping them cross bridges into
other modalities that may prove more productive.
Child
(TA) The
Child or archaeopsychic ego state is a set of feelings, thoughts, attitudes and
behaviour patterns which are archaic relics of an individuals childhood. The
Child ego state is exhibited in two major forms: the adapted Child, which
follows parental directives, and the natural Child, which is autonomous.
Choice
theory (RT)
or internal control psychology explains that, for all practical purposes, humans
choose everything they do, including the misery they feel.
Choice
theory language (RT)
Language which assumes personal responsibility for one’s total behaviour, for
instance using active verbs like depressing, and allows others’ freedom of
choice to assume responsibility for their total behaviour.
Classical
conditioning (BT),
also known as respondent conditioning, is a form of learning whereby existing
responses are attached to new stimuli by pairing these stimuli with those that
naturally elicit the response.
Cognitive-behaviour
therapy A
term describing therapies that extend behaviour therapy to have a major focus on
changing covert thoughts as well as overt behaviours: examples include cognitive
therapy, rational emotive behaviour therapy, and multimodal therapy.
Cognitive
distortions (CT) are
information processing errors that both characterize and maintain psychological
distress: for instance, arbitrary inference, selective abstraction,
overgeneralization and dichotomous thinking.
Cognitive
vulnerability (CT)
refers to humans’ cognitive frailty. Because of their schemas, each person has
a set of unique vulnerabilities and sensitivities that predispose them to
psychological distress.
Collaborative
empiricism (CT)
Therapists and clients collaborate together in the scientific endeavour of
examining the evidence to confirm or negate the clients cognitions, all of which
are viewed as testable hypotheses.
Collective
unconscious (AT)
At its deepest levels the unconscious is a vast collective and universal
historical storehouse whose contents belong to mankind in general. The contents
of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, but owe their
existence to heredity.
Complexes
(AT),
which are an important feature of the personal unconscious, are accumulations of
associations, sometimes of a traumatic nature, that possess strong emotional
content - for example, the mother complex.
Conditions
of worth (PCT)
The internalisation or introjection of others’ evaluations, which do not truly
reflect the persons actualizing tendency but may serve to impede it.
Congruence
(PCT)
Consistency between the thoughts and feelings the therapist experiences and her
or his professional demeanour. Not putting on a professional facade.
Contact
boundary (GT)
is the boundary between organism and environment where all feelings, thoughts
and actions take place. Contacting the environment represents forming a gestalt,
whereas withdrawal is either closing a gestalt completely or mobilizing
resources to make closure possible.
Counselling
A relationship in which counsellors assist clients to understand themselves and
their problems better. Then, where appropriate, counsellors use various
interventions to assist clients to feel, think, communicate and act more
effectively. The term ‘counselling’ is often used interchangeably with
psychotherapy. Since there are many different theoretical orientations, it may
be more accurate to speak of counselling approaches than counselling.
Death
anxiety (ET),
the fear of ceasing to be, can be both conscious and unconscious. It is the
fundamental source of anxiety, whether it be neurotic, normal or existential.
Strong death anxiety is likely to be repressed.
Decision
(TA) A
childhood commitment to a certain form of behaviour, which later forms the basis
of character.
Defence
mechanisms (PA)
are infantilisms which operate unconsciously to protect the ego and may impede
realistic behaviour long after they have outlived their usefulness. Examples
include repression, reaction formation, projection, fixation and regression.
Dereflection
(LT)
Dereflection aims to counteract hyper-reflection, or excessive attention, by
assisting clients to ignore their symptoms: for example, a woman dereflects
excessive self-observation regarding sexual performance by becoming more focused
on her partner.
Disputing
(REBT)
involves challenging and questioning unsubstantiated hypotheses that clients
hold about themselves, others and the world.
Dream
analysis (AT)
Dreams are utterances or statements from the unconscious and are comparable to
texts that appear unintelligible, but the therapist has to discover how to read
them. An understanding of myths and symbols is fundamental for analysing dreams.
Dreamwork
(GT)
Dreams are existential messages, not just unfinished situations, current
problems or symptoms. There are four stages to dreamwork: sharing the dream,
retelling the dream in the present tense, talking to the different actors in the
dream, and conducting a dialogue between different elements in the dream.
Eclecticism
(MMT) The
practice of drawing from different counselling and therapy approaches in
formulating client problems and implementing treatment interventions. A
distinction can be made between theoretical eclecticism and practical or
technical eclecticism.
Ego
(PA) The
ego or 1’ acts as an intermediary between the id and the external world and
strives to bring the reality principle to bear upon the id in substitution for
the pleasure principle.
Ego
disturbance (REBT)
arises from the demanding and irrational belief ‘I must do well and win
approval for all my performances’ because it leads to people thinking and
feeling that they are inadequate and undeserving persons when they do not do as
well as they ‘must’.
Ego
state (TA)
A consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a
corresponding consistent pattern of behaviour.
Empathy
(PCT) The
therapists capacity to comprehend accurately the clients inner world or internal
frame of reference and to sensitively communicate back this understanding.
Excitement
(GT) The
energy people create, which coincides with the physiological function of
excitation.
Existential
(ET) The
word ‘existence’ is derived from the Latin word existere, literally meaning
‘to stand out, to emerge’. Existential approaches to therapy are concerned
with the science and processes of being.
Existential
defence mechanisms (ET)
In addition to conventional defence mechanisms, there are specific defences for
each of the four ultimate concerns — death, freedom, isolation and
meaninglessness - to defend people against these fundamental fears.
Existential
frustration (LT)
results when the will to meaning is frustrated. Apathy and boredom are the main
characteristics of existential frustration.
Existential
guilt (ET)
Three forms of existential guilt are failure to live up to one’s potential;
distorting the reality of one’s fellow humans; and ‘separation guilt’ in
relation to nature as a whole.
Existential
psychodynamics (ET)
Existential conflicts and existential anxiety flow from peoples inescapable
confrontations with the givens of existence - death, freedom, isolation and
meaninglessness.
Existential
ultimate concerns (ET)
Four existential ultimate concerns are death, freedom, isolation, and
meaninglessness. Each concern begets a different existential conflict.
Existential
vacuum (LT)
describes a state in which people complain of an inner void. They suffer from a
sense of meaninglessness, emptiness and futility.
Experiments
(CT)
Beliefs are treated as testable hypotheses. Together therapists and clients set
up cognitive and behavioural experiments that encourage clients to test the
reality of their beliefs.
Experiments
(GT)
Therapists and clients develop experiments in which clients try out different
ways of thinking and acting. Repeatedly clients are encouraged to ‘Try this
and see what you experience.’
External
control psychology (RT)
involves choosing to control and allow oneself to be controlled by others.
Choosing to coerce, force, compel, punish, reward, boss, manipulate, motivate,
criticize, blame, complain, nag, badger, rank, rate, and withdraw.
Feminist
therapy
Approaches to counselling and therapy that address women’s problems and issues
in the context of constricting gender role socialization and power imbalances in
society. Feminist therapy emphasizes egalitarian therapist-client relationships,
valuing women’s experiences, liberating women from sex-role stereotypes, and
working against oppression.
Flooding
(BT) In
contemporary flooding techniques, therapists arrange for clients to be exposed
to relatively strong fear stimuli which, either real or imagined, are presented
continuously.
Free
association (PA)
Clients must tell their analysts everything that occurs to them, even if it is
disagreeable and even if it seems meaningless. The object of free association is
to help lift repressions by making unconscious material conscious.
Frustration
(GT)
Providing situations in which clients experience being stuck in frustration and
then frustrating their avoidances still further until they are willing to
mobilize their own resources.
Game
(TA) An
ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a
well-defined predictable outcome or payoff.
Gestalt
(GT)
means form or shape and among the meanings of the German verb gestalten are to
shape, to form, to fashion, to organize and to structure. Other terms for
gestalt are pattern, configuration or organized whole.
Happiness
(CHT) On
one level happiness is freedom from want and having the basic necessities of
life. On another level, happiness consists of feelings of contentment,
self-worth and well-being arising from connecting with the positive core of
one’s own or another’s being. Being the generator, giver or recipient of
thoughts and actions reflecting innate goodness.
Homeostasis
(GT)
Homeostasis or organismic self-regulation is the process by which the organism
satisfies its needs by restoring balance when faced with a demand or need which
upsets its equilibrium.
Id
(PA) The
id or ‘it’ contains everything that is inherited and fixed in the
constitution. Filled with energy from the instincts, the id strives to bring
about the satisfaction of instinctual needs on the basis of the pleasure
principle.
Incongruence
(PCT) A
discrepancy between the self as perceived and the actual experience of the
organism.
Individuation
(AT) is
the process by which the person becomes differentiated as a separate
psychological individual, a separate whole as distinct from the collective
psychology.
Inelegant
and elegant change (REBT)
Inelegant change largely consists of some kind of symptom removal. Elegant
change goes further than developing an effective new philosophy that supports
removal of specific symptoms to assisting clients to develop and implement an
effective philosophy of life.
Instincts
(PA)
represent somatic or biological demands upon the mind, which are grouped into
two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct.
Integration
(MMT)
Attempting to blend together theoretical concepts and/or practical interventions
drawn from different therapeutic approaches into coherent and integrated wholes.
Interpretation
(PA)
involves offering constructions or explanations. Interpreting dreams represents
an important - sometimes the most important - part of the analysts work.
Introjections
(GT) are
experiences which are swallowed as a whole rather than being properly digested
and assimilated. The outcome of introjection is that undesirable as well as
desirable thoughts, feelings and behaviours get retained.
Irrational
beliefs (REBT)
are rigid, dogmatic, unhealthy, maladaptive beliefs that mostly get in the way
of people’s efforts to achieve their goals. Such beliefs are characterized by
demands, musts and shoulds.
Lifeskills
(CHT)
Sequences of choices affirming or negating psychological life that people make
in specific skills areas. The main categories of lifeskills are mind skills and
communication/action skills.
Lifeskills
therapy (CHT)
Therapy for conventional adaptation. Assisting clients to attain the mind,
communication and action skills required for functioning effectively in the
societies of which they are a part.
Logotherapy
(LT) is
an education for responsibility that seeks to unblock clients’ will to
meaning. It is the treatment of choice for persons suffering from noogenic or
existential neurosis.
Low
frustration tolerance (REBT)
or discomfort disturbance arises from the grandiose belief that people think
they are so special that conditions must be easy and satisfying for them.
Medical
ministry (LT)
A term for how logotherapists work with somatogenic cases where the somatic
cause cannot be removed. Where possible, logotherapists assist the non-diseased
part of clients in finding meaning in the attitude that they take towards their
suffering.
Men’s
therapy
An underdeveloped area of counselling and therapy focusing on men’s problems
and issues. Many feminist therapy goals and principles are applicable to men’s
therapy, which is sometimes considered feminist therapy’s missing half.
Modality
Profile (MMT)
A BASIC I.D. chart listing problems and interventions within each modality.
Modes
(CT) are
networks of cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural schemas. Modes
are fundamental to personality since they interpret and adapt to emerging and
ongoing situations.
Multicultural
therapy
Approaches to counselling and therapy that take into account the cultures and
worldviews of clients and therapists. Such approaches include making existing
Euro-American therapies more culture-sensitive, developing multicultural
counselling and therapy competences, and using non-Western therapeutic
approaches.
Multimodal
Life History Inventory (MMT)
A fifteen-page inventory that asks numerous questions about antecedent events
and maintaining factors, with the answers being divided into BASIC I.D.
categories.
Observational
learning (BT)
Learning behavioural and cognitive skills by observing models, including
observing how the models’ behaviours get reinforced.
Operant
conditioning (BT) A
form of learning in which the person or animal has to operate on the environment
to produce a response. Responses are maintained, modified or extinguished by the
likelihood of eliciting reinforcing consequences.
Non-being
(ET) The
opposite of being is non-being or nothingness. Death is the most obvious form of
non-being. However, there are numerous other threats to being in the form of
loss of potentiality through anxiety and conformity and through lack of clear
self-awareness.
Noogenic
neurosis (LT) refers
to those cases where the existential vacuum leads to clinical symptomatology.
Existential frustration plays a large part in noogenic neuroses.
Openness
to experience (PCT)
Allowing all significant sensory and visceral experiences to be perceived, the
capacity for realistic perception without defensiveness.
Organismic
valuing process (PCT)
refers to a persons continuous weighing of experience and the placing of values
on that experience in terms of its ability to satisfy the actualizing tendency.
Quality
world (RT)
A personal picture album consisting of detailed pictures of what an individual
wants to satisfy her or his needs. The pictures in peoples quality worlds fall
into three categories: (1) the people they most want to be with; (2) the things
they most want to own or experience; and (3) the ideas or systems of belief that
govern much of their behaviour.
Paradoxical
intention (LT)
In paradoxical intention, clients are invited to intend precisely that which
they fear. Their excessive fear or hyper-intention is replaced by a paradoxical
wish: for instance, fear of perspiring is replaced by trying as hard as possible
to perspire.
Parent
(TA) The
Parent or exteropsychic ego state is a set of feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and
behaviours which resemble those of parental figures. The Parent ego state may be
seen in one of two forms: the controlling Parent and the nurturing Parent.
Participant
modelling (BT)
involves therapists repeatedly modelling feared activities, for instance
handling snakes or dogs. Then joint performance with therapists may enable
clients to start engaging in activities which would be too threatening to engage
in on their own. Ultimately clients perform the feared activities on their own.
Persona
(AT) A
concept derived from the mask worn by actors in antiquity. At one level, the
persona is the individuals system of adaptation or way of coping with the world.
At a different level, the persona is not just an individual mask, but a mask of
the collective psyche.
Personal
unconscious (AT)
The contents, which are definitely personal, fall into two main categories:
material that lost its intensity either because it was forgotten or repressed;
and material which never possessed sufficient intensity to reach consciousness
but has somehow entered the psyche for instance, some sense-impressions.
Preconscious
(PA) The
preconscious is latent and capable of becoming conscious, while the unconscious
is repressed and is unlikely to become conscious without great difficulty.
Psychodynamics
(PA) The
concept of psychical or mental energy and its distribution among the id, ego and
super-ego is central to psychoanalysis.
Psychotherapy
Literally ‘mind healing’. More accurate to speak of ‘the
psychotherapies’ since there are many different theoretical and practical
approaches to psychotherapy.
Rational
beliefs (REBT)
Healthy, productive and adaptive beliefs that are consistent with social
reality, and are stated as preferences, desires and wants.
Rational
coping statements (REBT)
range from articulating simple words of encouragement to generating longer
statements containing preferential thinking. This step often, but not
necessarily, follows vigorous disputing.
Rational-emotive
imagery (REBT)
In rational emotive imagery (REI) clients: (1) vividly imagine an adversity; (2)
once feeling unhealthily upset, hold on to the image for a minute or two; and
(3) then tell themselves strongly and repetitively sensible rational beliefs or
coping statements.
Reattribution
techniques (CT)
test automatic thoughts and underlying beliefs by considering alternative ways
of assigning responsibility and cause.
Reciprocal
inhibition (BT)
encompasses all situations in which the elicitation of one response appears to
bring about a decrement in the strength of evocation of a simultaneous response.
Reinforcement
(BT) The
presentation of a reward or the removal of an aversive stimulus following a
response. Reinforcement always increases the future probability of the
reinforced response. Schedules of reinforcement can be either intermittent or
non-intermittent.
Relationships
of choice (MMT)
Not only matching the nature of therapeutic relationship to the client, but also
matching it to the clients observed needs at different times in therapy.
Schemas
(CT) are
structures that consist of peoples fundamental beliefs and assumptions. They are
relatively stable cognitive patterns that influence, through their beliefs, how
people select and synthesize incoming information.
Script
(TA) A
life plan based on a decision made in childhood, reinforced by the parents,
justified by subsequent events, and culminating in a chosen alternative. The
purpose of script analysis is to get clients out of their script and thus to
behave autonomously.
Search
for meaning (LT)
The basic human need is a search for meaning rather than a search for the self.
Identity is only achievable through being responsible for the fulfilment of
meaning. Work, love, suffering, the past and the supra-meaning are each sources
of meaning.
Second-order
BASIC I.D. assessments
(MMT) When impasses occur in treating clients, second-order BASIC I.D.
assessments allow a more detailed review of behaviours, affective responses,
sensory reactions, images, cognitions, interpersonal factions, and
drugs/biological factors in relation to the area in which change is proving
difficult.
Self
(AT) The
self is the central archetype, the archetype of order. The self, which expresses
the unity of personality as a whole, encompasses both conscious and unconscious
components.
Self-actualizing
(GT) is a
process involving an effective balance of contact and withdrawal at the contact
boundary and the ability to use energy or excitement to meet real rather than
phoney needs.
Self-actualizing
(PCT) A
process of living and of personal development, based on the individuals
organismic valuing process, that genuinely reflects their unique actualizing
tendency.
Self-concept
(PCT) is
the self as perceived and the values attached to these perceptions, or what a
person refers to as 1’ or ‘me’.
Self-transcendence
(LT) The
human capacity to reach out beyond the boundaries of oneself by either
fulfilling a meaning or encountering another person lovingly.
Shadow
(AT) The
shadow archetype reflects the realm of humans’ animal ancestors and, as such,
comprises the whole historical aspect of the unconscious. For the most part, the
shadow consists of inferior traits of personality that individuals refuse to
acknowledge.
Socratic
dialogue (CT)
A Socratic style of questioning assists clients to expand and evaluate how they
think. Typical questions are: ‘Where is the evidence?’; ‘Where is the
logic?’; Are there other ways of perceiving the situation?’; and ‘What
would be the worst thing that could happen?’
Stimulus
control (BT)
entails modifying in advance the stimuli or cues associated with mal adaptive
responses and/or establishing cues associated with adaptive responses.
Structural
analysis (TA)
consists of diagnosing and separating one feeling-thinking-and-behaviour pattern
or ego state from another.
Structural
Profile (MMT)
Clients rate themselves across each of the BASIC I.D. modalities on a
seven-point scale, with 1 being the lowest and 7 being the highest.
Super-ego
(PA) The
super-ego is a residue formed within the ego in which parental influence is
prolonged. Parental influence may be defined broadly to include cultural, racial
and family influences,
Systematic
desensitisation (BT)
involves three elements: (a) training in deep muscular relaxation; (b) the
construction of hierarchies of anxiety evoking stimuli; and (c) asking the
client, when relaxed, to imagine items from the anxiety-evoking hierarchies.
Technical
eclecticism (MMT)
Technically eclectic therapists use procedures from different sources without
necessarily subscribing to the theories or disciplines that spawned them.
Thresholds
(MMT)
Peoples differing capacities to tolerate negative stimuli such as pain,
frustration, stress, cold, noise and pollution. Physiologically, people react to
a variety of arousing stimuli with differing and distinctive patterns of
autonomic nervous system activity.
Token
economies (BT)
Reinforcement programmes that use tokens as tangible conditioned reinforcers
which may be exchanged for back-up reinforcers such as prizes, opportunities to
engage in special activities, food or other purchases. An example is that of
points for good classroom behaviour being exchangeable for prizes of differing
value.
Total
behaviour (RT)
is always the sum of the following four components: acting, thinking, feeling
and physiology. Acting and thinking are under voluntary control; feeling and
physiology can only be changed by altering acting and thinking.
Tracking
(MMT)
refers to the careful assessment of the ‘firing order’, the ordering of the
chain reaction of the different modalities, to assist therapists in selecting
and prioritising treatment interventions.
Transaction
(TA) In
transactional analysis a stroke or unit of recognition is viewed as the
fundamental unit of social interaction. An exchange of strokes constitutes a
transaction. Transactions take place between ego states. Transactions between
ego states may be complementary, crossed and/or ulterior.
Transference
(PA)
Clients perceive their analysts as reincarnations of important figures from
their childhoods and transfer onto them moderate to intense feelings and
emotions appropriate to these earlier models.
Unconditional
positive regard (PCT)
consists of two dimensions: first, prizing and feeling positively towards
clients and, second, non-judgemental acceptance of clients’ experiencing and
disclosures as their subjective reality.
Unconditional
self-acceptance (REBT)
Clients can always choose to accept themselves just because they are alive and
human, whether or not they perform well or are approved of by others.
Unconscious
(PA) The
unconscious, or unconscious proper, consists of material that is inadmissible to
consciousness through repression. The censorship on unconscious material coming
into awareness is very strong indeed.
WDEP
system (RT)
Each letter represents a cluster of skills and techniques for assisting clients
to make better choices in their lives: W, asking clients what they want; D,
asking clients what they are doing and their overall direction; E, asking
clients to conduct a searching self-evaluation; and P, asking clients to make
plans to fulfil their needs more effectively.
Will to meaning (LT) The fundamental motivating drive since people are confronted with the need to detect and find meaning literally until their last breaths.
For enquiries and appointments call 020 8948 2439
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