Question

Paul is a 34 year-old male, at his wifes request, entered therapy for his anxieties. He has suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, feels like he must "prove" himself, and had friends who chose a different path than his and became successful while he has not attained their level of success. Describes how his self-identity revolves around his art or drawing(s) and is very affraid of failing. Suspect of therapy and suffering from unfullfillment, Paul dreams of being in an eastern European train station surrounded by lots of people, is visible shaken, when telling the part of the dream of his inability to get back where he came from. The train station is described as old and decreped like a video game he spent a week playing because of his work in animation. Using reality theory,
Explain at least three counseling techniques or core principles from reality theory that could be used to address the primary and secondary problems of your client. Explain how each of these techniques or principles would be applied in the counseling session and the expected outcome of each.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Reality theory is one that focuses on the person’s present situation as opposed to their past experiences. This is a subjective theory that can be applied to a case where there has not particularly been any traumatic childhood experience or such.

According to this theory, Paul would be counselled to focus on his present situation, the solutions and his current state of mind. The basic issue that Paul faces here is that he simply compares himself too much to his peers. Paul needs to understand through therapy that, every individual is crafted differently and will obviously have different life stories and therefore will have success in different forms.

Just because his peers might have been in the same classroom, neighbourhood or have some similarity with him, that does not mean that they are in some kind of race together. Paul needs to understand and accept the uniqueness of his journey.

Therefore, the first technique would be an evaluation of this primary problem. The second problem is easily connected to the first one because Paul suffers from a fear of failure. Since Paul compares himself to his peers, he is also aiming to achieve the same success as them and fears a possible failure to achieve that success.

The solution to this problem would be a deep focus on his work. In other words, Paul not only needs to concentrate on his job and work but, also on sweeping away thoughts about his peers and their lives while he works. He should focus on his art because he has a good idea, enjoys his work and has to work at his means of income. Paul should not work because he wants to win a prize in order to beat his friends.

In order to address this secondary problem, Paul should request a Hiatus from work and perhaps go to a holiday spot and seek inspiration to better his work. This way, Paul might not think too much about his friends and focus on his art more.

Furthermore, this might help Paul forget about the recurring dream he has been having about the European train station. Since this dream might be an indicator of Paul’s fear of the unfamiliar, it would be helpful to actually be in an unfamiliar situation to realise that it’s not so bad. Paul might even take his wife along for emotional support.

In this way, reality theory doesn’t confront the patient’s past but rather focuses on the present in order to formulate solutions to improve the future.