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Oudtshoorn’s systems model suggests that problems in a family can be at various levels, requiring a different approach each time. But people come to a counseling psychologist not only with family problems, a professional psychologist must competently work with a variety of internal problems. Our experience says that internal problems in people live in layers: behind the upper layer lies a lower layer, behind it is something even deeper, and this is connected with something else.
At the same time, one should not think that something deeper is necessarily more important. Once upon a time, the most effective solution is the simplest, and disassembling the mechanism, climbing completely deep, means risking discovering unnecessary details during assembly … We do not know every model of a person so well to disassemble it too boldly.
Zero layer: society
These are problems with others — with the boss and employees, with neighbors and officials. These are questions about where to go to work and where they are looking for a husband, questions about career and health. There are difficulties here, but there are no internal problems: therapy is not needed. However, if a psychologist has sufficient life experience and is a good worldly psychologist, he will be very useful.
Layer zero plus: family
Everything is the same, but a small addition is the family. How to raise a child, how to negotiate with your husband, how to respond to your mother-in-law. More life experience is required, psychological counseling is appropriate, psychotherapeutic work is not required.
The first layer of internal problems
Individual difficulties, actually internal problems.
The main types of internal problems of the first layer duplicate the structure of the inner world, where the main parts are spirit, soul, head, psychology, personality and behavior. Accordingly, the types of internal problems here are: spiritual quests and problems, mental problems, personality problems, problems with the head, psychological problems and behavioral difficulties. See →
Second layer: additional connections
Behind these problems there may be even deeper problems, both psychological and not at all psychological.
Not psychological: possible health problems, and even with the psyche, inadequate social environment, unsuccessful upbringing … If the problems are not psychological, there is no need to arrange psychology from scratch.
Psychological deep problems: psychological blocks, energy-wasting processes (pity, self-blame, negativism, a tendency to criticize and revenge), negative anchors, rigid limiting beliefs, a problematic metaphor for life … Psychological problems — we choose healthy psychology or psychotherapy, depending on the position of the client .
Layer Three: Depth Psychology
And another problematic layer may also be connected with this (we will not analyze it here, it is something real or sometime the fantasies of psychotherapists): psychotrauma in early childhood, unconscious motivations, pathological development of the Self, fixations of psychosexual development, unconscious mechanisms of psychological defense and disturbed object relations. As a rule, these problems are solved only in the mode of psychotherapy.
It is possible that some problems cannot be solved without solutions at this level, but diving right into these controversial and dark depths without looking for more obvious solutions speaks more about the unprofessionalism of a particular psychotherapist.
Recommended sequence of advisory work
We remind you of the recommended work order from Oudtshoorn — you need to start from a simpler level:
- Do not feed pills to someone who can do without them.
- No need to adapt to what can be solved.
- No need to dig into the unconscious where you can solve the issue at the level of behavior.