Person Centered Therapy

Rogers worked with many others in developing the idea that clients could heal themselves, if only the therapist provided ‘facilitative’ or core conditions of, ‘empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.’

Person-centered therapy views people from a positive perspective. While therapists may not always agree with the choices that a person makes, they always try to accept a person for who they are. The belief is that people can change and become self-actualized. Person-centered therapy focuses on the belief that people’s personalities are influenced by internal and external factors. These experiences will be different for everyone, because we are all exposed to different social and

In counselling and psychotherapy, it is fundamental aspect for practitioners to use theory as a way of informing the way the work with a client.(McLeod). The goal of this essay is to explore the humanistic personality theory of Carl Rogers. The essay will begin by giving a summary

One of key concepts of person centred therapy is the belief that the client has the ability to become aware of their own problems and has the inherent means to resolve them. In this sense,

(Wilkins, 2002) discusses one of the most common misunderstandings about person-centred therapy are the three core conditions needed for successful therapy. According to (Rogers, 1957), this is not the case and spoke of six core conditions believed to be necessary

This is why it is important for both the client and the therapist to be open and honest with each other from the very start when discussing the initial problems/issues.

Instead, I believe therapists are never certain about the cause of client’s problems, and simply do

Person-Centered Therapy (PCT) embodies a humanistic approach, which is intended to increase a person’s feelings of self-worth, and reduce the level of incongruence between the ideal self and the actual self (Gelso, Cepeda & Davenport, 2006). This critical analysis is meant to examine various approaches and skills counselors/therapists would use when applying a ‘person-centered’ type of therapy. This analysis briefly outlines what PCT is, but focuses more heavily on the various approaches used by social workers throughout the therapeutic relationship. More specifically, PCT approaches such as, counselor/client congruence, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard are the main approaches highlighted in this analysis as they play an integral role in the counseling relationship.

What goes wrong, thus bringing a client into therapy? Rogers considers the problem to be lack of

The Person-Centred Approach focuses on the clients own best authority as it is based on the client’s personal experience in his or her own life here and now. It shows the client as someone who has the ability of fulfilling his or her own potential for changes (Mearns & Thorne, 2007)

then focus on chosen issues. In this stage the Skilled Helper helps the client to

Congruence can be explained as genuineness, being honest or real with the client. “Congruence is the state of being of the counsellor when her outward responses to her client consistently match the inner feelings and sensations which she has in relation to the client.” (Mearns and Thorne, 1999, p84) The client must perceive the therapist as being real, in order to develop trust. Again this requires a good awareness and self-knowledge of the therapist.

The role of the therapist – regardless of their theoretical orientation - is to convey to their clients that they are there to

Since Roger’s person-centered theory lacks specific techniques, another recent trend has been to integrate cognitive-behavioral techniques

Person-Centered therapy applied in a therapeutic relationship by the therapist being empathetic and allowing the clients to move in their own time on finding their own self-actualization. This allows the client to gain and learn their own independence and integration in the world that they live in. The therapist not leading the client into any direction but being empathic to what they are going through to help the client’s growth process does this. It is not about the therapist having the client do anything or the therapists do anything but to be open and have a good attitude towards the client (Corey, 2013).