Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling (third edition)

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Unlike person-centred therapy, psychoanalysis relied on the therapist being a blank slate, distancing themselves from the client, and not getting involved on a personal level. I have an innate impulse to care for myself, heal and grow. This includes seeking to keep myself safe and intact, and to realise my inner potential, becoming who I am capable of being.

Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father. As a child grows older, interactions with significant others will affect feelings of self-worth. According to Rogers, we want to feel, experience, and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. Person-centered therapy doesn’t use specific techniques like other therapeutic approaches. Instead, it relies on three core principles: unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. Carl Rogers (1959) believed that humans have one basic motive, which is the tendency to self-actualize– i.e., to fulfill one’s potential and achieve the highest level of “human-beingness” we can. The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person. The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the soul, or Freud’s psyche. The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of those experiences.In other words, the therapist reveals little or nothing of their own personality in therapy. They adopt a veil of expertise and act as the expert.

To examine the efficacy of person-centered therapy in the treatment of various psychiatric conditions, this article will include recent studies using any form of non-directive counseling based on Rogerian principles, including person-centered therapy/client-centered therapy (PCT/CCT), non-directive supportive therapy (NDST), and supportive counseling/therapy (SC/ST). This refers to the therapist’s deep and genuine caring for the client. The therapist may not approve of some of the client’s actions, but the therapist does approve of the client. In short, the therapist needs an attitude of “I’ll accept you as you are.” Abraham Maslow termed Rogers’ approach humanism, the ‘third force’ in psychology (psychoanalysis being the first, and behaviourism the second). Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we perceive our situation. “As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves.”Behavior is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as experienced, in the field as perceived. Most of the ways of behaving which are adopted by the organism are those which are consistent with the concept of the self. Most of the time we do things and live our lives in ways which are in keeping with our picture of ourselves. Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates such goal-directed behaviour, the kind of emotion being related to the seeking versus the consummatory aspects of the behaviour, and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism. Feelings are associated with, and help us to get, satisfaction and fulfilment. Generally speaking, pleasant feelings arise when we are satisfied, unpleasant feelings when we are not satisfied. The more important the situation, the stronger the feelings. According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience, and behave in ways consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal self. The closer our self-image and ideal self are to each other, the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.

Rogers strongly believed that therapists should be warm, genuine, and understanding for a client’s condition to improve. The starting point of the Rogerian approach to counseling and psychotherapy is best stated by Rogers himself: Mearns, P., & Thorne, B. (1988). Person-Centred Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate individuals. Conditional positive regard is a concept in psychology that refers to the expression of acceptance and approval by others (often parents or caregivers) only when an individual behaves in a certain acceptable or approved way.Consequently, the self-concept is a central component of our total experience and influences both our perception of the world and our perception of ourselves. For instance, a woman who perceives herself as strong may behave with confidence and see her actions as actions performed by someone who is confident.