Person-Centered Therapy Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

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Person-Centered TherapyCarl Rogers (1902-1987)

• In human beings, there is an actualizing
  tendency, a trust in a constructive directional
  flow toward the realization of each individuals
  full potential.

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The Person-Centered Approach

• Assumes that clients can be trusted to select
  their own therapists, to choose the frequency and
  length of their therapy, to talk or to be silent,
  to decide what needs to be explored, to achieve
  their own insights, and to be the architects of
  their own lives.

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Person-Centered Theory of Personality

• Carl Rogers was concerned about the way people
  treated each other and how they cared for or
  didn't care for each other. He believed that
  children would develop a good sense of their own
  self-worth or self-regard if others (parents,
  teachers, or friends) treated them as valuable
  and worthy.
• When individuals treated others in a way that was
  sometimes harsh, manipulative, or self-serving,
  then the person was treated conditionally.
  Conditions of worth (conditionality) develop from
  conditional positive regard form other. Such
  conditions can make it difficult for a person to
  become a fully functioning person.

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Conditionality or Conditions of Worth The
process of evaluating one's own experience based
on values or beliefs that others hold.

• Conditional positive regard
• Receiving praise, attention, or approval from
  others as a result of behaving in accordance with
  the expectations of others.

• Fully functioning person
• A person who meets his or her own need for
  positive regard rather than relying on the
  expectations of others. Such individuals are open
  to new experiences and not defensive.

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Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Change

• 1. Psychological contact
• A relationship must exist so that two people may
  have impact on each other.
• 2. Incongruence in the client
• For change to take place, a client must be in a
  state of psychological vulnerability. There is a
  discrepancy between individuals' views of
  themselves and their actual experience. Included
  would be depression, anxiety, or a wide variety
  of problems. Although individuals may not be
  aware at first of their incongruence or
  vulnerability, they will be so if therapy
  continues.
• 3. Congruence and genuineness
• Therapists are aware of themselves. They are
  aware of their feelings, their experiences as
  they relate to the client, and their general
  reaction to the client. Therapists are open to
  understanding their own experiences as will as
  those of the client.

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Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Change

• 4. Unconditional positive regard or acceptance
• The therapist does not judge the client but
  accepts the client for who he or she is.
  Accepting the client does not mean that the
  counselor agrees with the client. With acceptance
  often comes caring and warmth.
• 5. Empathy
• The therapist enters the world of the client,
  leaving behind, as much as possible, his or her
  own values. Since it is not possible to be "value
  free," the therapist monitors his or her own
  values and feelings. The therapist tries to
  understand the experience of the client, what it
  is to be the client. Caring and warmth are
  expressed often in statements of empathy.

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Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Change

• 6. Perception of empathy and acceptance
• Not only must the therapist unconditionally
  accept and understand the client, the client must
  perceive that he or she is being understood and
  accepted. Therapists' voice tone and physical
  expression contribute to the communication of
  empathy and acceptance. Thus, they are apart of
  the client's perception of empathy.

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The Clients Experience in Therapy

• 1. Experiencing responsibility.
• 2. Experiencing the therapist.
• 3. Experiencing the process of exploration.
• 4. Experiencing the self.
• 5. Experiencing change.

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Person-Centered Goals in Therapy

• Become more self-directed.
• Increase positive self-regard.
• The client chooses the goals.

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Assessment

• Assessment occurs as therapists empathically
  understand clients.

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Constructivist Trends

• Rogers did not impose his perception on others,
  but let theirs develop.
• Rogers uses a non-expert role,
• Withholds his advise,
• Does not let his own experiences influence the
  way he helps clients change their narrative.