Psychodynamic Therapy Role-Play - Defense Mechanisms and Free Association

This roleplay was good instruction in how defense mechanisms are explored by a counselor using psychodynamic theory. The client was expressing a lot of anger, and the free association technique helped her realize her feelings about various aspects of her life, in order to come to an understanding that she was transferring her anger at her fiancee to other people instead of confronting the actual source. If the counselor had just said, "your fiancee is controlling and it's making you angry," the client probably would have become defensive or denied this, but by using these techniques, the client was able to piece together her feelings at her own pace.

The client gained the awareness through word association. She knew she was feeling anger, but could not recognize the source herself. The counselor seemed to identify the source early on, as evidenced by asking the right questions and allowing the client to figure it out on her own. Anger was the defense mechanism for a deeper feeling of a power struggle and relationship issues.

I enjoyed seeing how free association is used with a client. It was interesting how she associated negative words with relationship and home, but when it came to "work" she had nothing but positive things to say. It really puts in perspective her feelings and priorities in her life. It helped her to find where her anger is stemming from.

It's interesting to see the basic listening skills, such as reflection, question and paraphrase, yet the approach is different. The counselor seeks to draw out the unconscious meaning or cause of anger. Questions focus on change and/or memories in discovering the source of the feeling. The defense mechanisms are present with the client's anger toward service providers (displacement), activity of kick boxing (sublimation) as a release as well as her catering to her partner, though she is resentful (reaction formation). Free association is used to reveal a theme of control and gain insight or awareness that she desires freedom and support, which the counselor then links to her behavior.

Dr. Grande did an excellent job of challenging the clients own thoughts regarding her emotions, specifically her anger. By using the free association techniques, the client was able to use words to describe certain topics like home and work. This technique allowed the client to realize a pattern within the responses she had given. This appeared to be insightful to the client as she discussed this with Dr. Grande.

Dr. Grande, you are AWESOME! I hope life is blessing you and that you are taking care during this time. If you could feel how much I appreciate you, I think it would bring a smile to your face!

I noticed that Dr. Grande used active listening and paraphrasing often. I enjoyed seeing him use the word association to get to the underlying theme with this client.

There was great focus on emotion right from the beginning which I think is great. It's a basic technique to show the client you are listening and understand. I have never watched someone use free association so it was cool that he was using the free association to get under apparent spouts of anger. This technique seems really helpful in allowing clients to uncover their own unconscious feelings. It clearly gives this client great satisfaction in understand themself and their current situation in a different light.

I am more of a visual learner, so this helped. This video explained and demonstrated free association very well. I was able to gain an understanding of where the clients anger was coming from or the cause of it. I felt the client used many defense mechanisms towards her fiancé because he was possibly contributing to her anxiety and she also felt that she was the one who had to do everything around the house. This helped put the things we have learned thus far into perspective.

This video displayed free association very well, it also displayed some of the terminology used in the previous video on psychoanalysis. After hearing about each association, actually seeing it in action, puts things in another perspective, and allowed me to see things from a different view point.

I thoroughly enjoyed the word association that was done. It was clear how it made her think and took her to a different place with her emotions as she was responding. I also liked how he used reflections and paraphrasing with the client yet stayed focused on the defense mechanism that was her anger.

Dr. Grande did a great job of guiding the client to finding the source of her anger and aggression. The free association technique has proven to be helpful in this case as the client brought up key emotions when given words and asked what came up for her. I’m excited to learn this technique and even try it for myself and gain clarity where possible.

I liked the free association in this role play because it really showed where her frustrations were coming from and provided insight. I think that free association can be a very helpful tool.

This video was a great example of how free association brings together the theme of several words. For this client, her theme was centered mainly on her fiance and her relationship with him. She felt controlled and limited which is why her anger became somewhat of a defense mechanism toward others when she felt that she had been wronged by them. The best part was her ability to identify the theme of the free association and elaborate on its effects without much prompting from the counselor. This made the discovery that much more genuine and powerful.

Dr. Grande- I thoroughly enjoyed watching this role-play session based upon the psychodynamic approach. You were able to help the client get to the route of what her anger was stemming from. The client was completely comfortable with you and was expressive about the events in her life. I really like how you did an exercise with the client by giving her 4 works, (Home, Relationship, Work & Power) and asked the client if she saw a connection. In that moment, the client realized that her anger was stemming from her relationship which resulted in the client understanding why she projecting her outside anger onto others. The skills you used were appropriate with probing, active listening and great paraphrasing. Thank you!

I really enjoyed this role play. It was nice to see how to use free association in a counseling session. I was never a fan of Psychodynamic therapy, but after watching this role play, I feel like I would use free association in one of my sessions. Dr. Grande did a fantastic job showing how to use this technique to get to the root of the client's frustration, anger, and the contributions to her anger outbursts.

It was very enlightening to see the techniques of defense mechanisms and free association within a session. I enjoyed that although the primary theory implemented is psychodynamic, Dr. Grande's use of basic listening skills such as paraphrasing are still used within the session.This reiterates the idea that the BLS is a great foundation for any theory a clinician wishes to use with clients. The free association technique not only allowed the clinician an opportunity to asses the client's perception of her presenting concern, but also provided the client the space to draw connections between her home life and the anger she has been experiencing. After viewing Dr. Grande's demonstration, I believe free association is a technique I can integrate into sessions with my clients to help uncover unconscious drives that present as various defense mechanisms.

I really enjoyed watching this video. I liked the way that Dr. Grande used word association to help the client. I felt this really allowed the client to understand what was happening and was able to gain awareness.

as always thank you Dr. G for the useful and applicable examples for all us current and especially soon to be psychotherapists. Your videos, especially ones like these, have been significant in my educational growth and in fostering more confidence in abilities when working with clients during my internship.

I like how Dr. G asked the client if anything changed around the time of the anger and further discusses times the client becomes angry. I can see that it is a way to bring awareness to the client and also allows the client to be more thoughtful and expressive about her experience with anger. He ended up getting to the root of the anger by finding out the client has other issues that cause this anger. Mainly the responsibilities of home and family. Having this discussion with the client will help her find ways to resolve these issues and find ways to reduce anger by awareness. The role play brought out conflict and struggle within the relationship and brought about a clearer view of what effects the client most.