Person Centred Perspective - Essay Example

Person Centred Perspective and Their Impact on Personal and Professional Development. In this essay I will be analysing my group supervision session from the person centred perspective the section was conducted for twenty minutes, where I was the supervisee I will be Identify the key moments and reflect on how they impact upon my own personal and professional development and I will also demonstrate my understanding and integration of person centred theory into practice. The person-Centred Theory was developed from the works of a psychologist Carl Rogers (1902-1987). The theory was considered revolutionary because initially it was described as non-directive, it moved away from the presumption that the therapist was considered the expert on a theory that had trust in the actualizing tendency of every human being to find fulfilment of personal potentials (Prinz 2007, p. 22). Right from the onset, an aspect of psychological contact is evident in the session. In a psychological environment, according to Rogers as quoted by Wilkins (2009), it is visible that the fulfilment of personal potentials involves the aspect of sociability, the need for other human beings and the desire to know and be known by other people. Although, at first, as a supervisee I felt uncomfortable, “I am not happy, I feel frustrated…it seems annoying…” but still I showed the willingness to be there and share my experience. Evidently, the thoughts of me not able to help those who are alcoholic addicts weighed on her shoulders that I felt uneasy sharing her experience. However I still felt the need to be there, to open myself and owing to the sense of friendliness during the sharing (Brown & Prout 2007, p.21). This indicated a feeling of consistency with the person-centred theory’s first condition (PCT) as postulated by Rogers. During the session, as the supervisee I showed signs of being incongruent, a state of being vulnerable and anxious. The supervisors made me feel that I could be heard pouring out my sorrows about how I felt during placement where I worked with alcohol addicts. The supervisor 1 was consistent with the theory since she allowed me to take the conversation to whatever direction I wanted as it is only the client that knows what hurts most and, what is more, critical. The supervisor 3 just interjected to pose a question or two during my supervision, which were directive questions. Evidently, the supervisor 1 made me feel wanted as a supervisee and made me feel that I was not alone and that the experience she was explicating during the sharing was a real one and a useful one. True to what Roger (2004, p.18) indicated that real relationship had a unique way of being vital and meaningful, the supervisor enable to relive the experience I had working with people who are victims of alcohol (Embleton et al. 2004, p. 68). Further, I was fully aware of my feelings and did portray them as true to my feelings. Notably, the supervisor 2’s commitment to empathic understanding allowed them to walk into my subjective world and so enable them understand my situation. This evidently is my consistency to one condition of the Roger’s theory of counselling and therapy. I was able to view the problem of alcoholic addiction as a social disruptive to the wellbeing of society (Embleton et al. 2004, p. 78). Empathic understanding is Rogers’ second therapeutic condition dictates that the supervisor understands the supervisee’s thoughts, feelings, and meanings from the supervisee’s perspective. During the session, I felt accepted and that my sharing had value since the supervisor perceives the world from the point of view of the supervisee. Empathy, according to Rogers is a way of being in relation to the supervisee. This indicates that a supervisor often tend to adopt and assumes the challenges that the supervisee faces and is able to have his/her frame of reference. During the session, supervisor 1 showed evident signs of adopting my position and assume the challenges even as I narrated my story. Evidently, by adopting my position, supervisor could fully understand my situation and so accompany me in the path of therapy (Roger 2004, p. 23). This is considerably consistent with Rogerian therapeutic condition which stipulated that the supervisor take the frame of reference of the supervisee as a way of guiding him/her through the process of self- actualization (Harkens, 2010). Again as the supervisee, I was also consistent with the Roger’s theory of counselling and therapy since I opened myself freely and allow the counsellor in my life experiences and enable them guide me through willingly. Supervisor 3 also showed signs of consistency with the specific condition of Roger’s person centred theory. During the whole session the therapist listened and somehow understood sensitively and accurately without interrupting the sharing. However, the supervisor never sympathized with me as I was sharing my part of the story or experience and feelings at that very moment. From a general stand point, the therapists were consistent and none showed signed signs of deviations. This, in accordance to the theory by Rogers is consistent in the sense that the supervisors were able to follow closely my feelings while I was sharing my predicament with alcoholics. True to the words of Karl Rogers, the supervisors were open to the way of life as I did experience it and somehow they came into my world. They showed signed to empathize with me and this made me develop confidence in myself to pour out my experience openly. Arguably, through this the supervisor is able to find a suitable therapy for the problems that a supervisee experiences (Rogers 2003, p. 75). Accordance to the conditions stipulated by Karl Rogers, during empathy, it is the sole responsibility of the supervisor to assume the internal frame of reference and so try to visualize the happenings and experience of the supervisee. This created a friendly atmosphere where I could communicate freely and the supervisors could speak vividly to me the empathic understanding of what I have experienced (Cain 2010, p.105). As the supervisee, taking advantage of the friendly atmosphere that was presented to me, I openly poured out my sorrows to the supervisors. The supervisors only interjected briefly to pose questions which I gladly responded to in my narration. Somehow I was congruent in the sense that I was genuine and truthful in my narration. That is to say I was literally consistent to that condition by Karl Rogers that required supervisee or the supervisor to be genuinely present their cases in the sharing. In reflection of Roger’s theory being congruent is one of the most important attribute in counselling. This attribute allows the supervisee to reveal little of their own personality during their therapy. In this light, it was evident that during the sessions, in as much as the supervisors gave me room to say from my heart thy remained authentic. According to Rogers, the actualizing tendency is often regarded as positive. One aspect of enabling a client to actualize him/herself is to the therapist unconditional positive regard. Consistently with the theory of Rogers, the supervisor believed and had trust in my potentials to actualize myself (Worall & Tudor 2006, p. 57). This attitude made me feel that I am valued as I am rather than being viewed from the point of view of my experience. I must confess that I felt a deep and genuine sense of care right from the beginning. Towards the end of the session, no attempt was made to stop me. This indicated the level of trust that the supervisor had in me to self-actualize myself amidst the chaotic environment. During the discussions, it observed that some of the experience I had with the alcohol addicts seemed weighed a lot on my esteem since most of them show no respect to me by talking rudely regardless of her tireless efforts to help them regain their health back (Merry 2000, p. 78). This clearly discouraged me in my efforts to assist the addicts to continue with the detox because some of them just ignore it as a whole. This is consistent with the PCT. From the person centred theory perspective, the supervisor has the duty of promoting the conditions for the change than doing things that are likely to bring specific changes in the client (Cain 2010, p.100). While empathizing with the client the counsellors left their frame of reference and adopted the frame of reference of the client. Thus both the client and the therapist were consistent with the theory of PCT. Observably, during the session, the supervisor was more inconsistent with PCT than consistent since in a way the counsellor feared entering the client's world and becoming emotionally involved. Projectively, maybe, the counsellors felt if they would allow themselves into the client's world, the might have found it difficult after the session to leave her world. In which case they would start thinking and owning my problems. Therefore during the session the supervisor felt that it was worthy to take control and so be directors of the conversation than let themselves into the client’s world. However, the counsellor did not judge the client from her narrated experience. Harkens (2010) in her article of Percy the car, highlights that an individual’s behaviour is consistent with self-concept. She noted that as Percy was growing older, he still caused accidents despite numerous efforts to improve its shape and lights and slowing down his driving speed, however these did not help. This illustrates that how an individual perceives himself and behaves, originates from the personal concept that the individual have. This in a way will influence greatly how one views situations and so exploits his/her potentials and abilities (Cain 2010, p.112). From the sessions it was evident that the addicts had the perceptions that drinking alcohol helped reduce stress and its related effects. In a way, this inhibits my effort to help them realize for themselves that consumption of alcohol is very dangerous to their health. My attitude which I presented in the sharing indicated that she was not actually consistent with the actualizing tendency postulated by Rogers. Openly, I was inconsistent with theory since the client did not trust the addict's actualizing tendency (Harkens 2010, p.118). Inconsistently with Rogerian’s psychotherapy sixth condition I seemed not to have achieved the perception of the supervisor positive regards and empathetic understanding. Evidently, towards the end of the session, I just left without receiving encouragements and supporting words from the supervisor (Worall & Tudor 2006, p. 55). Additionally, the supervisors could have interjected encouragements especially while I was sharing the negative reactions from the addicts which greatly impacted on my professional development. In person centred theory as highlighted by Rogers, a supervisor’s positive responses shows how much committed is the supervisor in understanding my inner subjective world and then expressing the extent of that understanding (Worall & Tudor 2006, p. 60). This will enable the supervisor see the reality through my perspective and thus giving the supervisor the meanings and how to find solutions to the looming problems that I did present. This is however, not the case in the instances between me and the alcohol addicts. In the case where positive relationship between the client and the supervisor is missing and the whole event would act as a blow on my professional developments. Notably, “…why waste my time helping those who don’t want to help themselves…” emphasizes my discouragement when I fail to make no progress in helping the alcohol addicts to stop their drinking habits (Rogers 2003, p. 67). A person’s experiences should be positive and these will improve the ability and self-esteem of the person. This form of distorted experiences being imposed on someone often denies him/her the opportunity of self-awareness hence eventually leading to “incongruence” between the actual experience of the person and that which is perceived society (Embleton et al 2004, p. 81). The overall result of this incongruence is total tension on the person, confusion and maladaptive behaviour (Rogers 2003, p. 75). Moreover, another condition that can have negative impact on a person can be caused by over exposure to dominating environments. This will also cause the person to have low self-esteem as he/she will be in an overprotected environment with very little or no exposure to the real world where he/she can easily experience the real situations of life. This lack of real life experience also hinders the individual from realizing his/her real self and exploiting his/her potentials (Prinz 2007, p.92). Professionally, person centred approach ensures that the supervisee in a placement session is at the centre of decision making process on issues that relate to his/her lives. Essentially, this approach enables not only supervisor but also the therapists to understand what every individual person wants and needs in order to live their own, personally define good life society (Embleton et al 2004, p. 88). Since the person centred process involves listening, thinking together with the client, coaching and sharing of ideas as well as seeking feedback, the process ensures adequate support of each person towards their personal goals. Through this process I was able to fully actualize myself by realizing my innate potentials and abilities (Rogers 2003, p. 75). Moreover, sociality is another key aspect of every human being’s social life. This theory recognizes the involvement of other people in one’s life to bring a difference into the other. As such it encourages personal initiative of openness to share personal feelings and experiences to other people who should also listen objectively and non-judgmentally (Brown & Prout 2007, p.21; Prinz 2007, p.97) This form of therapy is considered to be one of the best therapy for various mental and psychological problems. The therapy is based on the assumption that every individual has the ability and the potential to understand themselves and can solve their own problems (Prinz 2007, p.95). When a person becomes unable to realize his potential and abilities, then the individual is considered to be having mental or emotional problem that makes him behave differently. Rogers (2003, p. 98) in his view held that; “the inner core of man’s personality is the organism itself, which essentially is both self- preserving and social”. This indicates that human in itself can be considered an organism that is both trustworthy and always strives to achieve its full potential and exploit its abilities. This is what Rogers referred to actualizing tendency. To this end, the psychologist held that if every individual is given conducive environment and the right conditions, they will work to achieve and exploit their full potentials (Worall & Tudor 2006, p. 66). In reference to this, the able to find solutions to the daily challenges that she had faced especially in her encounter with alcohol addicts. As such through this, I was to actualize myself and fully satisfy both my psychological and physical needs (Rogers 2003, p. 80). In accordance to person – centred therapy, much emphasis is placed on the type and quality of relationship between myself and the supervisor who are equal partners than on the techniques used to administer the medication (Rogers 2003, p. 29). This is because if there is mutual and positive relationship between the two, then the supervisor can easily help liberate me from the blockage to actualizing tendency (Brown & Prout 2007, p.100). This therapy is self-actualizing because; the sole role of the supervisor was to provide the client with the necessary conditions where her personal growth process was encouraged. In this case, the supervisor only acted as a guide to the presentation of her experience on her own without coercion or judgment. Thus enabled the client to fully understand myself and so self-actualize my potentials (Merry 1995, p.51). With the supervisor taking the semi-perceive role in the sessions, the client was also able to realize that her own perceptions of things are accepted (Prinz 2007, p.88). Furthermore, congruency of the supervisor is very vital as this congruency greatly influenced the client’s attitude during the presentation. For instance, if the supervisor could have shown me an outward welcoming approach, yet in the inside is a feeling irritation, then the whole process could have been compromised (Cain 2010, p.117). Again the very acts of genuineness as demonstrated by the counsellor, made me to build trust with the supervisor and so the feeling of acceptance and that of being understood. Moreover, the supervisor’s empathetic understanding and the unconditional positive regards enabled me as the supervisee to have the feeling that the environment where they were, she was understood and fully accepted (Brown & Prout 2007, p.115). This form of communication, with regards to Roger’s person centre theory, is only possible if the supervisor’s attitude towards my positive growth and the two fully understand the other (Prinz 2007, p.96). The placement session was considerably important for my personal development as it presented her the chance to fully function and have positive attitude towards the reality of life (Brown & Prout 2007, p. 99). Therefore, therefore it was worth noting that, the six features of person centred therapy; empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard, play very vital role in the human development during the therapy sessions as they enhance the relationships between the client and the supervisor (Wilkins 2009, p.61). Conclusion From the above analysis of the sessions, it is very evident that person centred therapy process is very humanistic and helps improve an individual’s wellbeing and also improve his/her personal developments. Person centred therapy gives the client the chance to realize his/her own abilities and potential without any form of coercion. This is very important in personal development of any being because it helps them identify the easiest and best solution to their problems and what suites them. The process also gives the clients a feeling of acceptance and understanding through the mutual relationships with the therapist. The three conditions that are vital in person centred therapy are empathy, UPR and congruence. These help in finding solutions to mental and emotional problems besides improving personal developments as they help the therapist in their communication with the clients thereby enabling them find the best approach for the problems. List of References Brown, D, & Prout, H 2007, Counselling and Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents: Theory and Practice for School and Clinical Settings, John Wiley and Sons, New York Cain, D 2010, Person-Centred Psychotherapies, American Psychological Association, Washington DC Embleton, G, Mike, W, & Keith, T 2004, Freedom to Practice Volume 11: Developing person – centred Approaches to Supervision, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Merry, T 1995, Invitation to Person Centred Psychology, Whurr Printers: London Merry, T 2000, Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, PCCS Books, New Delhi pg43 Prinz, J J 2007, The emotional construction of morals, Oxford University Press: Oxford. Rogers, C 2003, Client-Centred Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implication and Theory, Constable & Robinson Limited, New York Wilkins, P 2009, Person-Centred Therapy: 100 Key Points, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Worall, M & Tudor, K 2006, Person- Centred Therapy: A Clinical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Read More