Person- Centred counselling - Essay Example

 Person-Centred Counselling Introduction The person-centred approach to counselling and therapy has had a substantial impact on the field of human services since its rise in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. The founding father of person-centred therapy was Carl Rogers, whose work into the field of client-focused counselling began when he developed his theory of psychotherapy on troubled children in 1939; He went on to expand his theory, broadening it to encompass his work with families, groups and couples (Witty, 2007). Roger’s published the most inclusive theoretical report on Psychology: A Study of a Science (Vol. III), where he puts forth his ideas and theories on personality development and motivation, including his theory on interpersonal relationships and group interaction. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rogers used the client-centred values he had obtained and applied them to areas such as personal power, marriage, group encounter, education, and conflict resolution (Witty 2007). The person-centred therapy starts from the assumption that all the parties involved are trustworthy amongst themselves, this tendency of being in a condition that the members or clients are able to trust each other gives the client the notion that each individual is of the idea of creating constrictive accomplishment of the inherent potential. This long-standing focus on the importance of the relationship between the client and the practitioner paved the way for the development of Roger’s person-centred therapy. Much of Roger’s work on his person-centred approach is heavily based in his beginnings as a psychotherapist, arguing that each individual possesses the powers of self-knowledge and self-healing within themselves, and they can utilise these resources to promote personality development and change. Rogers posits that a person benefits from their self-directive processes, as they enable greater self-differentiation and promote better self-understanding, self-regulation and acceptance. A key term integral to the person-centred approach is the notion of ‘actualising tendency’, which explains an individual’s motivation to realise and enhance their inherent potential (Witty, 2007). While person-centred therapy places the burden of change and improvement upon the client, it is the therapist’s job to provide an environment consisting of three necessary and sufficient conditions for change, which are conducive to the client’s improvement (Worsley, 2002). These integral conditions are congruence, empathetic understanding, and unconditional positive regard (Witty, 2007). In the recent past the person-centred therapy has faced numerous drawbacks as many people have criticized it of emphasising on the trustworthiness of the human organism as too optimistic even naïve. They have therefore suggested that the person-centered view of man neither deals with the problem of evil nor the dark side of human nature. Rogers the founding father of person-centred therapy has attempted to argue against this allegation by pointing to a determining tendency in the universe, and in supporting his logic, he draws conclusions on some of the most recent progression in biology, which without doubt denies the fact of entropy, the propensity towards disorder and deterioration. Firstly, the notion of congruence refers to the idea that the therapist needs to be genuine with the client, meaning that the therapist is in a state where they are removed from their distractions and their own personal problems, and are able to commit completely to their professional relationship with their client. The intended effect of congruence in the therapist is that the client will feel himself or herself to be interacting with a real person, not just someone playing out a professional role (Worsley, 2002). The notion of congruence is also important for the client’s self-concept. It is important for there to be congruence between the client’s emotions and behaviour, and for this to match with the client’s self-concept. If the client identifies himself or herself as a strong, angry, yet vulnerable person, and they have feelings of anger or vulnerability, then there is congruence between the client’s emotions and their behaviour. Similarly, if the client does not define himself or herself as caring, and a situation arises where these feelings arise, they will struggle to make sense of their feelings and express them in an accurate way. This discordance between behaviour and emotions is believed to stem from incongruence (McLeod, 2009). The second condition for change is empathetic understanding. Rogers argues the importance of the therapist being able to understand the client’s situation and feelings by imagining themselves in their client’s shoes. Rogers describes empathetic understanding as entering the private, perceptual world of another person and feeling completely comfortable. He also states that it involves being sensitive to another’s situation and experiences, without making judgements (Witty, 2007). This process enables the therapist to remove their discriminative, dualistic mindset, and look past beliefs and behaviours that they might otherwise disagree with. While it is impossible for any therapy to be completely free of influence, Rogers still argues that it is integral to attempt to create and maintain a sense of empathy for the client, and that this disciplined goal in maintaining the client’s safety in the relationship is empowering (Witty, 2007) The third and final necessary and sufficient condition of change is unconditional positive regard. This condition encompasses the therapist’s non-judgmental caring of their client. As a humanist approach, person-centred therapy is defined by its focus on – and care for – the client, regardless of their ideas, ways of being, beliefs or behaviours. Rogers argues that effective therapy would not be possible if the therapist consistently held negative attitudes and feelings towards their client (Witty, 2007). Rogers posits that therapists may not always start out with unconditional positive regard for their clients and that it exists on a continuum, whereby practitioners constantly work at and build upon a greater acceptance of their client. By being conscious of this third condition, therapists eventually develop feelings of warmth and care towards their clients, even if they have diverging views and opinions on certain behaviours and beliefs (Witty, 2007). Person-centred therapy embodies the notion of principled nondirectiveness, whereby the focus is not on the therapist’s methods and subjective frameworks, but rather on realising that the client is capable of directing their own development and growth. Witty (2007) argues that the only permissible goals in person-centred therapy are related to the therapist’s realisation of the therapeutic attitudes of congruence, empathetic understanding, and unconditional positive regard of the client. The nondirective attitude describes the attempt by the therapist to “…get under the skin of the person with whom he is communicating, he tries to get within and to live the attitudes expressed instead of observing them, to catch every nuance of their changing nature; in a word, to absorb himself completely in the attitudes of the other” (Witty, 2007, pp. 39). Witty (2007), also argues that this attempt to absorb oneself with the client leaves no room for any other counselling activities or attitudes; the therapist is attempting to live the attitudes of another, not trying to diagnose them. Proponents of the person-centred approach argue that valuing the subjective reality of the client is expressed through empathetic understanding and consistent attention to accepting the internal frame of reference of the client; embracing the client as a whole person ultimately empowers them. Witty (2007) posits that through the person-centred approach, clients become better able to describe their experiences in a more authoritative manner, and are also more assertive of their own beliefs, feelings, and ideas, and are more confident in forging their own paths in the future. The result for the client is an increase in self-confidence and personal stability. Due to the nature of person-centred therapy, there is very little in the way of an authoritative framework whereby the therapist places strict goals, practices and guidelines for the client to follow; it is much more client-directed and flexible. Witty (2007), however, notes that since she began practicing this approach, roughly 15% of her clients have initiated homework for themselves. She argues that clients sometimes take up the initiative to set personal goals for themselves, and actively work towards completing these goals without the direction of the therapist, and that this is due to the very nature of this therapeutic approach. It is also important to note that, although the emphasis is on the client’s process of empowerment, the therapist will often give advice and input when directly asked for by the client (Witty, 2007). Rogers, himself, had a set procedure and technique when conducting person-centred therapy, however due to the flexible nature of the approach different therapists handle the therapy in different ways. Rogers would give an introductory overview with the client before the therapy began, he would also constantly make sure the client knew that he was listening and being attentive. Rogers would consistently check that the client understood what he was saying, often by restating both what he had said, along with what the client had stated. In his therapy, Rogers would often probe deeper into an area that he felt the client was avoiding, usually by asking direct questions. Another important aspect of his therapy was to redirect pleas of guidance back onto the client (McLeod, 2009). McLeod (2009) also stresses that Rogers varied his techniques depending on the clients and their needs, and argues that it is sometimes more important to simply be human, rather than strictly adhering to theoretical frameworks. One of the main criticisms of person-centred therapy is the difficulty in remaining nondirective when working with clients. Cepeda argues that therapists bring their own subjective biases unwittingly into their work, and this leads to issues with keeping a nondirective role in their work with clients (2006). Advocates of nondirectivity posit that a social worker’s or therapist’s own theories and frameworks should in no way influence the client and their own subjective framework, as this can interfere with their client’s own journey of self-directed exploration. There are a number of person-centred therapists who believe that an interference with this self-directed autonomy is caused when a therapist willingly gives an empathetic interpretation to their client (Thorne, 2003). Proponents of nondirectivity argue a theory that attempts to encourage the therapist to understand and reflect upon the client’s own subjective framework, limiting the input from the therapist’s own subjective framework. This emphasises on the person-centred therapy as being primarily a one-person psychology, ignoring the influence and contributions of the therapist’s subjectivity. In addition, the emphasis placed on nondirectivity in the person-centred therapy, which is an approach focused on democratic ideals and values, can lead to a misunderstanding that the approach only consists of empathetic understanding. This misleading impression about the limitations of this approach can result in a decreased influence person-centred therapy can have in the wider psychological community (Macmillan, 2004). It is also important to understand that not all clients find nondirectivity in the person-centred therapy to be productive or conducive to their goals. Rogers notes that some clients feel nondirectivity is “…frustrating, constraining, counterproductive, annoying, and possibly indicative of passivity, lack of involvement, caring or willingness to help (2013).” In order to overcome the difficulties some clients face with nondirectivity, therapists need to be flexible in their approach, tailoring it to suit each individual client, based on the feedback received from them. It has also been argued that the person-centred approach to therapy is limited in its understanding - and ability to meet the needs - of many women who seek counselling. By placing the onus of change on the client, feelings of disempowerment and helplessness can arise, especially considering the change can stem from socio-political constraints (Cepeda, & Davenport, 2006). The humanist, person-centred approach to therapy continues to prove itself as one of the most popular and widely used approaches over the past fifty years, and has been extremely influential, often being integrated into other styles, techniques and approaches (Wilkins, 2010). Person-centred therapy is a unique approach to counselling that has attempted to remove the need for strict adherence to external structures and frameworks in therapy, instead relying on building a genuine, empathetic relationship with the client. The approach emphasises the power of the individual and the client to be active in shaping their own path, acknowledging that the client has the responsibility and power to unlock hidden potential and growth. References Cepeda, Lisa M; Davenport, Donna 2006, "Person-Centered Therapy and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: An Integration of Present and Future Awareness". Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training (Educational Publishing Foundation) Macmillan, Michael 2004, The Person-centered Approach to Therapeutic Change. Sage Therapeutic Change Series, London: Sage McLeod, J., 2009, Introduction to Counselling Open University Press, Maidenhead. Springer Science-Business Media, New York, Thorne, Brian 2003 Carl Rogers. Key Figures in Counseling and Psychotherapy Series, London: Sage. Witty, M., C, 2007, ‘Client-centred therapy’, Handbook of Homework Assignments in Psychotherapy Research, Practice, and Prevention. Rogers, Carl, Lyon, HC, Tausch, R, 2013, On Becoming an Effective Teacher -- Person-centered teaching, Psychology, Philosophy, and Dialogues with Carl R. Rogers and Harold Lyon. London Wilkins, Paul 2010 Person-centered Therapy – 100 Key points. London and New York: Routledge, Poyrazli, S 2003 Validity of Rogerian Therapy in Turkish Culture: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education & Development Worsley, R, 2002 Process Work in Person-centered Therapy: Phenomenological and Existential Perspectives. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books Read More