Person Centred Counselling

Client-centred therapy was created by American psychologist Carl Rogers. The approach was developed from human psychology concepts. Rogers and his client-centred approach was a key advocate for developing humanistic therapies in the US during the 1940’s as a reaction to the domination of psychotherapy by psychoanalysis and academic psychology by Behaviourism. Psychoanalysis as well as behaviourism were both rejected by Rogers, maintain that the behaviour of individuals was based on their perceptions of their situations. His argument was that since no one can know how an individual perceives, the individual is the best expert on themselves. European philosophical traditions of existentialism and phenomenology heavily influenced the Humanistic thinkers. The development of Humanistic therapy was also influenced by other key figures including Abraham Maslow and the 'self-actualization' theory. It was also influenced by Fritz Perls with the distinctive Gelstalt approach and Wilheim Reich, who majorly influenced the humanistic therapy with focuses on body works. Robert Assagioli's also influenced the approach with spiritual approaches including the higher self-concept. This paper undertakes a critical evaluation of the practical use of person centred counselling, its limitations and abilities of an unqualified counsellor to offer its core conditions.

The approach was described by Rogers as involving basic and complete trust in all organisms in every level as there is always an underlying movement flow towards achieving the full potential of inherent possibilities. He points out that people too naturally tend to move towards complete and complex developments. Such innate and natural tendencies towards developing oneself are described as self-actualization. The client-centred counselling approach sees people as autonomous and capable and they have abilities of resolving difficult situations, achieving full potentials and altering their lives positively. Carl Rogers placed emphasis on the humanistic perspectives and making sure relationships are therapeutic with the client so as to promote authenticity, self-esteem, as well as actualization in their lives thus helping them utilize their strengths (Seligman, 2006). Person-centric approaches initially placed focus on the client as the person in charge of the therapy thus leading to clients developing greater understandings of the self, improved self-concepts and self-exploration. Focuses then shifted to the frames of reference of the client as well as the core conditions needed for therapy to be successful and this included ensuring empathic understanding is demonstrated by the therapist in ways that are non-judgemental. The approach currently focuses on clients having the capabilities of developing greater understandings of self in environments that make it possible for clients to resolve their issues without the therapist directly intervening. Therapists are encouraged to keep stances of questioning that are open to change while also demonstrating courage for facing the unknown. The therapists’ personal characteristics and attitudes were also emphasized by Rogers as important together with the therapist client relationship as they can determine the therapeutic processes success (Corey, 2005).

Uses in Practice

Counselling usually involves conceptualizing the client from a developmental, life span method where the worth, diversity, uniqueness and dignity of the individual is honored in cultural and social contexts. Counselling involves empowering diverse families, individuals, and groups for them to achieve education, mental wellness and health as well as career goals (ACA, 2014). The utilization of the person centered counselling approach in practice therefore requires an understanding of the person centered theory’s core conditions, limitations, and multicultural considerations. It points out that various therapeutic core conditions are needed and crucial to enable positive outcomes in the client. The approach points out that there needs to be psychological contact between two people that is the client and the therapist. The client is in an incongruence state and is nervous or vulnerable while the therapist is integrated or congruent in the relationship. Therapists also have experiences of the client involving positive regard that is unconditional. Emphatic understanding experiences are also felt by the therapist regarding the internal reference frame of the client and they make efforts of communicating the same to them. Counselling that is person centered is based on the assumption that when a therapeutic relationship has all the core conditions present then personality change that is constructive can happen and if they are absent in the relationship then there are no likelihoods of personality change happening. Thus the foundation of the approach is set by the core conditions as well as the innate tendencies of self-actualizing tendencies.

Congruence

People usually enter person centered therapy in incongruence states and it is the therapists’ role to change such situations. The person or client centered approach focuses on the subjective view of the individual on the world. A huge difference between other therapists and humanistic counselors involves equal partnerships where those in therapy are not treated as patients but as clients. Rogers points out that within the confines of such a relationship, therapists should be congruent, integrated, genuine people meaning they are deeply and freely themselves. Congruence involves genuineness in the counselor, and being without facade in communicating the therapeutic relationship’s interpersonal dynamics to the client. To enable client personality change, it is critical for genuineness and congruence to be communicated. In practice, this can be done through metaphors and meta-statements. Clients can makes comments pointing out they need counselors to offer advice or use more direct approaches. In response, counselors can point out through meta-statements that direction and advice emanates from the individual since it is based on the individuals private personal experience. Also, clients can point out that they feel disconnected to the counselor and the counselor can reply with meta-statements of how they feel proud of the courage of the client in articulating their feelings. The counselor can also ask the client about the experience of expressing their concern in the here and now of the relationship. Therefore, meta-statements are beneficial in the therapeutic relationship as they enable working towards congruency and genuineness.

Positive regard that is unconditional

Positive regard that is unconditional is usually hard to identify and define since it is referred to by many names which include non-possessive love, caring, non-possessive warmth or acceptance (Farber & Doolin, 2011). In counselling, it involves counsellors having warm acceptances of the experiences of the clients and it is defined by Rogers as involving no conditions for the client to be accepted without feelings of having to be this way or that way to be accepted. Such warm acceptances also need to be communicated to clients. Counsellors are capable of responding with minimal or no hostility as well as more confidence when no conditions are pout on the clients’ worth by the counsellor (Kensit,2000). Also, Roger argues that this core condition also necessitates the counsellor to be willing to accept the client to feel anything and everything they are going through at the moment. Even though the core condition is described in various ways, Farber and Doolin (2011) point out that it is moderately associated with outcomes of psychotherapy. Such studies point out that an increase of the therapist experiencing the attitude leads to increases in the likelihoods of the therapy being successful. Therefore, despite the various definitions of the condition, it is generally associated with outcomes that are positive in the therapeutic process.

Empathy

It is usually described in counselling as the feeling experienced and communicated by the counsellor towards the client where the personal meanings and feelings of the experiences of the client as well as their phenomenological view. It involves therapists experiencing emphatic, accurate understandings of the awareness of the client to their own experiences. The therapist senses the private world of the client as if it was their own but they do not lose the as if quality which is essential for therapy. Scholars have pointed out that it is possible to direct emphatic understanding in various ways like interpersonally, subjectively or objectively. The counsellor can therefore direct empathy interpersonally, subjectively, and objectively to create a hypothesis that is useful in getting a sense of understanding or knowing of the perspective of the client. Subjective ways of knowing involve individuals being capable of empathically sensing their internal states subjectively (Clark, 2004, p. 142). Interpersonal ways of knowing involve individual empathies being directed toward other people in efforts of grasping how they function phenomenologically (Clark, 2004, p.43). Objective ways of knowing involve an individuals’ emphatic understanding being directed towards groups with frames of reference that are external.

The use and skill of empathy has been proposed as an integrated model in the process of counselling where hypothesis and perspective are built with a basis on the knowing ways (Clark, 2010). It has also been found that quotes in the first person as well as having the ‘I’ perspective are beneficial in helping to externalize the internal dialogue of the client which is beneficial for the counsellor to understand the client’s phenomenological perspective and use empathy in communication. Rogers argued that communicating and understanding emphatically was essential and vital for people to institute changes in their lives. However, the empathy construct has also been described in different ways over the years.

Operational definitions of empathy have evolved over time and it has been compared to reflecting feeling skills. Elliott, Bohart, Watson, and Greenberg (2011) point out that many responses of empathy in person centered counselling involve meaning and not feeling despite the many modes of similar responding being termed as reflections of feeling. Depending on the researcher type, focus and perspective, which can be developmental, psychoanalytic or social psychologist, empathy has also been given different operational definitions. It has been given different constructs including general abilities or personality traits of knowing the inner experience or emotions of the other person. It has also been termed as states of being cognitive affective which involves sensing or responding to the private world of the client as if it was your own. Others have termed it as multiphase experiential processes that consider empathy experiences moment to moment while examining the modes of empathy communication and production. Elliott et al. (2011) point out that empathy can be a strong predictor of outcomes in therapy and they recommend it for use in practice regardless of the treatment, theoretical orientation, or the severity of the patient. They point out that emphatic stances of counsellors are vital since they involve that counsellor making efforts of understanding the world views of their clients and communicating emphatic understanding in every step of the way.

Limitations

Through the person centered approach, a framework involving the core conditions can be developed and utilized by counsellors on how to engage with the client as it is a solid practice foundation. Educators in counselling emphasize on the use of the person centered theory in training students and it is the foundation of the person centered counselling method. The approach offers cultural orientations that are individualistic. Values involved in counseling as well as ways of seeing the world are usually described as including the focus on individuality as well as the quest for lifestyles that are independent (Henriksin, 2006). However, individuals from traditional cultures can have backgrounds involving adult authorities that have absolute validity and cannot be questioned. Counselling sessions involving such individuals can be characterized by the client expecting the counsellor to probe, guide and give structure. Such notions of counsellors guiding the session can create friction for the practitioner with orientations of the person-centered approach. Also, Watson (2007) argues that clinicians using the approach may not be capable of structuring or guiding the processes of the client adequately as they can be too laissez-faire. It can therefore be seen that person-centered approaches that are too strict may fail in meeting the needs of the client or attaining the levels needed of therapeutic relationships. The person centered approach therefore has limitations in its orientations of individualism, values as well as non-directional stances and this can have negative implications in multicultural contexts.

From an educational perspective and investigating the effect of the person centered theory in counsellor learning, it has been found that the approach is insufficient in considering the importance of various core conditions as well as aspects of client centered relationships in multicultural settings. It is therefore considered a significant flaw in efforts of finding models that are multicultural in both practice and teaching (Glauser and Bozarth (2001). Such a failure greatly impacts the training of counsellors as well as the models utilized in multicultural education f0or facilitating whole person actualizing processes. Henriksin (2006) points out that in counsellor education, multicultural training and education has shifted from amalgamation and assimilation to the tossed salad metaphor. He argues that a pedagogy that is transformation in counselor education is needed which involves trainees viewing the whole person and considering the contexts of the lived experiences of the individual.

In recent decades, the person centered approach has been experimented with in the resolution of international as well as intergroup conflicts (Kirschenbaum, 2004, p. 122). Such experimentations have included encounter groups and workshops that have populations that are multicultural such as European Americans, African-Americans or Catholics. Demonstrations have often showed that empathy, positive regard, and congruence are conditions that promote growth and aid in relationships. The hypothesis from such findings has been that these conditions can lead to improvements in understanding as well as communication among groups that are antagonistic (Kirschenbaum, 2004, p. 122). Such experiments have led to evolutions of the person centered approach and have influenced its application in the resolution of conflicts while also impacting education in general and specifically the multicultural pedagogy of counselor training.

The impact on education involves student or learner centered education. Facilitation and education of the individual is vital with the theory noting that the aim is to facilitate fully functional or whole persons who are citizens and leaders in democratic societies (Cornelius-White, 2007, p. 114). As part of counselor education, one of the goals involves facilitating fully functional and whole individuals with the person-centered theory and core conditions offering believes of proactive humans who are in the actualizing process (Glauser & Bozarth, 2001, p. 142). Such proactive views and the adoption of classrooms that are learner centered often have benefits of promoting student development and growth with teachers who are person centered having student outcomes that are positive. However, they often fail to take into consideration the various multicultural contexts that the student may encounter in practice apart from their own.

Glauser and Bozarth (2001) point out that when counselling that is multicultural only concentrates on the use of particular techniques by the counsellor when conducting counselling, then counselling’s true value is lost. Even though the person centered approach is beneficial in providing core conditions useful therapeutic relationships, it can negatively impact counselling pedagogy, and the needs of clients are sometimes not fully met with the approach. Watson (2007) argues that important adjuncts to communicating effectively with acceptance, empathy, as well as congruence involve providing guidance, stimulation, and structure for the effective engagement of the client in therapy work. The adoption of such recommendations can be beneficial in counselling where structure and directness are based on the perspective of the individual client.

References

American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA Code of Ethics . Alexandra, VA: Author

Clark, A. (2004). Empathy: Implications of three ways of knowing in counseling. Journal of

Clark, A. (2010). Empathy: An integral model in the counseling process. Journal of Counseling and Development, 88, 348-356.

Corey, C. (2005). Theory and practice of counseling & psychotherapy. (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.

Cornelius-White, J. (2007). Learner-centered teacher-student relationships are effective: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 77, p. 113-143.

Elliott, R., Bohart, A., Watson, J., and Greenberg, L. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy, 48 , 43- 49.

Farber, B. and Doolin, E. (2011). Positive regard. Psychotherapy, 48 , 58-64.

Glauser, A. and Bozarth, J. (2001). Personcentered counseling: The culture within. Journal of Counseling and Development, 79, p. 142-147.

Henriksin, R. C. (2006). Multicultural counseling preparation: A transformational pedagogy. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development, 45, 173-185.

Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development, 43, p. 141-151.

Kensit, D. (2000). Rogerian theory: A critique of the effectiveness of pure client-centered therapy . Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 13, 345-351.

Kirchenbaum, H. (2004). Carl Rogers’s life and work: An assessment on the 100th anniversary of his birth . Journal of Counseling and Development, 82, 116-124.

Seligman, L. (2006). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Ltd.

Watson, J. (2007). Reassessing Rogers’ necessary and sufficient conditions of change. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 44, 268-273.

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