Exploration of Prominent Psychotherapies for a Culturally Diverse Couple in Distress

The purpose of this essay is to examine multiple approaches to psychotherapy in the context of a hypothetical case example, while discussing relevant legal/ethical and cultural considerations.
In this case, Gestalt, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, and reality therapies will be examined as is pertinent to the case.
When considering culture and legal/ethical concerns, one of the most basic principles established in the American Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics (2010) is the concept of competency.
In this case, competency needs to be demonstrated or accounted for in multiple areas including multicultural competencies relating to Native American culture, Asian-American culture, and geriatrics.
Clinical competencies need to be established for couple’s work as well as any of the psychotherapeutic approaches chosen. Given the large number of competencies and the potential difficulty obtaining some of them, such as Native American competency given the small but extremely heterogeneous population, it would be pertinent to either consult or seek supervision regularly while working with this couple.
While Gestalt therapy incorporates many different techniques, the primary aim of them all is to connect people on a more personal and intimate level (Corey, 2013).
The techniques often are targeted at overcoming the various forms of resistance to contact, such as introjection, projection, retroflection, and deflection or the ramifications of that resistance, which is confluence.
Confluence generally refers to a disconnection between one’s authentic self and one’s experienced self, usually due to boundary disturbances.
Given that each of these means of resistance is likely present to some degree in Clay and Lin’s relationship, it may be more useful to focus on the resulting confluence and consider how the relationship may be impacted by it.

BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL-SPIRITUAL CASE FORMULATION Objective: The object...