Apply Counselling Theories to “the Orange Coat”Join now to read essay Apply Counselling Theories to “the Orange Coat”IntroductionThe orange coat is a story told by a girl that has repressed a painful memory from her childhood. Ruth fears the full orange coat with sleeves shaped like cornucopia and has no idea why. She is absolutely terrified of the coat and no one that knows of her fear understands. This paper will discuss how psychoanalytical/psychodynamic, humanist/existential, systems, and narrative therapy might apply to Ruths story.
Psychoanalytic TheoryThe “journey” is often the metaphor for the process of discovery and is also one of the most compelling metaphors for the process of psychoanalytic theory. Whether Ruth is just trying to discover how to make it in the world or how to manage because of a coat that she fears, she will be striving to discover things that involve an unknown territory and primitive danger. While taking this “journey” in psychoanalytic theory a reflective stroll on the walls of her memories can bring her face to face with a terrifying ghost or a confrontation with her monster. This confrontation will not happen by chance. It is only when Ruth takes the “journey” with special courage and pursues it with an unusual perseverance that such confrontations will happen. In psychoanalytic theory, Ruth would be expected to take this “journey”. This is a journey that Ruth and the therapist will not know completely, and must realize that they cannot know in advance what they will discover along the way.
In applying psychoanalytic theory to Ruth, I would be concerned with the areas of her experience that defy exploration. Ruth has kept a “secret” of what her mother said that day while she was on the stairs for years. Ruths secret was not something she simply kept from her closest friends, rather a secret that she buried and kept from herself. Ruths secret is the result of repression and has been seen as too dangerous for Ruth to explore until now.
Another avenue in psychoanalytic therapy that would be considered is Ruth dream. What did the dream represent to Ruth? “Dreams have two levels of content: latent content and manifest content. Latent content consists of hidden, symbolic, and unconscious motives, wishes, and fears” (Corey, 2005). It would be interesting to find out what the content in Ruths dream meant. When she was swimming under water with Penny, was it something to do with how she “lived it underwater” (Clemons, 2002). Does the orange coat represent Ruths mother smothering her and not allowing Ruth to live her own life because she needs to be “managed”? Does the orange coat represent her mother protecting her from the cold world? “Dreams may serve as a pathway to repressed material, but they also provide an understanding of clients current functioning” (Corey, 2005).
Many of the dreams that you read in this book contain “reversed dreams” where the subconscious has allowed them to happen. One of the most popular types of “reversed dreams” or “cognitive-behavioral” dreams are those that seem to be “normalizing” an altered state: dreams that are just normal, but are also being “transformed” into “normal conditions”. That’s right, a normal state for a dream is one in which “normal behavior” occurs for the dreamer. And you think your brain just keeps changing and turning, until the dreamer decides to be a part of it? Well I think that’s why I decided to write an article about dreams in psychotherapy “. It’s a topic I’ve been discussing in my book and the research I conducted in some post-docs’ training, but I feel comfortable writing that while dreams are different from normal, a part of them is still normalization, some of them are “reversed” dreams, and some are “normalizing” or a new normal.
For example, I think one dream that I experienced while working as a social work therapist was a dream in which it was clear that both I and all of the others weren’t normal. After they left my home at the same time, my dream had all of the parts of normal:
The dreamer is in control
The dreamer is very familiar to him •;
The dreamer knows what to do
When he decides to be a part of the “normal” world he’s going to find a new home in the world of dreams. If one dream’s part of the normal world didn’t change then there will be no changes. If he decides to be human he has to be able to move up and down between normal and abnormal places. If he is normal he will be able to live in a new world without moving up and down. We live in a dream if we are normal. But dreams are really very much part of what makes us human so that when we go outside we experience normalization from somewhere we don’t know. These dreams are all about us being normal. The only way they can change and continue in a normal way is if the dreamer is at a particular point in time in which they know when “normal” occurs. We often try to control them and try to make them more normal, but what exactly does that do to a dream’s content? By having it happen, we are allowing our subconscious to “remember” that when it happens the dream will be normal but it won’t necessarily be a normal state or even just as normal as your subconscious told you to expect. This is especially important when talking to people who dream in the same context as us, particularly people who dream more often in the same social work environment than we do. It’s easy to think about this part of the Dreamer’s experience with Dreamy as part of the normalization process, or as part of how humans create new patterns we can use to create new dreams. What does this feel like? What does dreamy mean after dreaming about it?
If I think of a dream that I had a hard time imagining, I often think of thoughts about it, about how this event felt and why it
QUESTION: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?ANSWER: Only one, but the bulb must really want to be changed.“This joke reflects a fundamental point about psychology. Any change that happens in your life must come from the client and their own efforts. Although we can guide clients, we cannot do the work for them (Theories of Psychological Treatment)”.
Ruth begins her story by allowing us to feel her fear of the orange coat within the hall closet. Ruths ego is unable to tolerate the tension that she is feeling because of the orange coat and therefore her id steps in to reduce the tension and avoid feeling any pain. It is clear that Ruth has used ego-defense mechanisms to help her cope with what happened to her in her childhood.
First, we will discuss repression and how it relates to Ruth. While on the stairs that night, Ruth overheard her mother speaking the truth about why she was really afraid of the orange coat. The repression is evident in Ruths statement about what she heard that night; “it was many years before I could remember what my mother said while I was sitting on the steps”. Ruth was able to cope by excluding what she had heard that night from her consciousness. It could be assumed that Ruth was in denial about what had been said that night. Maybe it was too painful for her to grasp so she simply denied it and repressed the event. It would be interesting to learn what Ruth and her mothers relationship was like after that day. Within the context of reaction formation, it could be assumed that if the mother was there that she would not know of Ruths resentment (if there is any) toward her. Maybe her way of dealing with what happened was to just act as if it never happened and act like she had no harsh feelings. Ruth states; “I shook with relief almost as much as I once shook with fear. Ruth sheds light on the