PSY1068 / PSYC513 Counselling & Psychology Assessment Brief 2026 | DCU

PSY1068 / PSYC513 Assessment Brief

Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the theoretical underpinnings at the forefront of contemporary counselling and psychotherapy
2. Critically appraise the philosophical positions and application of four major psychological approaches to mental health difficulties (psychodynamic, cognitive- behavioural, humanistic and systemic).
3. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the research methodologies employed in investigating outcomes in psychotherapy.
4. Analyse and critically examine the core characteristics associated with an effective psychotherapy from the humanistic (person –centred) approach i.e. empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.
5. Demonstrate competence of basic counselling skills relevant to establishing a good therapeutic relationship, such as active listening, physical and psychological attending, clarifying, open-questioning, reflection, paraphrasing, and empathic responding.
6. Demonstrate a critical awareness of the relative strengths and limitations of the four major approaches as they are applied to various psychological difficulties.

The Third Force

• Reaction to principles and practices of psychoanalysis and behavioural approaches that had dominated field since turn of 20th century
• Rooted in phenomenology – understanding the meaning of being/existing
• Husserl: Consciousness is the ultimate basis or foundation of knowledge; ; knowing the world through perception, imagination and feelings; positivism
• Heidegger: Existence; consciousness of perception is the only phenomenological certainty; exploring the notion of being in the world rather than knowing the world ‘daisin’

Existentialism: Anxieties Around The Givens Of Existence

• Our existence is never fixed, but always changing
• Living and dying
• Freedom and responsibility
• Isolating and loving
• Meaning and meaningless
• Each person is responsible for, and is the author of his own world

Person Centred Therapy

• Several evolutions
• Non-directive counselling: the therapist should not lead the client, but rather be there for the client while the client directs the progress of the therapy
• Client centred approach: Criticism and misinterpretation/ “mechanical passivity”. Emphasis on the clients’ phenomenological world
• Person centred approach : Attitudinal approach to activities e.g., Group work, education
• Person centred counselling : World Association for Person Centred Psychotherapy and Counseling description of Roger’s evolving therapeutic approach

Core Conditions

Rogers: a therapist, in order to be effective, must have three core characteristics, qualities, a facilitative attitude

1. Congruence: genuineness, honesty, transparency with the client.
   
2. Empathy: the ability to think and feel what the client thinks and feels.
   
3. Unconditional positive regard: respect for and acceptance of the client.

This facilitative attitude is the corner stone of empowering therapeutic relationships

In Practice

Rogers (1951) – therapist follows the track of client’s internal experience as it evolves from moment to moment, remains empathically attuned to and communicates back to the client their immediate inner experience

• Techniques
• Active listening
• Paraphrasing

Emotion Focused Therapy

• Emotion awareness
• Emotion regulation
• Emotion transformation (Greenberg, 2004)

Emotion Focused Therapy

In this framework therapists are viewed as emotion coaches who work to enhance emotion-focused coping by helping people become aware of, accept and make sense of their emotional experience. Emotion coaching in therapy is based on two phases: arriving and leaving. A major premise is that one cannot leave a place until one has arrived at it. Three major empirically supported principles of emotion awareness, emotion regulation and emotion transformation that guide emotion coaching are discussed. (Greenberg, 2004)

Case Formulation EFT

• Identification of the presenting problem
• Exploration of the client’s narrative about the presenting problem
• Gathering of information about past and current identity and attachment experiences
• Identifying the core pain
• Observation and attention to the client’s style of processing
• Identification of thematic interpersonal and intrapersonal processes
• Identification of markers information the choice of therapeutic tasks
• (Timulak & Pascual Leone, 2015)

Emotion Focused Therapy

• Awareness and acceptance of emotion
• Coach people  to welcome their emotional experience and allow it; also need coaching in skills of regulation if needed to help them tolerate their emotions.
• Help people to describe their feelings in words in order to aid them in solving problems.
• Help them become aware of whether their emotional reactions are their primary feelings in this situation. If not, they
• Emotion utilization or transformation to promote leaving the place arrived; coaching core feelings
• Identification of the presenting problem
• Evaluate primary emotion: healthy or unhealthy response to situation? If unhealthy, need to change, if healthy, use as guide to action
• When access primary emotion, help to identify negative voice associated with emotions
• Help find and rely on alternative healthy emotional responses and needs
• Coach to challenge  destructive thoughts, from new inner voice based on healthy primary emotions and needs and learn to regulate when necessary.

Resources

• Greenberg, L. (2004). Emotion-focused therapy. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 11, 3-16.
• Greenberg, L. & Elliott, R. (2007). The essence of process-experiential emotional-focused therapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 61(3), 241-254
• Pascual Leone, A. & Greenberg, L. (2007). Emotional processing in experiential therapy: “The only way out is through”. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(6), 875-887
• Timulak, L. & Pascual-Leone, A. (2015). Case conceptualisation in emotion-focused therapy.  Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 22 (6), 619-36. doi: 10.1002/cpp.1922.