Transcript Chapter 5 Person-Centered Therapy

Chapter 5
Person-Centered Therapy
Person-Centered Therapy
 Created by Carl Rogers in the early 1940s.
 Initial emphasis is non-directive and lets
the client take the lead in initiating the
direction that change should take.
Carl Rogers
 Born in 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois, and was
the 4th of 6 children.
 Studied briefly with Alfred Adler.
 Found that the psychoanalytical approach
to working with troubled individuals was
time-consuming and often ineffective.
 Established the Center for the Study of
Persons in 1968.
View of Human Nature/Personality
 People are essentially good.
 They are characteristically positive,
forward-moving, constructive, realistic,
and trustworthy.
 Each person is aware, inner-directed and
moving toward self-actualization.
Rogers’ View on Human Infants
 Whatever an infant perceives is reality.
 Infants are born with a self-actualizing tendency
that is satisfied through goal-directed behavior.
 Everything an infant does is interrelated.
 The experience of an infant may be seen as
positive or negative according to whether the
experiences enhance the actualization tendency.
 Infants maintain experiences that are selfactualizing and avoid those that are not.
Concepts of Carl Rogers’ Beliefs
 Self-actualization is the most prevalent and
motivating drive of existence.
 Each person is capable of finding a
personal meaning and purpose in life.
 Phenomenological Perspective – what is
important is the person’s perception of
reality rather than an event itself.
Concept of Self
 The self is an outgrowth of what people
experience and an awareness of self helps
individuals differentiate themselves from
others.
 For a healthy self to emerge, people need
positive regard – love, warmth, care and
acceptance.
Ideal Self and Real Self
 Ideal Self – what the person is striving to
become.
 Real Self – what the person is.
The further the ideal self is from the real
self, the more alienated and maladjusted
persons become.
Roles of the Counselor/Therapist
 Take on a holistic role in their work.
 Establish a free and comfortable environment for
their clients.
 Work as facilitators rather than as directors.
 Make limited use of psychological tests.
 The use of diagnosis is avoided because the
diagnosis is philosophically incompatible with
the objectives of this approach.
Goals
 Geared to clients as people, not their
problems.
 Assist people in learning how to cope with
situations.
 Learn to not have need for defense
mechanisms.
Rogers’ Goals for Clients
Clients will become:
 More realistic in their self-perception.
 More confident and self-directing.
 More positively valued by themselves.
 Less likely to repress aspects of their experiences.
 More mature, socialized, and adaptive in their
behavior.
 Less upset by stress and quicker to recover.
 More like the healthy, integrated, well-functioning
person in their personality structures.
Primary Goal
 The primary goal is to bring about a
harmony between the client’s self-concept
and his or her perceived self-concept.
Evolution of Person-Centered Processes
 Non-Directive Period (1940-50)
– Emphasis on forming a relationship.
– Main techniques were acceptance and clarification.
 Reflective Period (1950-57)
– Emphasis on creating nonthreatening relationships.
– Main techniques included responding to clients’
feelings and reflecting underlying affect back to
clients.
– Increased focus on the therapeutic relationship.
Evolution of Person-Centered Processes
 Experiential Period (1957-80)
– Began with Rogers issuing his statement on
the necessary and sufficient (core) conditions
of counseling:
• EMPATHY – the ability to feel with clients and
convey this understanding back to them.
• POSITIVE REGARD – acceptance; a deep and
genuine caring for clients and persons.
• CONGRUENCE – the condition of being
transparent in the therapeutic relationship by giving
up roles and facades.
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
for a Counseling Relationship
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Two persons are in psychological contact.
The first person, the client, is in a state of
incongruence and is vulnerable or anxious.
The second person, the counselor, is congruent, or
integrated, in the relationship.
The counselor experiences unconditional positive
regard for the client.
The counselor experiences an empathic understanding
of the client’s internal frame of reference and attempts
to explain his/her experiences to the client.
There is at least a minimal degree of communication
to the client of the counselor’s understanding and
unconditional positive regard.
Methods that Help Promote the
Counselor-Client Relationship
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Active and passive listening.
Accurate reflection of thought and feelings.
Clarification.
Summarization.
Confrontation.
General or open-ended leads.
Multicultural and Gender
Sensitive Issues
 Mixed reviews for appropriateness to a
multicultural context.
– Some elements are not universal in
application.
 Mixed reviews for gender issues as well.
– Rogers did not truly address the gender issue.
– Some question as to whether one gender can
truly empathize and relate to the opposite
gender.
Strengths and Contributions
 Revolutionized the counseling profession by
linking counseling with psychotherapy.
 Applicable to a wide range of human problems.
 Has contributed to the field by generating a great
deal of research.
 Effectiveness of the approach.
 Focuses on the open relationship established.
 Relatively quick to learn.
 Positive view of human nature.
Limitations and Criticisms
 Provided few instructions for counselors on how
to establish relationships with clients and bring
about change.
 Depends on bright, insightful, hard-working
clients for best results.
 Ignores diagnosis, the unconscious, and innately
generated sexual and aggressive drives.
 Seen by critics as limited because it is directed by
clients and may only deal with surface issues.
The Case of Linda:
Person-Centered Therapy
 How would you conceptualize this case using
Person-Centered therapy?
 What would be your treatment plan for this client
using a Person-Centered approach?