1. Introduction

Psychodynamic counselling evolved from the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud's work investigated the unconscious mind in order to understand his patients and assist in their healing. This type of therapy is accomplished by the therapist guiding the client through the examination of unresolved conflicts and significant events in the client’s past (Haggerty, 2016). The main goals of psychodynamic therapy are to enhance the client’s self-awareness and foster understanding of the client’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in relation to their past experiences, especially his or her experiences as a child (Haggerty, 2016). The assumption in psychodynamic therapy is that chronic problems are rooted in the unconscious mind and must be brought to light for catharsis to occur. Thus, the client must have the self-awareness to discover these unconscious patterns of thought and an understanding of how these patterns came to be in order to deal with them. This form of therapy is commonly used with clients suffering from depression or anxiety diagnoses, and there is some evidence suggesting that psychodynamic therapy may be as effective in treating depression as other forms of therapy (WebMD, 2014).

Managing students with behaviour problems is one of the difficult aspects of teaching. Students have behaviour problems because there are mismatches between their needs and the socio-environmental factors that are within their immediate environment (Dupper, 2010) Student behaviour problem is not only the naughty behaviour of the student but also the behaviour that disturbs the effective teaching and learning process (Ghazi, Gulap, Muhammad & Khan, 2013). Schleicher, (2015) noted that students behaviour problems interrupts the saner and safer school environment. Nooruddin and Bay (2014) in India noted that Student behaviour management is one of the contemporary issues frequently being faced by the school community. They also noted that behaviour problems such as bullying, violence in school and other major and minor misconduct issues lead to a poor environment for the school community and a sense of fear and frustration in the school culture. Another study by Gutuza and Mapolisa, (2015) listed the various common forms of student misbehaviour to be late coming, bunking classes, drug and alcoholic abuse, bullying, love affairs, vandalism, assault on the school prefects, insult on educators, wearing the wrong school uniform, use of the mobile phone, smoking, writing or using foul language in class, work not done, class disruption and immoral acts. Student misbehaviour, however, is linked to academic performance and vice versa (Olley, Cohn and Cowan, 2010).

Renuka (2013) in India confirmed that constructive support from individual counselling had positive effect on academic performance and contributed to positive academic performance. In America, Deidra (2013) established that Positive Behaviour Interventions and Support (PBIS) contribute positively to student behaviour and maintains effective student behavioural support. Furthermore, Brown (2013) in New Zealand established that positive reinforcement approaches effectively increased positive behaviour, which led to clear and positive communication between teachers and students. Akpan, Ojinnaka and Ekanem (2010) in Nigeria noted that behaviour problems in children can be part of normal development. They also claimed that some school children exhibit a range of behaviour that may be a burden not only for the parents but also for teachers, other pupils and even the community therefore this behaviour problems must be managed.

The study was guided by the use of eclectic model in psychology. Eclectic model is a therapeutic approach that incorporates a variety of therapeutic principles and philosophies in order to create the ideal treatment program to meet the specific needs of the patient or client (McKayla, 2015). Eclectic model was advanced by Fredrick Thorne in (1940-50). The model is a synthesis and combination of directive and non-directive counselling. In eclectic counselling, the counsellor is neither too active as in the directive counselling nor too passive as in the non-directive counselling. The therapist just follows the middle path between these two (Kruthika, 2016). In eclectic counselling, the needs of a person and his personality are studied by the counsellor.

Literature on effectiveness of psychodynamic counselling exists but majorly from world and regionally. For example, Krischer, et al (2013) in Germany studied the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and juveniles. They study concluded that there is an effective reduction of childhood emotional and behavioural symptoms following psychodynamic psychotherapy. The reviewed study focused on outpatient children and juvenile with emotional, behavioural and adjustment disorders in Germany. Dekker, et al (2014) in Amsterdam studied growing evidence for psychodynamic therapy for depression as the least examined treatment method for depression, compared to cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and interpersonal therapy. The researchers concluded that it is justified to qualify SPSP an empirically supported therapy form of PT for depression. Leichsenring, et al (2013) in USA tested the efficacy of psychodynamic therapy and CBT in social anxiety disorder in a multicenter randomized controlled trial. The research found out that CBT and psychodynamic therapy were significantly superior to waiting list for both remission and response. Fonagy, Nascimento and Palmer (2013) in USA studied The State of the Evidence Base for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Children and Adolescents. The finding were that there is evidence of substantial clinical gains associated with Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in almost all the studies, when contrasted with family-based interventions, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy fares no better and appears to produce outcomes with some delay relative to family-based therapies. Leichsenring, Klein, & Salzer (2013) in South Africa studied the empirical evidence for psychodynamic therapy for specific mental disorders in adults. There was evidence from RCTs that psychodynamic therapy is efficacious in common mental disorders, that is, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, somatic symptom disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, complicated grief, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance-related disorder. Most of the reviewed studies were carried out in the world but very scanty was available on the Kenyan context. In addition, most of the studies were quantitative in nature and they lacked qualitative dimensions which could have provided in-depth experiences of participants.

In Rachuonyo East Sub County, behaviour problems range from truancy, theft, sneaking cheating, lateness, noise making, absenteeism, fighting, defiance, bullying, and drug abuse, failure to complete assignments, sexual harassment, and possession of pornographic material among other things. Psychodynamic model is technique that aims to enhance the clients self awareness and to foster understanding of the clients thoughts, feelings and beliefs in relation to their past experience as a child (Haggerts, 2016). The assumptions of psychodynamic therapy are that chronic problems are rooted in the unconscious mind and must be brought to light for catharsis to occur. The client must have the self awareness to discover the unconscious patterns of thought and an understanding of how these patterns come to be in order to deal with them. The present study investigated the effectiveness of psychodynamic counselling on management of behaviour problems among students in Rachuonyo East Sub County, Kenya.

2. Research Methodology

The study adopted the concurrent triangulation design in the mixed method approach. The mixed method approach is a methodology for conducting research that involves collecting, analyzing and integrating quantitative and qualitative research in order to answer the research question (Creswell, 2013). The study targets 3345 form 3 students in the 47 public secondary schools, 47 head teachers and 47 heads of guidance and counselling departments in Rachuonyo East Sub-county. Purposive sampling techniques was used to sample the principals and the heads of guidance and counselling department from the sampled secondary schools. Simple random sampling was used to select the form three students from the sampled secondary schools.

A total sample size of 346 form three students was selected for the sample as per the Krejcie and Morgan table of determining sample size. For interviews, the researcher used a sample of 20 principals and 20 teachers of guidance and counselling to obtain qualitative data.The sample size of 20 is appropriate since according to Green and Thorogood (2009) the experience of most qualitative researchers is that in interview studies little that is new comes out of transcripts after you have interviewed 20 or so people. The study employed three instruments namely: questionnaires, interview schedules and document analysis to gather information from participants. Construct validity was ensured by presenting and discussing the test items with two experts from Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology in the Department Of Psychology and Educational Foundations. Reliability of questionnaires was ensured by chronchbar alpha method and an alpha of 0.783 was reported. The data collected was analyzed by use of descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 22.

3. Findings & Discussions

To establish whether there was any statistical significant of Effectiveness of psychodynamic counseling model and Management of behavior problems, the researcher computed a bivariate Pearson’s Product-Moment Coefficient of Correlation between the scores of the two variables. The SPSS output Table 1 shows the correlation results.

Ho 1: There is no significant effectiveness of psychodynamic counseling on management of behavior problems among secondary school students in Rachuonyo East Sub County, Kenya.

Table 1. Correlation between Effectiveness of psychodynamic counseling model and Management of behavior problems

From Table 1, it is evident that although there was a high positive correlation (n=344; r = 0.506**; p <.05) between Effectiveness of psychodynamic counseling model and management of student's behaviour problems it was statistically significant. Given that the p-value was less than .05, the null hypothesis which stated that “There is no statistically significant effectiveness of psychodynamic counselling on management of behavior problems among secondary school students in Rachuonyo East Sub County” was rejected. It was therefore concluded that there is statistically significant positive relationship between Effectiveness of Psychodynamic Counselling model and Management of student's behaviour problems, with more Effectiveness of Psychodynamic Counselling model likely to trigger higher Management of student's behaviour problems among the students. Psychodynamic theory collectively suggest that the individual personality is a combination of early childhood experiences and unconscious impulse or desire. Psychodynamic model is technique that aims to enhance the clients self awareness and to foster understanding of the clients thoughts, feelings and beliefs in relation to their past experience as a child (Haggerts, 2016).

Qualitative results were also reported on the effectiveness of psychodynamic model on behaviour management and several themes emerged. The first theme was that the psychodynamic model helps to resolve past conflicts. According to psychodynamic therapy, when we are confronted with a painful experience, we usually try to avoid it. By doing this we push the bad experience down to the unconscious level hoping that it can be forgotten forever. In the context of this study, the students who have behavior problems will be helped by their teacher counsellor whose role is to aid the student to connect the dots between their experiences from the past and the problems they are currently facing and use their internal resources to address their problems. One respondent remarked;

They tend to accommodate and tolerate their present circumstances after realizing that the past cannot be reconstructed but the present [HOD 5]

Other respondents added;

By solving their past conflicts it cleared the source of their trauma or problems faced currently and the client renewed their outlook of life [P7].

They are able to understand some of the past conflicts are not their making [HOD12].

They manage to reconcile their past with their present challenges. This helps them understand the nature of their present challenges thereby readily embracing remedial suggestions offered by the counsellor [P14].

The sentiment by HOD 5, P7, HOD 12 and P17 implies that psychodynamic model is effective in management of behaviour problems in that it helps to resolve past conflicts whereby the client is able to understand that some of the past conflict are not their making and solving their past conflicts cleared the source of their trauma thereby giving the client a renewed outlook of life. This finding disagrees with that of Fonagy, et al (2013), when contrasted with family-based interventions, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy fares no better and appears to produce outcomes with some delay relative to family-based therapies. However, the finding concurs with Fonagy study as well that there is evidence of substantial clinical gains associated with Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in almost all the studies.

In the context of this study the teacher counsellor will encourage the student with behavior problems to bring to the surface the feeling they truly feel so that they can understand them and for them to gain insights into aspects of the self they previously were unaware of. One respondent remarked;

In most cases most of the students problems emanate from how they were treated when they were young [HOD 6].

Other respondents who also believe in focusing on early childhood experience added;

Early experiences brings out the background and the cause of the problems and when problem solving, it’s done wholly [HOD 1]

Helps in giving appropriate remedial measures and understanding of behaviour problem of client [HOD 4]

Childhood experiences have a lot of bearing on a persons’ behaviour. If he missed something he may compensate [HOD 5]

The sentiments by HOD6, HOD1, HOD 4, HOD 5 implies that psychodynamic model is effective in management of behaviour problems in that it addresses early experiences in the student client childhood. The teacher counsellor encourages the client to bring to surface their early childhood experiences and how these experiences which have an influence in their current self. An early childhood experience brings out the background and course of the problem making problem solving to be done wholly. This finding agrees with that of Cuijpers et al (2013) study which found out that psychodynamic psychotherapy was significantly more efficacious than pharmacotherapy in obsessive‐compulsive disorder and that of Leichsenring et al (2013) results which clearly contradicted assertions repeatedly made by representatives of other psychotherapeutic approaches claiming psychodynamic psychotherapy was not empirically supported. However, Fonagy (2015) findings suggested that conservative strategies of comparing heterogeneous ‘families’ of therapy instead use opportunities provided by bioscience and computational psychiatry.

4. Conclusions & Recommendations

The study found out that there was a statistically significant positive effectiveness of psychodynamic counselling model on management of behaviour problems among students in Rachuonyo East Sub County, Kenya. A Pearson’s Correlation coefficient of r = 0.506 was arrived at, which suggested that psychodynamic counselling model was moderately effective in the management of student behaviour. Psychodynamic counselling model enabled the learners to address earlier experiences in their childhood, solve their past conflicts, and gain insight in recognizing certain patterns in behaviour that had developed overtime making it possible to solve their behaviour problems.

It’s recommended that teacher counsellors should design a thoroughly structured program that aims to enhance the clients self awareness and that fosters understanding of the clients thoughts, feelings and beliefs in relation to their past experience as a child. This is because the study found that psychodynamic counselling model was positively moderate on management of behaviour problems among students with a correlation of p<.05 when this program is fully implemented a strongly positive correlation of between p< .07-.09 may be achieved.