Transcript Person - Centered Therapy Carl Rogers (1902

Person-Centered Therapy
Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
In human beings, there is an actualizing
tendency, a trust in a constructive directional flow
toward the realization of each individual’s full potential.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Client’s Experience in Therapy
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1. Experiencing responsibility.
2. Experiencing the therapist.
3. Experiencing the process of exploration.
4. Experiencing the self.
5. Experiencing change.
Person-Centered Goals in Therapy
• Become more self-directed.
• Increase positive self-regard.
• The client chooses the goals.
Assessment
• Assessment occurs as therapists
empathically understand clients.
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.