Applying humanistic and existential theories: Deidre
A short discussion post whose framing sentence quietly disqualifies any intervention where the counsellor supplies the meaning — and where choosing person-centred makes “two interventions” the hardest requirement in the brief.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 8, 2026
Which interventions does this brief's framing rule out?
Read the brief's own framing before choosing a theory, because it contains the test your two interventions have to pass: *it is not the interpretation of the counselor that helps clients, but rather the interpretation of the clients themselves*. That sentence rules out a whole class of answers. Anything where you work out what Deidre's difficulty really is and then tell her — an interpretation, a reframe you supply, a link back to her childhood that you draw — belongs to a different tradition and contradicts the approach you are supposed to be demonstrating. Every intervention you propose should leave the meaning-making with Deidre. Check each one against that sentence before you write it down; it is the fastest way to catch an intervention that has drifted. The same sentence also tells you what your explanations should sound like, since an intervention justified by what it reveals to you has failed the test even if the technique itself is orthodox.
The choice between existential, person-centred and Gestalt is not neutral, and one of the three makes this assignment noticeably harder. **Gestalt** is rich in nameable techniques — two-chair and empty-chair work, exaggeration, staying with a feeling, present-moment awareness experiments — so *describe two interventions* has obvious answers. **Existential** work gives you fewer named methods but clear content: confronting freedom and responsibility, exploring meaning, working with the anxiety that comes from choosing. **Person-centred** is the difficult one, because Rogers explicitly resisted technique: what the approach offers is a set of therapist conditions — congruence, unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding — rather than interventions you perform. Choose on which theory you can actually defend rather than which you find most appealing, because the second and third deliverables both depend on the interventions being nameable.
If you do choose person-centred, do not pretend the problem away by inventing techniques Rogers would not recognise. Handle it directly: say that the approach locates change in the relationship rather than in procedures, and then describe two things you would *do* that instantiate the conditions — reflecting Deidre's feeling in her own words rather than yours, or deliberately staying with an uncomfortable silence instead of resolving it for her. Naming the tension and answering it anyway is a stronger post than either dodging the theory or dressing up person-centred practice as a technique-driven approach. It also demonstrates precisely the theoretical understanding the discussion is testing. A silence held deliberately is a decision, and describing it as one is enough to make it an intervention in the sense the brief means.
The third deliverable is where generic posts are exposed: *explain how each of these interventions would help Deidre move toward **her** goals*. That requires Deidre's goals, in her terms, from the media — not goals a counsellor might reasonably have for someone in her position. Write them down before drafting, and then trace each intervention to one of them. Note also that the brief says *each of these interventions*, so this is two explanations rather than one summary covering both, and the two should not collapse into the same sentence with different nouns. If both interventions serve the same goal in the same way, one of them is not earning its place. Where a goal is vague in the media, say so and describe how the intervention would help her clarify it, which is itself a defensible answer within these approaches.
Two mechanical requirements are easy to lose and cheap to meet. The subject line has a prescribed format — *Title of Discussion: The theory you selected for this Discussion* — which is an actual instruction, not an illustration, and it is visible to the marker before a word of your post is read. And the 200-word minimum is a **floor** carrying three deliverables: a theory description, two justified interventions, and two goal-linked explanations. Two hundred words split five ways is forty words each, so treat the number as the point below which the post is incomplete rather than as the target you are writing toward. Aim for three hundred or so, which is enough to give each of the five parts a sentence or two without turning the post into an essay.
Requirement | What it means here | The post that fails it |
|---|---|---|
One theory selected | Existential, person-centred or Gestalt | A survey of all three |
Brief description | Enough to make the interventions follow | Half the post spent on the theory |
Two interventions | Distinct, and named | One intervention described twice |
Client-led meaning | Deidre interprets, not you | The counsellor supplying the insight |
Explain why | Grounded in the theory's own logic | “This would build rapport” |
Toward her goals | Deidre's goals from the media | Goals a counsellor would choose for her |
Each intervention | Two separate explanations | One paragraph covering both |
Subject line format | The prescribed wording | A subject line of your own |
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Derive interventions from a theory's premises rather than selecting them by familiarity.
- 02Recognise where a theory resists the idea of technique, and respond to that honestly.
- 03Tie a proposed intervention to a client's stated goals rather than to a clinician's.
- 04Distinguish client-generated meaning from counsellor-supplied interpretation.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
What the 200-word Deidre post has to contain
- 01One theory selected from existential, person-centred or Gestalt.
- 02A brief description of that theory.
- 03Two interventions you could employ with Deidre.
- 04An explanation of why each intervention follows from the theory.
- 05An explanation of how each intervention would help Deidre move toward her goals.
- 06A subject line in the prescribed format.
- 07An initial post of at least 200 words.
From a chosen theory to two interventions and Deidre's goals
The theory selected
Describe the approach briefly, emphasising what it believes produces change.
Deidre's goals
State what Deidre says she wants, drawn from the media.
Intervention one
Name the intervention and explain why the theory licenses it.
Intervention two
Name a genuinely different intervention and justify it the same way.
How each moves Deidre toward her goals
Trace each intervention separately to a stated goal.
Finding how the approach is practised, not just what it believes
Recommended databases
- The Capuzzi and Gross chapters 6, 7 and 8
- The Deidre media and its transcript
- PubMed Central
- Humanistic and existential psychotherapy journals
Search sequence
- 1.Watch the Deidre media and write her goals down verbatim before reading any theory, because the final deliverable is graded against her words and reconstructing them afterwards produces generic answers.
- 2.Read the chapter for your chosen theory in the assigned text first, since the discussion asks you to compare against how the text applied each approach to the Case of Maria.
- 3.Search for how the approach is actually practised rather than for its principles, because the brief asks for interventions and principle statements do not supply them.
- 4.If you choose person-centred, search specifically for the debate about technique in that tradition, so the tension can be addressed with a source rather than skirted.
Gestalt, person-centred and existential therapy sources
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Clients' subjective experiences of navigating challenges in Gestalt therapy: an interpretative phenomenological analysis
Frontiers in Psychology · 2025
Unusually well matched to this brief, because it reports what clients made of Gestalt work rather than what therapists intended by it — which is the brief's own point that the client's interpretation is what helps. Useful for justifying a Gestalt intervention in terms of what it does for the client's awareness rather than what it does for your formulation.
- 02
Use of the Temperament and Character Inventory to describe the effectiveness of Gestalt therapy
Frontiers in Psychology · 2025
Outcome evidence for the approach with the richest set of nameable interventions, which is the practical reason many students choose Gestalt for this post. Cite it where you explain why an intervention would move Deidre toward a goal, so the claim rests on measured change rather than on the technique's plausibility.
- 03
Person-Centered Therapy (Rogerian Therapy)
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf · 2024
The source to reach for if you select person-centred, and specifically for the problem this assignment creates: it sets out congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding as therapist conditions rather than procedures. That is what lets you name the tension in “describe two interventions” and then answer it, instead of quietly inventing techniques.
- 04
Integrating Existential Perspectives into Schema Therapy: A Conceptual Framework with Clinical Applications
Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy · 2026
Existential work is the option with the clearest content and the fewest named methods, and this paper is useful precisely because it makes existential themes operational — freedom, responsibility, meaning — inside a structured therapy. Use it to turn an existential commitment into something you can describe as an intervention.
Before the Deidre discussion post is submitted
Common mistakes
- Describing all three theories instead of selecting one.
- Proposing an intervention where the counsellor supplies the interpretation.
- Choosing person-centred and then inventing techniques the approach does not have.
- Giving two interventions that are variations of the same move.
- Justifying interventions by their general usefulness rather than by the theory's logic.
- Writing about goals a counsellor would set rather than the goals Deidre states.
- Explaining both interventions together when the brief says each.
- Spending most of a 200-word post on the theory description.
- Ignoring the prescribed subject line format.
- Treating 200 words as the target rather than the minimum.
Submission checklist
- One theory is named and used throughout.
- Every intervention leaves the meaning-making with Deidre.
- The two interventions are genuinely distinct.
- Each is justified from the theory's own premises.
- Deidre's goals are stated in her terms.
- Each intervention is separately linked to a goal.
- The subject line uses the format the brief prescribes.
- The post exceeds 200 words with all deliverables complete.
- Where the theory resists technique, that tension is addressed rather than hidden.
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.