The Role of Emotion Focussed Theory in Functional Assessment Essay Example for Free

The Role of feeling focussed Theory in operational Assessment EssayIntroduction In this essay , I am elaborating on the types of psych some otherapy which father persisted for generations and which pick up undergone favourable transmutes over the years, conforming to the opinions of great psychoanalysts who have scripted a large amount of literature from their experience and look into. I am concentrating on put to workal opinion and sense focussed scheme and an integration of the two. I have quoted from a few studies by psychotherapists and researchers. The advantages of the onsetes would be obvious from the essay. How an integrated approach scores over the earlier functional appreciatement is described here with the support of researchers views.The Role of Emotion Focussed Therapy in Functional Assessment. The homosexualistic or experiential conventional psychotherapy included the Gestalt therapy, leaf node centred therapy and the existential therapy which were practised for a long period. The Gestalt therapy is a holistic, process oriented and field theoretical approach to human mixed bag.(Gestalt, Gestalt globular potty). The factors of aw arness, contact, personal responsiveness and responsibility ar create into it. Primacy is ascribed to the uniqueness of the individual. The person is treated in whole rather than in parts. Biological maturation, surroundingsal influences, fundamental interaction of the individual and the environment and creative adjustment play a crucial role (Gestalt, Gestalt orbiculate Corporation). Fritz Perls,the founder, considers the regularity as a congruence of many theories.Freuds psychoanalysis had an influence on Gestalt therapy. Perls utilize Freuds developmental sequence in his theory. The four major concepts are biological field theory, theory of the organism, the motivation for making contact and family relationship and the capacity for making wholes. Biological field theory states that an organism skunk be unders alsod only in its organised, interactive, interconnected and interdependent totality (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation). The second theory considers that an organism has physical, cognitive, excited, social, economical, spiritual, aesthetic and interpersonal dimensions each of equal importance.The third says contact or building of relationships is crucial for survival. (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation). A person who can non make contact with his surroundings or has a blockade requires intervention. The tail speaks of the human being as having the capacity of organising and reorganising his bodily functions, perceptual functions, cognitive and demeanoural aspects. Gestalt therapy is aimed at assisting the client in restoring his own ability to self-regulate as an organism and have successful and fulfilling contact with others in the environment as headspring as be familiar with ones own faults. The person is light-emitting diode to cope creative ly with himself and the environment (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation)What is normal human nature? The psychologi citey healthy human being whose organismic self-regulation isfunctioning well is a normal person. He is able to respond correctly to his wants and needs and the environment (ID functions). He is able to respond to situations realistically concord to his demeanor (Personality functions) (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation ). He is proactive instead of reactive, recognised by his ability to respond immediately and his allowingness to take responsibilty. He lives with awareness in the present, is very aware about the past and is looking forward to the future (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation).When do you call a person abnormal? In psychological dysfunctioning there is a overtaking of awareness of needs, wants and desires. Free flowing and flexible contact with the environment is blocked or distorted. (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation). He becomes reactive and simply unable to gauge events in their correct side. He is unable to take responsibility. His self support is limited and he seeks help from outside. His ID and personality functions are disturbed. The style of contact changes (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation).The travel of the Therapist The therapist focusses on improving the clients contact and relationships. He establishes a dialogic relationship with the client.Limitations of Gestalt therapy It lacks a distinct, elaborate and well defined theory. The developmental causes of psychological suffering are not addressed. thither are no definite and constructive theories on how to effectively bring about a change in the client ( Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation). Psychoses and personality disorders are not represented. It has a reduced potential in treating acute cases with suicidal tendencies. The therapist needs to be present for the sessions for maximum benefit to the client. Many a time this whitethorn not be possible du e to limitations in time. The client suffers then (Gestalt, Gestalt Global Corporation)Client centered therapy The client-centered approach defined feeling as the union of emotion and cognition. The concept of experiencing and everything that is occurring deep down an organism at any given moment that is available to awareness are important. (Gendlin, 1962 Rogers, 1959). Extending deep understanding, empathy, congruence, feel for are the motley manners that a therapist can offer a client.Existential therapy This takes into servant the human condition. It has many similarities to the psychodynamic, humanistic, experiential and relational approaches to psychotherapy. Rollo May is considered the Father of Existential therapy. Yalom in his book, Existential Psychotherapy, 1980, speaks of 4 themes death, freedom (responsibility), isolation and meaninglessness. These four issues are central to the human experience (Existential therapy, Hoffman)Functional Assessment The philosophy beh ind functional judgment has been linked to the behaviourist tradition. It is an judicial decision-establish approach to psychological therapyFunctional analysis, behavioural assessment, precedent consequent assessment, contextual assessment are terms used in it. Sequences form the basis of this therapy used by psychotherapists Cognitive behavioural assessment, systems focussed models, emotion focussed therapy and psychodynamic therapy are utilised to bring the mentally disturbed back into reality. The presenting problem, precipitating factors, predisposing factors, perpetuating factors and evasive factors are taken into consideration for functional assessment. The precipitating factors may instigate a problem in the presence of predisposing factors. The presenting problem takes the patient to a psychotherapist who sees him with the problem. What incline and what precipitated the problem have to be investigated into by the psychotherapist. The therapist studies the case and come s up with an idea about the perpetuating factors and the protective factors. Emotions are not given much consideration here.The Emotion focused theory Emotion research has come out with confident(p) ideas on emotion. This kind of research has been make by many psychotherapists. Emotion theory and researchsay that emotion awareness, regulation and transformation are 3 important principlesof delirious change. Recognising the part of the brain involved in the distress, the type of affect dysregulation and the type of change process that could be used form the basis for therapy (Greenberg, 2002). An integrated approach with stress on affect, cognition and behaviour is what is recommended by most psychotherapists.This approach affects the system at a desired level cognitive, excited, behavioural or interactional. Emotions are given their due importance as a fundamentally adaptational resource. They are a unmannered signalling system from birth and regulate our selves and give life its meaning (Greenberg, 2002). Healthy adaptation requires learning to be aware of, to tolerate and to regulate damaging emotionality (Frijda, 1986) as well as to enjoy positive emotions (Frederickson, 1998). Response to a fight-flight stimulus is said to be mediated by two pathways for producing emotion in the brain a fast emotional response to a distress signal and a sulky thinking-brain response which is usually unable to stop the reflex emotional response(Le Doux, 1996). The earlier response occurs found on previous experience. Similarly we can expect two kinds of learning one a more(prenominal) conceptual one and the other a more perceptual, associative one (Pascual-Leone, 1987). cardinal types of memory too are described one factual and the other emotional (van der Kolk, 1994). So two levels of processing are also possible a conscious conceptual system and a tacit experiential system. Two systems of knowledge are thereby spoken of knowledge by description and knowledge by experiencing (Greenberg, sift and Elliot, 1993). Scientists agree that the emotional response to an event is a constructive sequence of events (Greenberg, 2002). They could be described as stimulus appraisal, physiological appraisal, expressive behaviour, impulses to instrumental behaviour, interpretation, subjective feeling and visceral and motor responses. Freud purported the theory of overabundance energy being discharged as affect and its dysfunction. Modern psychoanalysts have discarded this idea. Psychodynamic analyst, Stolorow (1994) believes that the dynamic unconscious(p) consists not of repressed instinctual drive derivatives but of affect states that have been defensively walled off because they failed to evoke attuned responsiveness. behavioural and cognitive theories state that negative emotion is seen as a disturbance and disorganisation that interfered with behaviour (Greenberg, 2002).These negative emotions are seen as symptoms and therapy is directed towards t hemBehaviourists and cognitive behaviourists seem to be increasing their focus on automatic-unconscious, cognitive-affective structures in theory and give-and-take (Young, 1990)Beck (1996) believes that the fight-flight mode involves a whole range of systems in its response perception of panic (cognitive system), feelings of anxiety or anger (affective system), that motivates the person to act (motivation system), the action itself (behavioural system) and physical mobilisation (physiological system). An orienting strategy is activated to trigger off the rest of the sequence and that too rapidly. Therapy aimed at the dysfuntional modes has 3 parts deactivation, spin of neutralising adaptive modes and changing the structure and content. Beck believes in the third method.Becks theory has seen changes but his combination of behavioural and rational intervention persists.Emotion in experiential therapy. Emotion has always been part of the humanistic or experiential therapy. In the G estalt therapy, emotion was a vital regulator (Greenberg, 2002). Gestalt therapy may be seen as a form of fosterage in emotional awareness. Blocking was interpreted as fueled by the regard to avoid painful or unwanted emotion. Feeling, in the client centred therapy, was defined as the union of emotion and cognition which were experienced inseparably.Emotion in the experiential therapy is now understood to be a biologically adaptive, rapid action tendency and a meaning system that provides feedback on the states of body and mind. It forms the basis of an adaptive growth system in the organism (Greenberg, 2002).The process of symbolisation creates conscious meaning. Greenberg has classified emotion into first adaptive feelings which provide the selective information behind the problem, maladaptive emotions which need to be evoked and modified and petty(a) adaptive emotions which need to be investigated to reach the primary (Greenberg, 2002 ). Cognitive emotion schemes form the pe rsonality characteristics. They are focussed upon in therapy. The maladaptive ones are to be changed in therapy (Greenberg, 2002).Theories that have met concurrence among psychotherapists. There is actualisation that emergence of emotion is an important signal that material being discussed is significant to a persons well-being. The second point is that awareness of emotion and attention to it in therapy are important to access the information in emotion ( Greenberg, 2002). The third says that desynchronies or incongruence among cognition, emotion and physiology can occur and is pathogenic. The fourth point of capital of modernistic Hampshire says that emotion has to be aroused and processed in therapy to bring about change. The final point of promise says that it is important to promote emotion regulation and emotional experience. (Greenberg, 2002) An integrated psychotherapy involves the 3 major change processes awareness of emotion, regulation of emotional arousal and changin g emotion with emotion. Maladaptive emotions are changed by utilise another maladaptive one.Functional Assessment in a school Functional assessment has been done to examine the factors related to the challenging behaviours of learners. Much literature has been written on this. Whether Functional assessment is decent to acquire the behaviours of schoolchildren who had problems is a question raised by many psychotherapists. Functional assessment is defined as a set of assessment procedures used to identify variables that promote and maintain challenging behaviour and based on this assessment, interventions are then selected to alter rough of these variables (Lennox and Miltenberger, 1989).Functional assessment is based on some assumptions a) specific contextual variables are directly related to target behaviour b) these variables are identified by assessing how they trigger and maintain the behaviour c) systematic manipulation of the variables can either reduce the challenging be haviour or support the development of appropriate fuctional skills (Carr and Durand, 1985 Durand and Carr, 1987). 5 reasonable hypotheses for poor academic performance have been discusseda) the student does not want to do work b)the student has not spent enough time on the work c) the student has not had enough help to successfully complete the work d) the student has not had previously to do the work in the requested manner. e) the work is too hard for the student. If the function of the difficulty is identified, matching interventions can be developed. If the child does not want to do the work, incentives may be offered to stimulate him to work (Merrell, 2006)The various studies that have been conducted appear incomplete in different ways. scarce a few studies have examined their usefulness. close to of the study on behaviour was done out of school and not on the pro-social behaviour in school (Ken, Choutka and Sokol, 2002). Only some studies included class adaptive behaviours equal on task behaviour and on task complianceInterviews, observation and hypothesis are useful only for ordinary students. For luxuriant carriage other methods have to be adopted. Researchers have suggested that the link surrounded by the functional assessment and the intervention implemented are not always clear in the research. Only 16 studies had referenced various procedures that were real used to form hypotheses from which interventions were planned (Stichter and Conroy, 2005). Of the 16, only 5 could actually verify the hypotheses in the beginning intervention.The change agents in the literature were the researchers. Very few teachers or peers participated in the death penalty of the functional assessment and interventions. All the reviews discovered that the assessments were done outside the students classrooms where the problematic behaviours occurred. Also a banal functional assessment has not emerged (Stichter and Conroy, 2005). The ingrained conclusion was that th ey were not adequate. Students with Emotional Behavioural disorders could not be assessed with these used formats. IDEA 1997 which was the legislative purport for conducting FA in schools did not have the necessary baselines or banner process for this. The reactive policies did not require an assessment unless the child is disruptive or commits an offense. Teachers were lacking the knowledge and skills to perform the functional assessment (Stichter and Conroy, 2005).Originally only individuals identified with severe developmental disabilities (Kahng and Iwata, 1999) had FA. This was conducted in clinical settings. This assessment format was found inadequate for students with lesser disability who lie unnecesarily or indulge in drug abuse or carry weapons or threaten classmates.There has been a general call for appropriate functional assessments to be done differently for normal children, children with mild emotional behavioural disorders and the genuinely disruptive ones. The ass essment needs to be done in natural settings (classrooms). Peers or teachers who can assess their own students are the lift out assessors.Hypotheses are to be derived and the right intervention planned accordingly before it is executed (Stichter and Conroy, 2005) Structural analysis is the hypotheses driven model that addresses the stream challenges (Carr and Carlson, 1993). This method has been successfully used in natural settings with natural change agents to identify instructional variables that contribute to the acquisition of proactive responses as well as specific variables that contribute to problem behaviour. Preventing problem behaviour by supporting instructional and contextual factors that contribute to adaptive behaviour while designing interventions to increase skill acquisition is a working extension of the functional assessment literature base for students with emotional behavioural disorders (Stichter and Conroy, 2005).Conducting classroom functional assessments w ill be more reflective of actual activities and naturally occurring environmental variables, providing a clearer assessment of the impact of various change agents. Proposed interventions may be tested in natural settings through implementation of hypotheses to increase adaptive behaviour. The applied nature of the structural analysis helps the teacher see the change in adaptive behaviour (Stichter and Conroy, 2005) A study conducted by Richard van Acker et al examined the Functional Behaviour Assessments and Behaviour Intervention Plans of current practices developed by school teams in Wisconsin Findings suggested serious flaws (Acker et al, 2005). There was a lack of clarity in the identification of and operational definition of the target behaviour or behaviours under investigation (Acker et al, 2005).There was a failure to identify the efforts taken by the team members to verify the hypothesised function of the behaviour before intervention. Most surprisingly, the team members ju st neglected their findings on a behaviour when considering the Behaviour intervention plans. Teams with members who had undergone intensive training for the research produced better results. Team based FBA has been found to be a good proposition according to a study by Scott et al, (2005).Emotion focussed therapyResearch on couples therapy also shows the role of emotional awareness and expression in a satisfying relationship. manner of underlying attachment-oriented emotions leads to a satisfying married life in a couple who get the therapy.(Johnson and Greenberg, 1985). Showing more emotional experience in the therapy along with softening of blaming partners, the couple ended up being more satisfied than couples who showed lesser experiencing (Greenberg, Ford, Alden and Johnson, 1993).Expression of emotion is useful for terminating family conflicts too (Diamond and Liddle, 1996). One study demonstrated that an emotional cycle in the relaxation method treatment, increase in arous al, arousal with reflection, more abstract reflection and then relaxation, following one upon the other finally results in a good outcome Mergenthaler, 1996). All personality disorders described in the diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., American Psychiatric sleeper, 1994) are considered as disturbances of affect regulation Descriptions have been included about borderline personality disorder where difficulty to control anger is the problem and schizophrenic disorder where extreme coldness is the problem.Conclusion Psychotherapy has undergone a major change from the days of the primitive man.The days of chaining to restrict their movements and putting them away in far off institutions have gone. The humanistic approach has given way to the integrated approach which includes functional assessment and the emotion focussed theory. Psychotherapists now guarantee for this integrated approach as one. schoolhousechildren in the United States have come under the legislative impetus whereby their performance in school is assessed based on their behavioural and emotional functions.The lax manner that was imitation earlier for this assessment has now been flayed. Researchers have advised that the children are assessed no matter whether they are disruptive or not and different techniques used for the normal, those with minimal disorder and those with disruptive behaviour. They have opined that teachers are the best people to assess the children in their own surroundings. Teams which underwent training are also recommended. Another advice is that interventions should only be undertaken after reaching a hypothesis based on the assessment of children. Hopefully functional assessment integrated with emotion focussed therapy will turn out the best assessment after upgrading the assessment procedures.References. 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