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Rosenthal Counseling Theories

Jun 11, 2025

Overview

This lecture provides a high-impact review of key counseling theories, models, research, appraisal, and ethics to help students prepare for licensure exams.

Human Growth and Development

  • Nature vs. nurture: genetics (nature) vs. environment (nurture) shape development.
  • Freud’s psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic (Oedipus/Electra complex), latency, genital.
  • Freud's id (instincts), ego (reality), superego (morality); uses defense mechanisms to manage anxiety.
  • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: physiological to self-actualization.
  • Piaget’s cognitive stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational.
  • Perry’s cognitive development model for college students.
  • Kohlberg’s moral development stages: pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional; criticized by Gilligan for male bias.
  • Bandura’s social learning: learning by observing others (vicarious learning).
  • Levinson’s mid-life crisis theory; Havinghurst’s developmental tasks.

Social and Cultural Foundations

  • Culture: habits, customs, art, religion, and political behavior.
  • Macro culture (dominant) vs. micro cultures (subgroups); types include national, regional, ecological.
  • Key terms: race, racism, ethnocentrism, para-language, high vs. low context communication.
  • Emic (culture-specific) vs. etic (universal) counseling approaches.
  • Auto plastic (change self) vs. allo-plastic (change environment) dilemmas.
  • Multicultural counseling tips by group: e.g., Native Americans (storytelling, spirituality); African Americans (concrete skills, short-term counseling); Asian Americans (assertiveness, insight); Hispanic/Latino (cathartic, family-focused).

Counseling Theories and Relationships

  • Psychoanalysis: insight-oriented; unconscious processes and defense mechanisms.
  • REBT (Ellis): ABC model—Activating event, Beliefs, Consequences, Dispute irrational beliefs.
  • Transactional Analysis (Berne): parent, adult, child ego states; life scripts and unhealthy games.
  • Person-centered (Rogers): empathy, unconditional positive regard, genuineness; promotes self-actualization.
  • Reality Therapy (Glasser): present behavior, personal responsibility, no excuses or punishment.
  • Behavior Modification (Skinner): operant conditioning, shaping, reinforcement/punishment, extinction.
  • Systematic desensitization (Wolpe): pairing relaxation with anxiety-provoking stimuli.
  • Gestalt Therapy (Perls): here-and-now, awareness, empty chair technique.
  • Eclectic approach: using multiple theories as appropriate.

Family Counseling

  • Focuses on the family system, not individuals; uses circular causality.
  • Ackerman (psychoanalytic), Satir (communication patterns), Whitaker (experiential), Bowen (triangles, genograms, fusion/differentiation), Mnuchin (structural), Haley/Madanes (strategic, paradoxical interventions).

Group Counseling

  • Yalom’s 11 therapeutic factors: altruism, universality, hope, catharsis, cohesiveness, imitation, family reenactment, info, socialization, interpersonal learning, existential factors.
  • Group stages: initial (orientation), transition (conflict), working (action), termination.
  • Leadership styles: autocratic, laissez-faire, democratic (best overall), speculative, charismatic.
  • Types of groups: guidance, counseling, group therapy, T-groups, structured, self-help/support (e.g., 12-step).
  • Group size: adults (6–10), children (3–4); co-leadership pros and cons.

Lifestyle and Career Counseling

  • Trait-factor theory (Parsons): match traits to jobs.
  • Williamson: six counseling steps (analysis to follow-up).
  • Rowe: jobs meet needs based on childhood experience.
  • Ginzberg et al.: developmental stages (fantasy, tentative, realistic).
  • Super: role of self-concept, life rainbow.
  • Holland: six personality types (RIASEC); uses assessment tools.
  • Krumboltz et al.: career choice via social learning theory.
  • Use of computer-assisted career guidance (SIGI, DISCOVER), DOT, OOH, hidden job market.

Appraisal

  • Raw score: unaltered test score; range = high minus low.
  • Mean (average), mode (most common), median (middle); in normal curves, all are equal.
  • Skewed curves: tail left = negative, right = positive.
  • Standard deviation (SD) and z-scores; T-scores (mean = 50, SD = 10).
  • Validity (test measures what it should) vs. reliability (consistency); validity implies reliability but not vice versa.
  • Aptitude tests (potential) vs. achievement tests (current performance).
  • Power vs. speed tests; projective tests (subjective scoring, inter-rater reliability).
  • Regression to the mean: extreme scores move toward the average on retest.

Research and Evaluation

  • Correlation: relationship, not causation; ranges -1 to +1.
  • Experiment: random sampling, experimental/control groups, IV (independent), DV (dependent).
  • Null vs. alternative hypothesis; type I (false positive) & type II (false negative) errors.
  • Significance: usually p ≤ 0.05.
  • t-test: compare two means; ANOVA: more than two means; chi-square: non-parametric; ex post facto: after-the-fact studies.
  • Descriptive stats: mean, median, mode, SD, range, quartiles; inferential: t-test, ANOVA, chi-square, etc.

Professional Orientation and Ethics

  • Scope of practice: only practice within your competence.
  • Duty to warn (Tarasoff): protect if client threatens harm.
  • Dual relationships: avoid other significant relationships with clients.
  • Privileged communication: cannot reveal client info in court without consent (exceptions: abuse, self-harm, etc.).
  • Maintain confidentiality, disguise client identity in published material, no sexual relationships with clients or supervisees (wait at least 2 years).
  • No multiple journal submissions or referral fees.
  • Check NBCC and ACA websites for current online counseling ethics.

Key Terms & Definitions

  • Defense mechanisms — unconscious distortions to reduce anxiety.
  • Self-actualization — realizing one’s full potential.
  • Operational conditioning — behavior shaped by consequences.
  • Transference — client projects feelings onto counselor.
  • Genogram — pictorial diagram of family generations.
  • Homogeneity — similarity within a group.
  • Reliability — consistency of a test.
  • Validity — test measures what it claims.
  • Null hypothesis — assumption of no effect.

Action Items / Next Steps

  • Review the Encyclopedia of Counseling and full audio program.
  • Visit NBCC and ACA websites for latest ethics updates.
  • Re-listen to rapid sections for clarity.
  • Follow up on unclear theories or concepts in textbooks.

Full transcript