Techniques that I use in psychology and psychotherapy
There are many different techniques that psychologists and psychotherapists use with their clients. Each technique has a contribution to help the client from suffering. I personally believe that our role as psychologist and psychotherapist is to be able to understand our clients’ needs which differ from one to another and to emphasize their goals. As soon as the goals are written we can start working for achieving them.
This is the moment when I decide to choose my techniques and to prioritize them according to my clients’ needs and goals.
I can use role play, meditation, dysfunctional cognitive schemas, ABC model, drawings’ interpretation, fables, personality test, NLP, visualization, and so on.
I’d like to present briefly some of these techniques.
Role play is used especially with clients who feel comfortable in “acting” and behaving in a concrete difficult situation that they would like to know how they can overcome. For example, if someone would like to be firm and refusing a task given by his/her boss, the psychologist and the client could play together this scene by making the client understand about his/her resources that he/she has for succeeding in dealing with this problem.
Meditation is very useful in psychology and psychotherapy by promoting inner calm, kindness towards oneself and others which can lead to changes in the experience of personal identity.
Dysfunctional cognitive schemas. We are humans and we tend to easily create us problems, to cultivate emotions, thoughts and maladaptive behaviors. No matter our way of generating emotional and behavioural problems in the past, we are still creating difficulties in the present, especially because we continue to have irrational beliefs.
However, in the long run, we can overcome these problems if we make a substantial and sustained effort to dispute our irrational beliefs and their consequences.
As a psychologist I work with dysfunctional cognitive schemas for emphasizing the automatic negative thoughts that clients have about themselves, regarding the future, and with reference to the world, in general. This means that during the therapeutic process, I challenge my clients’ thoughts by trying to provide a clear understanding about these mechanisms that have results in a negative view of the client, the future and the world.
By using the ABC model I provide a clear chart for my clients regarding the actual event that my client experienced, his/her immediate interpretations of this event, his/her beliefs regarding this event, either rational or irrational, and the emotions, behaviors and other thoughts related to this event – the consequences.
How someone interprets the situation he/she lived affects the way he/she feels, thinks and behaves. This is the chart that shows this process of thinking, feeling and behaving and how to question the irrational thoughts for stopping people from suffering.
Drawings’ interpretation. There are specific drawings that I use in psychology such as: the tree, the house, the family. The interpretations of these particular drawings describe children’s approaches to their families, and underline their personalities. But, at the end, every drawing presents important details about children which are very useful in their personal development by promoting wellbeing and enhancing self-esteem and self-confidence.
