Competency is one of the aspects that counselors should consider while approaches. The American Counseling Association (ACA) provides that counselors should be fully competent while practicing any specific theory that they choose to apply(Stumm, 2008). Also, ACA provides that any counselor should inform his or her client from the beginning about the strategies they intend to use, the effectiveness of the chosen strategies and reasons as to why they think the strategies will be helpful.
When a counselor combines two or more approaches or theories, there are low chances that the combined approach will be inclusive of research backing for effectiveness as each individual counselor might choose different techniques and ideas from each approach(Stumm, 2008). However, the American Counseling Association code calls for counselors to use ideas and techniques that have scientific backing.
Moreover, the American Counseling Association counselors to be partners with their clients during therapy. Person-centered therapy and existential approaches usually operate from that perspective. However, the client should also contribute in decision making as to whether they would wish to use a combined approach. Also, the ACA emphasizes the use of “client” over “patient” as it is important for the clients to be the drivers in their own therapy(Stumm, 2008). In person-centered therapy, clients struggle for self-actualization as they use their own resources. This shows the use of ACA’s guidelines for clients to direct their own lives.
Despite the benefits of combining approaches, it also has some problematic aspects. The problems occur when the contradictory pieces of theories are used in a combined approach. For example, when person-centered therapy is combined with the Laingian approach, the lack of conversation in the Laingian approach would cause slow or no development of the client-counselor relationship (Stumm, 2008).
Reference
Stumm, G. (2008). The Person-centered Approach from an Existential Perspective. Retrieved from:http://www.gerhardstumm.at/Stumm%20PCA%20Existential%20-%202008.pdf.