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Integrating Adlerian and Constructive Therapies: An Adlerian Perspective

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This chapter discusses the significant common ground between Adlerian and constructivist therapies, and suggests aspects from each perspective that may be usefully integrated into the other,
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... As counselors, we gain an understanding of the totality of the clients' style of life when we seek to understand the clients' personal convictions about themselves, others, and the world (Watts & Shulman, 2003). As researchers, we discovered that the participants' faith beliefs provided a sense a purpose, significance, belongingness, and security that expanded beyond themselves and others to include a universal God. ...
... and growth " (p. 14). Additionally, counselors who fail to notice and incorporate these system supports within the counseling process would have missed an opportunity to foster social interest that promotes growth opportunities apart from the counseling setting (e.g., church fellowship, church programming opportunities, and discipleship trainings). Watts and Shulman (2003) described discounting the client's religious beliefs in counseling as, " to close one's eyes to a vital therapeutic factor " (p. 30). Therefore, when the counselor attempts to operate from the client's faith perspective, while maintaining both the client's and counselor's individual beliefs, the client's fear that his or her faith will ...
... As noted in the results of this study, the participants consistently pointed out the importance of faith in their lives and the need for the recognition of their faith to be a part of any helping relationship. Establishing a genuine and emphatic relationship allows the client to safely explore mistaken beliefs, safeguarding mechanisms, and feelings of inferiority and helplessness (Watts & Shulman, 2003). Consequently, as insight and self-understanding are gained, the counselor can encourage the client in his or her movement towards change, the development of coping skills, and towards his or her identified goals; all from an integrated religious framework that is meaningful to the client. ...
... Regarding family-of-origin influences, Adlerian theory and therapy was the first therapeutic approach in the modern therapy era to address human development from a relational and systemic perspective (Sherman & Dinkmeyer, 1987). This social context of the child includes both the values of the child's culture of origin and the child's experiences within the family constellation, Adler's phrase for the operative influences of the family structure, values, and dynamics (Shulman, 1985; Watts, 2003; Watts & Shulman, 2003). Adlerians state that early existential decisions about the self and the world—decisions made within and in relation to the first sociological environment, the family—form the core convictions of a client's style of life, his or her " Story of My Life " (Adler, 1931Adler, /1992 . ...
... Adlerians state that early existential decisions about the self and the world—decisions made within and in relation to the first sociological environment, the family—form the core convictions of a client's style of life, his or her " Story of My Life " (Adler, 1931Adler, /1992 . Many of the earlyformed convictions may be useful for a child to belong and survive in his or her early environment, but they later become ineffective for productive living (Watts, 2003; Watts & Shulman, 2003). These unproductive, early convictions often hinder one's ability to form substantial interpersonal relationships and thus have significant implications for counselor training and development. ...
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Through structural equation modeling, this study investigates the effects of counseling students’perceptions of early-childhood experiences on their social influence attributes as rated by their instructors. Perceptions of early childhood had no effects on instructors’ratings of trainees’expertness or trustworthiness, but did have effects on ratings of attractiveness. This model provides a close statistical fit to the data. The model supports the theoretical position that trainees’ intrapersonal family-of-origin processes influence their interpersonal-emotional functioning in counseling. Results have consistencies and inconsistencies with theoretical frameworks used to explain the influences of family of origin on counselors’ functioning. Implications for counselor training and supervision are presented.
... Así, el cuerpo de la persona es un fulcro de experiencias que alimentan un sentido profundo fenoménico de individualidad e identidad personal; (d) Las capacidades de autoorganización y construcción de significado se encuentran fuertemente influenciadas por procesos socio-simbólicos; esto implica que la persona existe en distintas redes relacionales mediadas típicamente por un sistema de lenguajes y símbolos. Por lo tanto, y tal y como los psicólogos Adlerianos afirman, el conocimiento tiene un arraigo social y relacionalmente compartido que no implica un vació en el sentido, ya mencionado, de la individualidad o identidad personal (Watts, 2003; Watts & Phillips, 2004; Watts & Shulman, 2003); y (e) El desarrollo humano a través de la vida es un proceso de ciclos complejos y espirales en los que la experiencia es a la vez dinámica (siempre cambiante) y dialéctica (generada por contrastes). Estos ciclos complejos pueden devenir en episodios de trastornos (desorganización) y, bajo ciertas circunstancias, reorganización (o transformación) de patrones nucleares de identidad, así como construcción de significado y las relaciones sociales y del self. ...
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A lo largo de la historia, los niños de todas las épocas han utilizado el juego como forma de enfrentarse a dificultades y situaciones carentes de significado en su vida. Como los niños pequeños no tienen suficiente desarrollo cognitivo o habilidades expresivas para poder expresarse verbalmente sobre sus emociones, pensamientos y reacciones, normalmente les resulta mucho más fácil comunicarse utilizando el juego o juguetes. Dada la idea de que el juego es el lenguaje del niño y que los juguetes son sus palabras (Landreth, 2002), la realización de significado ocurre en la terapia del juego; cuando el terapeuta utiliza las habilidades básicas facilitadoras en la terapia de juego con niños, el niño contará sus historias a través del juego, y así la terapia del juego crea un espacio para que el niño resuelva sus problemas. Este artículo presenta una introducción a la terapia de juego dentro de un marco epistemológico constructivista, integrando los enfoques de la terapia centrada en la persona (en el niño) y el enfoque adleriano. El objetivo es demostrar la utilidad de las habilidades básicas relacionales en la terapia de juego. Se presentarán los principios básicos, los requerimientos del setting terapéuticos y algunas técnicas.
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An integration of Adlerian and Constructivist ideas, this procedure uses imaginary team members to help clients in the reflecting "as if" process; a process whereby clients take a reflective step out of or away from their problems in order to create space to reflect upon perceptual and behavioral alternatives.
Book
First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.
Chapter
In our recent book, Forgus and I present Alfred Adler as a cognitive theorist with a constructionist viewpoint. Adler’s theory emphasizes that the person is an active, creative agent in the construction of his own personality, not merely a passive reactor shaped by his environment. (Forgus & Shulman, 1979)
Chapter
Psychotherapy as a cultural achievement emerging in the last century lacks a coherent, unitary, epistemological program; this lack of a program explains the steady proliferation of competing approaches. The cognitive approach has represented, for many students, the promise of a new integrating paradigm. However, the proliferation of a number of cognitive therapies, along with the present inability of clinicians engaged in this kind of therapy to define a theoretical framework capable of including the basic contributions of developmental, experimental, and clinical psychology, seems to indicate that the cognitive approach, too, could fall into epistemological confusion. The theoretical framework delineated in the first section of our chapter is not only relevant to everyday clinical practice but also leads to a model of cognitive organization that can be used as a guideline for clinical research and psychotherapeutic work. Our second section deals with a clinical study of agoraphobia and suggests connections between the theoretical model and clinical practice.