Psychoanalytic, Adlerian and Existential Theories

Psychoanalytic Theory

Key Concepts:
1. Working through repressed memories.
2. The unconscious mind.
3. Psychosexual stages
4. ID, Ego and Superhero

Key Figures:
Sigmund Freud

The Goals:
1. Helping people sort through their unconscious mind and retrieve what was lost.
2. To become more self aware.

Techniques:
1. Free association
2. Dream analysis
3. Analysis of transference
4. Analysis of resistance

 

Adlerian Theory

Key Concepts:
1. Assuming responsibility for one's own self.
2. Creating one's own destiny.
3. Having goals.
4. Having good relationships with others.

Key Figures:
Alfred Adler

Goals:

1. To help people create goals and achieve them.

2. To show a person a positive lifestyle.

 

Techniques:

1. Engagement

2. Assessment

3. Insight

4. Reorientation

 

 

 

Existential Theory

Key Concepts:

1.Self-awareness.

2. Freedom and responsibility.

3. Establishing an identity and meaningful relationships.

4. Finding meaning.

5. Anxiety is unavoidable.

 

Key Figures:

1. Viktor Frankl

2. Rollo May

3. Irvin Yalom

 

Goals:

To understand the subjective world of the client and to help them come to new understandings and new options and to be fully aware of their feelings and actions in the present, confront their anxiety, and develop a genuine relationship with themselves and with the world around them.