You remember studying different counseling theories in your graduate program, but do you know why? Understanding the importance of theory can help make you a better counselor.
In order to solve a problem, any problem, we have to understand what’s broken. But before we can do that, we have to understand how it’s supposed to work when nothing is broken.
This also applies to people. It’s why you need a theory.
In order to figure out how to help someone with their mental and/or emotional issue, you have to understand how their mental and/or emotional processes work when there is no issue. Then, you can can develop a hypothesis as to what caused them to become unhealthy by simply reversing the mechanism. And once you know why they are suffering, you can then choose the appropriate interventions.
For example, if you are counselor who employs CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), then you believe that it is people’s thoughts and behaviors that create their emotional lives. When people are functioning in an emotionally healthy way, their thoughts are rational. Now, we can reverse this to come up with a theory as to why they are suffering emotionally: their thoughts aren’t rational. Now that we have that theory, we can come up with appropriate interventions (repairing the irrational thoughts). If we do this, then the person should regain emotional health.
Hopefully when you took your Counseling Theories course in your master’s program, one of your assignments was to determine your personal counseling theory. For example, in my course* I had to answer the following questions:
- What are my apriori assumptions about people?
- Why do people do what they do?
- How do people get into trouble?
- How do you help people?
As you can see, the answers to these questions will help uncover your theoretical orientation.
Therefore, if you haven’t had to write such a paper, it might be a really good exercise to sit with yourself and ponder these questions. Having your own personal theory will inform your practice in a consistent and meaningful way.
Yours in the Joy of Knowledge,
Dr. Barb LoFrisco
*Advanced Counseling Theories taught by Dr. William Emener at the University of South Florida
