Comparing PCT and CBT: A Therapeutic Analysis Essay

Introduction

An evaluation of Person-Centered Therapy (PCT) against Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) presents a number of similarities and difference to therapeutic treatments. At face value, the descriptions of the PCT and CBT can offer some insight on how the two compare. Fenn and Byrne (2013) determine that CBT is a treatment approach that is focused on the client but driven by the counselor. In contrast, PCT is client focused and client-driven as well (Morgan & Yoder, 2011). In CBT, the client has psychological challenges that he is struggling to unravel. As such, the counselor's role is to help the client make sense of his challenges and propose solutions to address them (Hoffmann, Asnaani, Vonk, Sawyer, & Fang, 2012).

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CBT is premised on Socratic thought as pertains to negative and positive thoughts and how they influence behavior. In that regard, the client presents herself to the therapist and states negative behaviors that she is struggling to let go of and the physician works to correct these behaviors by offering alternative solutions (Fenn & Bryne, 2013). To that end, the therapist works to identify specific norms, values, and emotional aspects that influence the patient's psychological functions and offer professional advice on positive action towards them (Hoffmann et al., 2012).

In comparison, PCT is therapist guided self-evaluative thought of the patient. What that means is that the role of the therapist is simply a listener and primarily analyses the attitudes of the patient to create a thought process in the client's mind (Morgan & Yoder, 2011). The client then expresses his psychological issues and thinks out loud as the therapist listens and attempts to guide him clarify the reasons behind certain negative feelings and ideas. The therapist then further guides the patient on a self-evaluative to offer personal thoughts on how to best approach a solution to the problems raised (Murphy, Duggan, & Joseph, 2013).

The difference from CBT is that PCT allows the client to make his own recommendations for action whereas, in the case of the former, solutions are prescribed by the professional. Unlike Socratic reasoning in CBT approach where an external force such as the society (therapist in this case) is the source of directions as pertains to standards of values, morals, and beliefs in the development of behaviors, PCT focusses inwardly by exploring the self-driven conceptualization of such attributes (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012).

PCT assumes that individuals have an inborn ability of psychological growth and understanding of their circumstances but in the course of life, this ability is inhibited by the inhibiting aspect of self-comparison of oneself to others (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012). In that regard, people get out of touch with their self-actualizing ability when they introject evaluations of themselves from the perspectives of those around them rather than defining their own situation (Morgan & Yoder, 2011).

Von Humboldt and Leal (2012) add that PCT is designed to place the therapist and the client on equal footing where the discussion takes the form of acquittances, friends or colleagues trying to make sense of the situation. Just as receiving advice from a close friend, PCT assumes that the client is venting her problems to which the psychiatrist responds by offering meaningful insight as advice but not as CBT does where it is a requirement (Murphy, et al., 2013). Moreover, in PCT, the client comes up with the solutions herself and takes the prerogative to apply them. The role of the therapist is simply to guide the client in this journey of self-discovery (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012).

In contrast, a cognitive behavioral therapist would be primarily focused on the patient's thoughts and perceptions of reality based on how the patient's emotions influence his behavior. In that esteem, the CBT therapist offers her services based on the premise that people need to be conditioned to act (Fenn & Bryne, 2013).

Hence, learning takes place owing to the conditioning that ensues and behaviors develop. The therapist role in CBT is to establish a counter conditioning stimulus to correct unwarranted behavior. The role of the counter stimuli is to make the individual unlearn the behavior that he learned through the original stimuli resulting in negative or undesired traits. Therefore, to bring about the desired trait it would be necessary to unlearn (Hoffmann, et al., 2012). According to Fenn and Bryne (2013), CBT is advantageous because it is an economical means to therapy where sessions can last between 10 and 20 sessions depending on the patient's progress.

Moreover, CBT can be applied in various alternative settings to face-to-face sessions. The recent embracing of interactive computerized cognitive behavioral therapy, self-help books, and CBT group meetings are found to be on the rise and work well to meet different patient's needs. The variety of options makes CBT affordable as it can be applied as fitting to different client's needs (Fenn & Bryne, 2013).

PCT compared to CBT is advantageous on grounds that a person is the best expert or professional in expressing themselves and in judging which solutions to such help work best (Murphy, et al., 2013). Because the therapist only plays a guidance role, there is minimal interference on the client's process of self-discovery, self-evaluation, and self-determinism (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012). The therapist only paraphrases the patient's ideas and thoughts allowing the client to discover feelings and traits that cause him negative experiences and then make a decision on how to improve (Murphy, et al., 2013). It is advantageous because the patient judges himself because the therapist only serves to affirm or reestablish the client's state of being and to come to acceptance with the emotions and behaviors that cause them pain (Morgan & Yoder, 2011).

Through this process of self-discovery, the client can build self-confidence in depending on one's self as pertains to understanding how individual feelings and behaviors contribute to their overall mood and well-being (Murphy, et al., 2013). As such, the client is able to grow in emotional intelligence and is able to appreciate how effective his critical thinking has helped him in the journey of self-discovery and self-improvement. Experts note that PCT helps patients psychological growth to maturity who then take active roles in guiding others who need similar psychological help in life (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012).

On the downside, the negative implication of PCT has to do with the cost of treatment. Unlike CBT that may take up to 20 sessions for the treatment to take effect, PCT is unpredictable and sessions may last years if not months depending on the progression of the patient. To that extent, the benefits of treatment may only work for people who can afford the long-term cost. At the same time, PCT cannot be applied to a mentally unstable patient's incapable of making rational decisions because it would be counterproductive to their wellbeing (von Humboldt & Leal, 2012).

CBT compares to a great extent similarly to PCT since they share the disadvantage impracticability of application on mentally retarded individuals. To that end, it is impossible or very difficult to achieve productive outcomes for learning among individuals with mental disabilities. Since CBT is centered on unlearning and learning undesired and desired traits respectively, it makes it that much of a huddle when applying it to a person with mental challenges (Hoffmann, et al., 2012). Furthermore, CBT is weak in the sense that it is narrowly focused on behavioral change through learning processes while ignoring the fact that there are other external influencers of negative feelings and traits such as a bad relationship, an abusive parent or deep-rooted historical issues, etcetera (Hoffmann, Asnaani, Vonk, Sawyer, & Fang, 2012).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper has provided a comparison and contrast of CBT and PCT approaches to therapy and found that the two methods to treatment compare more as supplementary methods rather than complimentary. The application of CBT, for instance, is one that follows the directive of the therapist while PCT depends on the patient's input in developing progress in the treatment process. The strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches reveal the advantages and disadvantages associated with the treatments. Essentially, both have been found to share the disadvantage that they are impractical for application on mentally challenged individuals. However, their advantages differ in that PCT offers client's personal growth in developing self-esteem and a sense of self-deterministic ability whereas CBT has been found to be advantageous as it can be applied in various contexts such as group therapy and computer-assisted interactive sessions. Hence, making CBT affordable and accessible to the majority. Essentially, the comparison has presented both modes of therapy treatments provide clients with different benefits that suit the various needs of a multifaced client base seeking psychological assistance as presented.

References

Fenn, K., & Bryne, M. (2013). The key principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. InnovAiT: Education and Inspiration for General Practice, 6(9). doi:10.1177/1755738012471029

Hoffmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy Research, 36(5), 427-440. doi:10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1

Morgan, S., & Yoder, L. H. (2011). A concept analysis of person-centered care. Journal of Holistic Nursing, XX(X), 1-10. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/42274931/A_Concept_Analysis_of_Person-Centered_Ca20160207-22903-18q092t.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1556606455&Signature=NvHesttigFdb1M0%2BReS%2BB6kX%2FHY%3D&response-content-disposition=

Murphy, D., Duggan, M., & Joseph, S. (2013). Relationship-based social work and its compatibility with the person-centered approach: Principled versus instrumental perspectives. The British Journal of Social Work, 43(4), 703-719. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcs003

von Humboldt, S., & Leal, I. (2012). Person-centered therapy and older adult's self-esteem: A pilot study with follow-up. Studies in Sociology of Science, 3(4), 1-10. doi:10.3968/j.sss.1923018420120304.753