Theorectical Orientation - Insight, Action, Directive, or Non-directive

There are numerous approaches to therapy and often, as the counseling student progresses through their graduate career, they find themselves aligning with various methods. For the purpose of this paper, four approaches to therapy will be discussed, i.e. insight-oriented, action, directive, and nondirective therapies, and finally the student will explain her current theoretical orientation as it applied to the above listed therapies.
The insight-oriented approach is directly related to that which Freud devised over 100 years ago, i.e. Freudian psychoanalytic therapy. This approach has been used for a number of years, but to the length of required treatment, therapists have gradually abandoned it. The goals of this therapy are to assist the client in understanding their own personality, emotions, behavior, responses, and relationships with others, with the intent that this recognition will bring motivate the client to change their destructive thoughts and consequent actions. The therapist plays an intrical role in the client’s therapy and remains empathetic and understanding to the client’s needs.
The action-oriented approach is found in Cognitive and Gestalt therapies. This approach is more of a holistic approach, with the goal of assisting the client to function appropriately within their immediate environment. The client’s present situations are the focus, as opposed to that of the insight-oriented therapies, which aim at understanding one’s feeling and emotions that were solidified during childhood. Additionally, with action-oriented therapies, it is the therapist/client relationship is the most important. And while the Freudian approach aspires to change one emotionally, the action-oriented therapy aims at changes in outward behaviors.
“The person-centered theory of Carl R. Rogers is one of the most popular in the fields of psychology, counseling, and education,” (Capuzzi & Gross, 189) and is an example of the non-directive approach to therapy. With the non-directive approach, “the therapist is intensely mindful to respect and protect the autonomy and self-direction of the client. The client is viewed as the expert about himself and the therapist views himself as expert only in maintaining the attitudinal conditions in the relationship with the client, not as an expert on the client,” (Brodley, para.20). The therapist also utilizes empathetic, reflective listening and open-ended statements thus allowing for the clients themselves to be more self-directive to structure the focus of each session.
Directive therapies are the polar opposite to that of non-directive approaches. Directive approaches require the therapist to lead the course of treatment and goals. While non-directive approaches allow the client to guide the each session and assist in self-discovery, directive therapists inform the client of maladaptive behaviors, emotions and perceptions thereby offering an objective view, so that the client can also acknowledge these and begin to change.
This learner currently finds herself wavering between Spruill and Benshoff’s (2000) pre-training and training stages. She has only begun to learn of each therapeutic approach in depth and has little vocational experience to draw upon. She conquers that “learning to be a helping professional has been described as a complex and overwhelming process,” (p.70), and is finding difficulty in deciphering the best approach to therapy. Spruill & Benshoff (2000) find that “student development during graduate counselor training has been described as a continuum through which students move from a focus on more external, client-specific information to a point where they can focus on and integrate many complexities related to effective counseling, including variables of personality, personal and professional issues, and counseling style,” (p.72).
In her personal life, she has described herself as a “tell it like it is” person. She has found great difficulty in holding back her thoughts or advice when talking with friends or family. Additionally, she believes that common sense should prevail, and therefore has gives advice based on this thought. However, she realizes that when working with clients, this may not always be the best approach. In her current position, working with children of domestic abuse, she has adopted more of a non-directive, insight-oriented approach. However, she upon graduation, her target population will be inmate or parolees with substance abuse issues, and with such, she feels that directive, action-orientated approaches would be more appropriate. Bauman and Waldo (1998) find that “many mental health counselors continue to describe themselves as theoretically eclectic. Perhaps this resistance to identifying a single theory is a consequence of the widespread belief that one theory cannot possibly apply to,” (p. 13) all diverse populations. In the learner’s case, her current client population and her intended clientele struggle with very different issues, one which is in their control (substance use) and one which is not (abuse), therefore it is expected that her approaches with each of these populations will be very different.

References
Bauman, S. & Waldo, M. (1998). Existential theory and mental health counseling: If it were a snake, it would have bitten!. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 20(1), 13.
Brodley, B. (1986). Client-centered therapy - What is it? What is it not? Retrieved on July 29, 2008 from http://world.std.com/~mbr2/whatscct.html
Capuzzi, D. & Gross, D.R. (2007). Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions. Pearson Education: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Spruill, D. A. & Benshoff, J. M. (2000). Helping beginning counselors develop a personal theory of counseling. Counselor Education & Supervision, 40(1), 70-81