Examining the positive psychotherapy approach

Summary

Positive Psychotherapy is a conflict-resolution-based and resource-oriented therapeutic approach that incorporates other therapy theories as well as has its own unique intervention methods and principles. Positive psychotherapy enables the individual to reach a healthy balance in his life by making use of proverbs and stories.

Key words:

Psychotherapy, positive psychology, positive psychotherapy, balance model

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There are many tools that will enable the individual to bring his mental and physical health to a positive position. One of these tools is psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is the general name of the techniques that aim to solve the emotional-behavioral problems of the individual and to improve and protect mental health. Psychotherapies have developed from the past to the present and have become more functional.

positive psychotherapy; It is an eclectic approach that emerged from the psychodynamic approach, the behavioral approach, the intercultural therapy approach, and the existential-humanistic approach. Positive psychotherapy is an original psychotherapy approach as it is dynamic, conflict resolution focused, resource-oriented, humanistic and transcultural. In addition, in positive psychotherapy, wise sayings, proverbs, metaphors and stories are used as a mediator between the client/patient and the therapist, encouraging the use of fantasy, being a reminder of future situations and helping to resolve conflict as a therapeutic technique.

Professor in Germany It was developed by Nossrat Peseschkion and colleagues in the late 1960s. Positive psychotherapy, like other therapy theories, attaches special importance to the development possibilities and abilities of the individual with the aim of treating diseases and disorders. According to positive psychotherapy, each individual has these abilities, but their intensity differs from individual to individual. While it is important to accept positive psychotherapy disorders and problems as they are, it is also important not to focus on this and to make individuals aware of these abilities by taking into account the abilities available in each individual.

Three principles are mentioned in positive psychotherapy. These are hope, balance and consultation. The hope principle expresses the belief that the client/patient is capable of solving their problems and that these problems can be solved. Maintaining a balanced life in the client/patient body, relationship, success and fantasy/future/spiritual domains is described as a balance model. The principle of consultation, on the other hand, is defined as the Client’s/patient interacting with the individuals around him/her in order to solve his/her problems.

The main purpose of positive psychotherapy is to provide balance in the four living areas (body, success, relationship and fantasy/spiritual) and to enable individuals to reach their true capacities. Positive psychology argues that the innate capacity to love and know plays an important role in maintaining balance in the individual. In addition, he emphasizes that the capacity to know and love has the potential to develop throughout life, and that abilities as well as these capacities are important in maintaining balance in four life areas. Innate abilities of individuals; called primary and secondary abilities. Primary abilities depend on the capacity to love, while secondary abilities depend on the capacity to know.

Table 1. Primary and Secondary Abilities according to Positive Psychotherapy

Although both skill groups have the true nature of individuals, they differ depending on the time individuals live in, the environment they live in, the conditions surrounding the body, and emerge as character traits in the individual during adulthood. Primary and secondary abilities are shaped by environmental and hereditary factors throughout life and play an important role in individuals’ mental health and relationships. Primary and secondary abilities are functionally interrelated with each other. Appropriate development of one skill contributes to, supports and facilitates the development of another. In the event that these abilities develop less than the desired level or more than the desired level, balance cannot be achieved in the four basic areas of life, thus causing mental and physical problems in the individual. In other words, the use of primary and secondary abilities in a balanced way with the necessary development is accepted as an indicator of positive mood and being healthy. In order to find solutions to the disorders of individuals, positive psychotherapy gives importance to the abilities of the individual.

Positive psychotherapy is built on the five-stage model. Each of the stages is seen as a guiding guide that shapes therapy:

1. Observation/Distance Circuit:

The main purpose here is to analyze the condition of the client/patient. The client/patient listens objectively by the therapist and tries to understand what the client has stated as a problem and what he/she needs. In this regard, interaction analysis, psychoanalytic transfer and behavior analysis techniques are used. All sources of information about the symptoms and the behaviors that develop with the symptoms are obtained and examined.

1. Inventory Circuit:

In the context of the balance model of the client/patient, information about what he or she has experienced in four life dimensions in the last five years is obtained. The therapist tries to understand how the client/patient reacts to the situations he/she experiences, how he/she uses solutions and which dimension he/she uses most in the balance model. In fact, at this stage, the client’s/patient’s abilities, personality structuring, and selves are examined. In addition, it is determined at what level the client uses his/her basic abilities.

1. Situational Encouragement:

In positive psychotherapy, situational assessment is of central importance. The client is unaware of his abilities because he only focuses on his problems. With this stage, it encourages the client in line with the positive aspects of the situation with the client’s realistic point of view. In other words, it is carried out as a positive interpretation of the symptoms experienced by the client.

1. Verbalization:

After the necessary therapeutic environment is provided in the other stages, the main conflict of the client is addressed and worked on with this stage. At this stage, its main purpose is to focus on what the client can do to provide balance in four basic dimensions within the scope of the balance model. It is the longest stage. It continues until the main conflict is resolved.

1. Expanding Targets Circuit:

The client/patient therapist focuses on what kind of life they want to live in the short-middle-long term (future) after realizing their purpose of coming. At this stage, the main goal is to inform the client about helping himself/herself, and to create a target and implement a plan in line with the targets so that the client can lead a balanced life and create a future. In this way, when the therapy with the client ends, it is ensured that the client has the equipment to help the client against the problems in his life. The client now has the ability to keep the four levels of the balance model in balance and makes plans in order not to lose the balance in his life. The client has now examined which coping methods to use against the conflicts that arise in his life.

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