Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T02:53:23.818Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychodynamic Counselling in a Secondary School Setting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

Get access

Abstract

Psychodynanzic counselling is based upon, and informed by, psychoanalytic insights. The origins include the work of Freud, the Post Freudians, and the Object Relations school. These schools of thought embrace concepts of primitive infantile emotions and states of mind that produce overwhelming feelings of anxiety and fear and against which defences are formed to maintain a psychic equilibrium. Although these defences may have roots in the past, changes can only be effected by thinking about their significance in the present. The psychodynamic counsellor attempts to help clients make sense of their current situation by focussing on the actual dynamics of what is happening outside the counselling room with others and inside the counselling room with the counsellor: Thus, repeated and “stuck” ways of being with others are brought to light in tertms of transference and countertransference. In addition, painful and unbearable feelings are shared and contained in the relationship so that clients are more able to reflect upon and understand their own contribution to their present situation and to respond more constructively to that situation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bios, P. (1962). On adolescence. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Bion, W. (1978). Second thoughts. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bretherton, I. (1991). Roots and growing points of attachment theory. In Parkes, C. M., Stevenson-Hinde, J.Marris, P. (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle (pp. 932). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Casement, P. (1985). On learning from the patient. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1997). Child and adolescent psycho-analysis: Research, practice, and theory. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 78, 499520.Google Scholar
Copley, B., Forryan, B.(1987).Therapeutic work with children and young people. London: Royce.Google Scholar
Heimann, P. (1950). On countertransference. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 31, 8184.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1987). The transformations of puberty. In Dickson, A. (Ed.), On sexuality. Pelican Freud Library (Vol. 7). London: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1905)Google Scholar
Holmes, G., & Perrin, A. (1997). Countertransference: What is it? What do we do with it? Psychodynamic Counselling, 3, 263277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, J. (1994) Attachment theory-A secure theoretical base for counselling? Psychodynamic Counselling, 1, 6578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kids Help Line. (1996, August). School counselling: A client centred perspective. Boystown Newsletter, pp. 12.Google Scholar
Klein, M. (1988). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Envy and gratitude and other works 1946–1963 (pp. 124). London: Virago.(Original work published 1946)Google Scholar
Kohut, H. (1987). The Kohut seminars on self psychology and psychotherapy with adolescents with adolescents and young adults (Ed., M. Elson). New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Laufer, M. (Ed). (1995). The suicidal adolescent. London: Karnac Books.Google Scholar
Main, M. (1991). Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring, and singular (coherent) versus multiple (incoherent) models of attachment: Findings and directions for future research. In Parkes, C. M.et al., Attachment across the life cycle (pp. 116127). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
May, R. (1994). The centre cannot hold: Challenges in working psychodynamically in a college or university. Psychodynamic Counselling, 1, 520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnos, A. (1995). A question of time: Essentials of brief dynamic psychotherapy. London: Karnac Books.Google Scholar
Stern, D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Winnicott, D.W. (1986). Varieties of psychotherapy. In Winnicott, W.Shepherd, R. & Davis, M. (Eds.), Home is where we start from: Essays by a psychoanalyst (pp. 101111). Middlesex, England: Penguin. (Originally published in 1961)Google Scholar
Winnicott, D.W. (1965). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. London: Karnac Books and TheInstitute of Pscho-Analysis.Google Scholar