The first article by Lazarus and Beutler (1993) argued for the viability of technical eclecticism to that of systematic eclecticism and eclecticism in general in the counseling profession. The article contrasted psychodynamic and behavioral therapy pointing out the differences in how the two theories treated a single case. Psychodynamic therapy is known for its focus on past events and experiences of the client as well as the subconscious and unconscious drives of the individual. Behavioral therapy is more focused on the present and what behavioral modification strategies can be used to change the behavior of the client.
These two theoretical positions are like opposing poles in a single line, and since each has its own merits, one would be encouraged to use the best of what each theory has to offer. This is what the authors were arguing against, because it does not make sense to use two opposing approaches and be able to come up with a unified theory or strategy to fix the problems of the client.
Technical eclecticism denotes that a problem or the client’s concerns and issues be divided into the many facets of his/her personality and being, and then be able to identify what issues the client has for each of those facet. Since, almost all facets have been addressed by different theoretical orientations; it is easy to identify which theory is best suited for each concerns. Thus, one would be able to provide different methods and strategies from different schools of thought to help the client fix his/her problems.
The second article (Tursi & Cochran, 2006) made a case by arguing that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be fully integrated to the Person-Centered Approach. CBT is a psychotherapy approach and method wherein the way a person thinks about his/her environment and experiences will affect his/her behavior towards that environment and situation. The PCA is also an approach to psychotherapy wherein the most important aspect of the counseling relationship is to provide unconditional positive regard for the client.
However, PCA is a lengthy process and one that does not make use of any other technique for it is believed that providing a nurturing and caring relationship will facilitate the client’s realization of the cause of his/her problems and how to correct it. Thus, it has not been a very popular approach to counseling as it was dragging and not results oriented. The authors were able to provide instances wherein CBT and its components were effectively used to enhance PCA.
The personality theories discussed in the two articles are really not that different from each other since they are all talking about one human aspect and that is one’s personality. Although it is true that personality is the wholeness of the individual’s thoughts, experiences, behavioral patterns, and human personality is still a single facet that can be looked at in different ways. Personality theories provide a framework wherein human personality can be dissected and then put together again. The difference in the personality theories lies on how personality is treated, how it is measured and examined and not on how it is defined.
Therefore, we have the cognitive behavioral therapy to look into the thoughts of the individual as it affected behavior, behavior modification techniques could provide the tools needed to change behavior, psychodynamic theory could look into the past of the individual and maybe examine how it has shaped the personality of the person, person-centered approach could very well provide the nurturing and caring environment in which the person could open up and explore his/her problems and so on. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that each personality theory can be integrated into one global framework and be used to explain the different aspects of personality.
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