Collaborative Language-Based Therapy Models, Eperiential Approaches and Cognitive-Behavioral Model

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Two Models of Therapy:
Collaborative versus Experiential

Collaborative Models of Therapy:
This model is fairly new, and seeks to base what is "normal" on grounds that dispense with the purely objective. When one's doctor claims that your heart is "normal," no one argues about the definition. Usually, it is greeted with relief. Yet, for psychiatry, "normality" is something that is seen as more subjective and, vaguely, enforced by society.

Harlene Anderson, cited below, is one of the major promoters of this approach. It removes many of the old taboos in the client-therapist relationship that, under certain circumstances, might help recovery. More specifically, these circumstances have to do with conceptual or even personal conflict: one's behavior has no relation to a) who one is, or b) the beliefs that one holds.

Experiential Therapy:
This model is based around the fact that certain patients repress certain negative emotions, or even go so far as to dissociate from them. This, as the existentialists would maintain, an example of bad faith. Here, bad faith is just another word for lying. One is convinced, through self-talk or some other method, that things are not all that bad and that I am quite normal and well adjusted. The therapist using this approach has to see critically through that facade and penetrate to the experience itself which caused the negative emotion and its pathological affects.

Work responsibilities, family, personal reputation or ethical belief may force some to hide emotions and feelings. Hiding these is not just for the benefit of the outside world, but also is a method of hiding such unpleasantness from one's conscious mind. Usually, these are the thoughts or feelings that no one wants to face, including a sense of inferiority or inadequacy that, depending on the reputation or status of the holder, are simply inadmissible. The main assumption is that keeping these feelings away from the conscious mind is never a good thing, and sooner or later, they will emerge, possibly in distorted and ominous forms.

A simpler way of putting it is that humanity has an immense capacity for denial. Since pain is, of itself, seen as an evil to be avoided, even the threat of pain is enough to send some into panic mode. There are other ways to look at pain: it can be a source of restructuring or renewal, it might ...