my own therapy

 Maria Lorena Rolle Obinguar

"LORENVIN THERAPY"

Introduction:

Lorenvin Therapy is a kind of therapy which focuses more on the individual capacity. It can be used to assess a problem of a person depending on what he/she thinks or feel. This therapy provides knowledge information of an individual capacity and how it can be apply to a classroom situation.

View of Human Nature:

Lorenvin Therapy view humans as the superior in all living things. That is when God created a person, the God give them free will. People are used to act because they want to do it and they have a freedom to express their own self.

This therapy also believes that a person is the one who is responsible for his own lives.  They do it because they know the responsibilities on it and the consequences involve. It’s up to the person how to dwell on these situations.

Lorenvin Therapy believes that challenges motivate a person. If they were put in a challenge, they become creative, realistic and brave. By these challenges, people strive hard and push him to the limit to attain his desires and to finish the challenges.

This therapy also view human as a fighter. After a big fall, you can see a person stand up and start all over again. As what the saying goes by, “tomorrow is another day”. This saying proves that a person don’t stop believing in himself and no matter how many obstacles he has, still, he thinks that tomorrow is a new beginning.

Development of Maladaptive Behavior:

The development of maladaptive behavior results from the feeling of a person as if their entire being depends on everything they do, and so everything must be done perfectly. They tend to follow all the rules precisely to keep away from mistakes and mistakes must be avoided all the time. If they fail, they lose the courage to face the life’s demand directly and it results from discouragement and disappointments.

Sometimes, neglecting from people surrounds a person contributed to the maladaptive behavior. Lack of supports from family or love ones become the source of becoming meaningless to a person life. An overprotective families results of not embracing the freedom and responsibility in expressions of own thoughts of an individual. Not having freedom to act will decrease their potential in becoming a productive and flexible individual. Having a boundaries are hard to deal with because of considering always what is appropriate and not, and become dependent to others.

The “crab mentality” is well-known in the Philippines. It is an action wherein a person tries to hurt others people, make rumors about them that will destroy the good image to others and in the end, this person will be on top. These “crab mentality” can be a maladaptive behavior. It is done through which person don’t appreciate others and break the rules just to be on top of everything and to reach his goals. They become heartless or “without mercy”. It’s just that they don’t care who they step on to achieve their goals.

Goals of Therapy:

Lorenvin Therapy focuses on individual’s capacity. One of the goals of this therapy is to help the client to achieve autonomy. A client must take control of their lives, to pan and direct their own destinies. It seeks to facilitate a process in which clients to know and be aware who they really are inside and out to become fully functioning human beings. It helps the clients to find their purpose and meaning in life. It attempts to make clients more aware of their existence and uniqueness as well. This therapy is very helpful in realizing what kind of individual he is. It must start accurately knowing himself before listening on what other people says.

Another goal of Lorenvin Therapy is to strive to eliminate the need of impressing others. It tries to eliminate the unhealthy need to please others and to move toward increasingly trusting one’s own experience. These improve an encounter with others, fostering freedom and responsibility. By these, the individual assume responsibility for themselves rather than relying on others to make decisions for them.

The main goal of the therapy is to seek change for the lifestyles, the perception and the goals of the clients. To extinguish the identified maladaptive behavior of the client and to strengthen adaptive behavior that can be useful for replacement and enable him or her to live a productive life.

Function of the Therapist:

The function of the therapist is being a catalyst. The counselor plays an active role that often frustrates the client’s demands for support and help by forcing them to rely on their own resources. He serves as a catalyst for change without assuming responsibility for change within the clients. These can be done by allowing the clients to believe on his own capacity and trust to the outcome that independently executed by the clients.

The therapist is very active in counseling. Therapist may serve as a consultant, a supporter, a resource and a model. Clients are expecting to see a strong personality of the therapist so that the clients are encourage and be influenced to strive for change on his own.

The other function of the therapist is to restore personal meaning in the life of a client. At this point, the therapist will deal to the past experiences of a client’s life then connects it to the present or future situation that can make ways for a client restoration and transformation of overall personality. The therapist must be who he or she is at the moment. He must be true to himself in order to become reliable in everything he does. Therapist and the client must work collaboratively through which planning and setting goals to be obtained at the end of counseling session.

Major Methods and Techniques:

In the Lorenvin Therapy, the major methods and techniques can be used to attain the goals of counseling. These methods and techniques are unique through which therapist and clients will have contribution for the expected outcome and good results of these therapy. It includes the “Step Forward or Backward”, “Once, Twice Clap”, “Who Am I Campaign”, and “My Weakness Is My Strength”.

“Step Forward or Backward”

This is a technique in Lorenvin Therapy that helps clients to be familiar on his self identity. The counselors will ask different questions that involved the personal experiences or life situations of the client. The client will answer as quickly as he could through stepping forward or backward in upright position. Through stepping forward means that the client is agree on the questions and willing to pursue it and apply to his life. While stepping backward means that the client is disagree and want to put away or throw away to his life. The purpose of step forward or backward is for the client to know what he really needs to his life and to build trust on the choice he made.

“Once, Twice Clap”

            This is a method for knowing the feeling of the client toward the people he knows very well. It can be his family, friends, neighbors, classmates or teachers. Clapping once means he don’t like that person or have poor relationship to them. In clapping twice, means that the client is enjoying the company of those person and they have good relationship. The purpose of this method is to help the therapist to understand the relationship of his client. For example, if the clients clapped twice to his friends and once to his family, the therapist will have an idea that the clients are not open to his family and he don’t have good relationship to his family.  

“Who Am I Campaign”

            The Who Am I Campaign is a technique that is related a little bit to the “Once, Twice Clap” method. The difference here is the execution of it. In this technique, the therapist will asked the persons present in clients life. Like those in home, school or work. Then the therapist will give them the paper to be signed in and they will describe the client based on what they think he is, either good or bad. This will help clients and therapist to know if those people believing to the client’s ability or not.

“My Weakness Is My Strength”

            It is a method in Lorenvin Therapy that allows the client to list down all his weaknesses. After the client finish in writing it down, the therapist and client will collaborate and they will try to transform those weaknesses to become his strength. For example, one of the weaknesses of the client is “failure”. This failure can be transform as strength through which the client will believe to the saying “try and try until you succeed”. It means that if the client fails once or twice, don’t never ever give up because maybe it is not the right time. The failure is only a kind of experience and challenge wherein if you don’t quit, at the end you will reach success.

Application:

The scenario happens to a 12 years old Donna, a Grade Six students. She undergo to Lorenvin Therapy to the school Guidance Counselor.

Donna: (crying) why they always saying that I am a bad girl. I always try to be friendly to them just to belong to Helena’s group.

Counselor: Stop crying Donna. What are the reasons you think that they don’t want you to belong to their group?

Donna: I don’t know. I don’t have bad intention to them. I just want them to be my friend.

Counselor: Really. If you have a good intention, why don’t you try again to talk to them?

Donna: I’m afraid. I know that they will reject me.

Counselor: How do you know that they will reject you?

Donna: Because, there’s a rumors that only rich and beautiful girls are accepted in their groups of friendship.

Counselor: So, do you believe in that rumors going around?

Donna: Yes.

Counselor: Let’s use the “Step Forward or Backward” technique. You will step forward if you agree and step back if you don’t agree. You can give insights or brief explanations why you step front or back.

Donna: Okay.

Counselor: Do you think you are ugly?

Donna: (step backward) I think I’m not ugly. I just have little confidence on my appearance.

Counselor: Do you still need to insist yourself to belong to their group?

Donna: (step backward) No. I have other classmates to become my friends and will accept me as who am I.

Counselor: So, Donna, have you realized something about your problem?

Donna: Yes Madam. I have more confidence right now. I realized that if I can’t join them, I will find another group who will accept me as a person.

Counselor: That’s goods. Just always believe to your capacity as individual. Stop blaming yourself. Be confident on what you are and what you have.

Donna: Thank you so much.

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Summary

PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY

SUMMARY OF PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY

Ø Jamila Calizo

Ø Recelyn De Quiroz

Ø Jenesis Mateo

Ø Ma. Lorena Obinguar

The Person Centered Therapy was established by Carl Rogers. He first called it as “counselor-centered therapy”. This therapy administers tests, asks questions, and suggests courses of action to the client. Carl Rogers call his patients as “client” and not the usual “patient”. This approach is “non-directive counseling”, until it was change to “person-centered counseling “which means emphasizing its focus on human capacities.

The simulation presented in the person-centered therapy was the problem of Mrs. Oak. She undergone numbers of counseling just to realize on her own, that she will need to become positive and more self confidence to herself to solve her problem.

“Not in doing, but in being”, this is the main function of the therapists. They provide a climate of safety and trust, which will encourage clients to reintegrate their self actualizing and self valuing processes. The person-centered therapist is non-authoritarian, and formal assessment of the client’s problems in the form of psychological testing is considered to be inappropriate and unnecessary.

The goals of person-centered therapy are not to solve the problems but to facilitate process in which clients can know who they really are and become fully functioning human beings. It eliminates the need for impressing others, lying to oneself, or other. It tries to eliminate the unhealthy need to please others and to move toward increasingly trusting ones own experiences.

The major methods and techniques used in person-centered therapy are:

Ø Congruence- the therapists’ inner experiences and their observable outward actions match.

Ø Unconditional- positive regard- the clients worth is not dependent on others expectations and approval.

Ø Emphatic Understanding- the therapist enters the clients place and understands the world from his or his perspective, adopting the client’s internal frame of references.

My Case Study

Case Client Child

A.    Personal Data Summary

The client child is Ed John B. Arias. He is 6 years old boy. He has born at Bagumbayan, Daraga Albay on September 26, 2004. He is a Filipino citizen. His height is 3”7 and weight 21 kgs. His religion is Catholic. His father is Mr. Eddie L. Arias. His mother is Mrs. Eden B. Arias. He has 5 siblings named: Judelyn, Edward, Edrick, Shaira and Janella. The client child is the second child. He is studying at Mary’s Child Day Care, 11:00am-1:00pm every Monday to Friday.

B.     Joining Process

I talked to the parents of my prospective client child. I ask her a permission if it's okay to her to conduct a case study for her child. The mother allow me to  con duct a case  study because I told her that it will be confidential and her neighbors will not make rumor about their life. I build a friendly relationship to my client as well as to the parent and other siblings. I always smile to them and treat them as my friend. I don’t threaten my client child. Like in Person-Centered Therapy, I just wait him to talk and write it down on my notes. We are like playing a game so that my client will not be shy to cooperate and answer my questions.

C.    Presenting Problem

According to Mrs. Arias, the mother of my client, she states that his son is very annoying and also selfish. She said that my client child never let anyone to borrow his toys if he likes to play with it. He gets angry if his siblings borrowing his toys.

According to Ms. Yambao, the teacher of the child, he is very talkative inside the classroom. He seems to speak continuously that cause some noise and distract the class.

D.    Psychosocial History

D.1. Time Line

·         January, 2004 – Ed John was conceived to “balot”

·         September, 2004 – The grandparents feel happy but at the same time nervous because when the mother gave birth to Ed John, the umbilical cord is coiled in the baby’s neck that cause him to turn violet.

·         May, 2006 – Ed John is self-centered and very selfish. He is the cause of his sibling to cry.

·         June, 2010 – At the first day of school, he already knows how to write. He did not cry in the first day of school.

D.2. Genogram

         


              


              


                In the genogram above, it shows that a client child has a good relationship in most of the men in his mother side and in the father side. He also have good relationship to his siblings. But he has poor relationship to his grandparents on both sides.

D.3. Sociograph

D.3.1. Home Setting

“Two Names of Siblings You Want to Join in Your Play/Games”

         In the home setting, Edward got the most number of choice by his siblings. It was followed by the client child who have received choice. It seems that they want them Ed John to be part or join to the game. So, the client child has good social relationship to his siblings.

D.3.2. School Setting

“Two Names of Classmates You Like to Invite to Your Birthday Party”

In school setting, most of the student choose Ed John  and Crizalyn to invite to birthday party. It shows that the two chilren are friendly in their school. And Rhea May and Lovely are the isolated children because no one choose them to the birthday party. Ed John and Mimi, Ed John and Mark, and CJ and Crizalyn have the mutual choice because they have chosen each other.

D.4. Personality Dynamics for Self-Mastery

The client child shows mastery in the work he needs to accomplish in school or in home. He usually follows the directions of his parent and teacher. The child can handle the simple things or problems come into his life. He can solve it by his own and use his creative thinking wisely.

D.5. Personality Dynamics for Relationship

The client child is obedient to his parent. They are happy to see that they’re child follow what they told him to do. He is industrious and he established good relationship to his parents. With his relationship to his five siblings is slightly worst. He doesn’t want to lend or borrow the toys he used to play with to his siblings. He is enjoying playing with himself and distracted to someone who want to join to him. In the school, he is very talkative. He also has self-confidence to talk to other and not shy to express his emotion. Even though, talking is good but too much of it can irritate someone and might distract the flows of the lesson. The teacher and his classmates sometimes feel unease to socialize with him but still the client child gained friends by his attitude.

D.6. Personality Dynamics for Action

An activity that the child does is usually a household chore. He can arrange the bed sheet and pillows. He helps cleaning the house with his siblings. He can be trusted also to go outside their house to buy foods or things his mother told him to buy. The skills that the child knew are the counting numbers, adding and number sequence. He is also good in English skills. He can understand the word and pictures in the books. He also likes to sing and dance. He used his body to move gracefully and actively.


E.     Theoretical Framework

Client Child Behavior	Concepts, Principles and Theories of Learning	Descriptions
Likes to engage himself to play	Lev Vygotsky (Cognitive Development Theory)            Playing games activities	The child engages in symbolic activities and creative play.             The child starts to understand how to cooperate in group activities in his school.
Very talkative and aggressive	Raymond B. Catell and Gordon Allport (Personality Theory)           Poor traits: talkativeness and aggressiveness	The child possesses these poor traits. Talkativeness is very observable in the classroom while aggressiveness typically happens in the house.
Can read and write letter and words and good in counting numbers	Howard Gardner (Multiple Intelligences Theory)             Linguistic and Logical/Mathematical Intelligences	The child is word-smart and number-smart. At early age, he already knows how to read, write and count numbers.
Self-centered and selfish to his siblings	Arnold Lee Gessel (Behavioral Theory)            In personal and social behavior, the child wants to be the first and the best which often lead to conflict with playmates or brothers and sisters.	The child doesn’t allow anyone to borrow his toys while playing and he seems to be selfish to his siblings when he is involved in play.

F.     Prognosis

As my case study go on process, I gathered information to know what the common problems of my client child is. I realized that it is mild problem. For further learning and acquisition of knowledge, the child can have a big possibility to change his bad attitudes or behavior toward his parent, siblings, and teacher. Although the child have shown good behavior like good grades in his studies, obeying his parents and trustworthy in household chores, they highlighted the problems they observe to the child. Talkativeness is the poorest traits that his teacher doesn’t like to him. For his parent, being annoying and selfish are the behavior they don’t like. For his siblings, is about his attitude of being selfish and self-centered.

G.    Therapeutic Plan

G.1. Knowledge Building

At the end of the case, the client child must be able to build knowledge about:

•        Identifying the likes and dislikes of his siblings and classmates
•       Distinguishing the do’s and don’ts of his parent and teacher.

G.2. Skills Building

At the end of the case, the client child must be able to build skills about:

•        Social skills
•        Numeracy skills
•        Communication skills

G.3. Attitude Building

At the end of the case, the client child must be able to build values about:

•       Spirituality
•       Self-discipline
•       Love selflessness
•       Responsibility

H.    Therapeutic Intervention

Objectives	Activities	Schedules
Knowledge Building       Identifying the likes and dislikes of his siblings and classmates       Distinguishing the do’s and don’ts of his parent and teacher.	Reading stories about the importance of having friends. (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)       Playing the “Listen, Listen and Do”	Saturday       Saturday
Skills Building       Social skills       Numeracy skills       Communication skills	Playing “The More We Get Together”       Playing “toothpick count”       Cutting pictures of different communication media and explaining what the purpose of each is.	Monday       Monday       Sunday
Attitude Building       Spirituality       Self-discipline       Love selflessness       Responsibility	Going to church and attending kiddies’ mass.       Playing “I Have Two Hands”       Role playing in showing how to be kind and friendly.       Making checklist of household chores to be done.	Sunday      Wednesday      Wednesday              Wednesday

I.       Therapeutic Progress

Activities	Schedules	Progress Evaluation
Reading stories about the importance of having friends. (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)       Playing the “Listen, Listen and Do”	Saturday       Saturday	The activities on reading story about “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” help the child to appreciate the importance of having good relationship to his friends and siblings.       These activities become effective to the child. He realizes that it is important to listen to the teacher and to parent while talking with him.
Playing “The More We Get Together”       Playing “toothpick count”       Cutting pictures of different communication media and explaining what the purpose of each is.	Monday     Monday       Sunday	The child improves his social skills toward his classmates and enjoys the play.       It sharpens the child minds in counting many numbers, its sequence and to have control to his fine motor skills.       It becomes effective to the child to appreciate well the beautiful side in communicating and the use of different media for creative conversation.
Going to church and attending kiddies’ mass.       Playing “I Have Two Hands”       Role playing in showing how to be kind and friendly.       Making checklist of household chores to be done.	Sunday      Wednesday       Wednesday        Wednesday	The child starts to establish his faith to God. He still doesn’t know the purpose of involving God to his life but as he grows old, he will discover it.       It helps the child to care for his body and to maintain cleanliness in his self.       It becomes effective to the child, because he become kind and friendly to his friends and siblings and plays and shares the toys with them.       The checklist becomes useful for the child. He finished tasks in the home and school and spend the time wisely and productively.

J.      Therapeutic Results

My therapeutic plans are achieved by my client child. Some of these are very easy to accomplish but others are needs to be improved in a certain period of time. In building knowledge, the awareness of the child to his surrounding and people around him become strong. He realizes that in order to gain friends and approval of his parent and teacher, he need to build a good relationship to them. In skills building, he discovered that there’s a lot of things can be used to become more creative. He starts applying it and developing the skills he had before to present life situations. In attitude building, it is the big challenge to him. Because children tend to learn and forget the values teach to them. The environment has a big factor that influence to the development of his values and attitudes.




K.    Summary, Conclusions and Recommendation

Summary:

The case study is about the client child who has a problem on the relationship to parent, teacher and siblings. The therapist gathered personal data about the client child. In order to gain the trust of the child to the therapist, the therapist builds a friendly relationship to the child and applies the person-centered therapy in asking questions and waiting for the answer. The parent, teacher and siblings present the problem they observe and experience to the child. The time line, genogram and sociograph in home and school are helpful to know the social affiliation of the client child to peoples. The personality dynamics for self-mastery, relationship and action are mentioned to go deeper to the child true personality. And the theoretical framework helps the therapist to solve the problems and help the child to realize his own self and awareness to the situation.

Conclusion:

I therefore conclude that my client child has already improved his relationship skill to his parent, siblings and teacher. He has additional information and broadens his knowledge on the righteous act that expected on him by the people. He stills a child and adults are responsible to develop the good traits and teach the child to exercise the values and apply it to his life.

Recommendation:

I recommend that the family continue to consult a therapist if their son did not listen to them. And through these consultations, the family will broaden their knowledge about the needs of their child and its process of development. It is not about being afraid to undergo their child in a case study because these can be the best method and strategy to help them discover the inner personality and showcase the skills and ability of the child.

L.     Implication to Education and Assessment of Young Children

I experienced lot of emotions, happy moments in conducting my case study. I realize that it took time to know a personality of a child. The therapist must be flexible in terms of roles he/she will perform. The data that the therapist gathers must contain relevant data. It will support his/her case study and to help him/her to solve problem and come up with a good result. As new perspectives, it is important that better understanding in the side of the family of client child must be established. If the parents are knowledgeable enough on their responsibilities to their child, the therapist will be at ease and have a good flow on the case study. It is better not to neglect the importance of the parents. They are the one who really knows their child. In terms of the child, the therapist must be observant and aware to the feelings and emotions that he/she will show to the client. It is important to involve the siblings of the child in a study to participate in the activity. It will help the client child to be not afraid and become comfortable to the therapist. Never isolate the client child if you are conducting a case study. It may cause low self-esteem to the child and become afraid to socialize because he will think he is not normal and something wrong to him.