| Theory |
Hypothesis generating questions |
| Psychoanalysis |
- What unconscious drives might be influencing the client’s behaviour?
- How might the client’s childhood experiences be influencing them now?
- Does the client feel discomfort from tension between various parts of the self?
- Are there learned defence mechanisms that are now causing pain for the client?
|
| Gestalt |
- Does the client have unfinished business and/or a desire to maintain certainty which is leaving them out of contact with themselves, their environment or their relationships?
- Has the client lost contact with the here-and-now experience?
- Has this loss of contact created an inauthentic and unsatisfying way of living?
|
| Cognative-behavioural |
- What are the client’s learned scripts of behaviour and how are they serving them right now?
- What are the client’s automatic cognitions in response to their situation?
- What patterns of beliefs and schemas does the client hold regarding their experience?
- Is the client’s learned pattern of behaviour ineffective for the current problems being faced?
- Are there patterns of beliefs and cognitions that are leading to undesired emotions or behaviours?
- Does the client have sufficient skills for managing their current challenges?
|
| Solution-focused |
- What is the client’s goal?
- What strategy is the client using to try to reach this goal?
- How well is that strategy serving them?
- Has the client’s talk become saturated with the problem?
- Has the problem-saturation led the client to feel stuck or hopeless about change?
|
| Person-centred |
- What is the client’s view of their true or ideal self?
- What feedback are they receiving about themselves from the key relationships in their life?
- Does the client feel their worth is conditional on doing things or being a certain way?
- Is the client feeling an incongruence between their ideal self and the self they have to be for others?
|
| Feminist |
- What social messages has the client received and internalised relating to roles and identities?
- Is the client feeling constrained by unhelpful discourses about self and role?
- Has the client internalised these discourses into their identity?
|
| Narrative |
- What values does the client want to build their life story around?
- What social discourses might have been internalised by the client?
- Has the problem become the main character in the client’s life story?
- Has the problem obscured or constrained the client’s intentions and preferred narrative for their life?
|
| Existential |
- How does the way the way they tell their story influence their experience of it?
- What inescapable parts of living is the client confronting? What frameworks of meaning does the client use to make sense of and give significance to their life?
- Is the client feeling angst in the face of the realities of existence?
- Has the client lost a sense of meaning and authenticity in living in the face of these challenges?
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