From My PSY Desk(PsyDesk): Using The Client's Strengths In Therapy
This article highlights the
importance of showing the real identity of counseling psychology which is aimed
at bringing forth positive therapeutic process when dealing with clients. For
any therapeutic process, the client looks forward to get better than they were
when they came for help. It is therefore important to ensure that the client is
not hurt further but helped to see positivity and possibility of making the
best out of life. Using client’s strength during sessions is vital in helping clients
move towards ideal human functioning. The mainstream therapy is seen to have a
number of positive processes found in the main five themes;
Amplification of strengths, Contextual considerations, Strength-oriented
processes, Strength-oriented outcomes and Positive meaning-making. By using the
client’s strength, the therapist helps the client to have a broad perspective
and develops hope and motivation which in turn creates positive meanings
through reframing and metaphors used during the session. The client’s strengths
can be well identified through the interpersonal therapeutic process with the
therapist. This can be explored fully by matching the client’s contexts through
strengths, amplify strengths through encouragement and exception finding.
By including the client’s strengths
during counseling, the therapist can prevent more problems, promote human
growth of the client as well as maximize human potential that makes the client
to accept the therapy. Counseling psychology, unlike clinical psychology,
invests a lot in the psychological strength and seeing people as assets. While
clinical psychology looks for what is wrong and ways of treating it, counseling
psychology looks for what is right and how to help the client use it making
counseling psychologists aspire for strength-oriented methods. The use of
positive psychology aims at helping the clients to develop healthy and positive
self by paying attention to human strengths as well as positive development. In
other words, a client is not a mere messed up individual looking forward to be
fixed, a client is an individual with inner potentials that need to be unveiled
through a helpful therapeutic process hence the need for counseling
psychologists to identify the strengths of the client and build on them to make
the clients come up with new stories of their lives built on the foundation of
who they are.
Reviewed By Truphosah Fridah Monah (USIU-A) from the work of Scheel M. J.; Klentz D.
C.; Henderson J. D. 2012.
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