Person-Centered Therapy Approach - Essay Example

Person-Centered Therapy 2007 Person-centered therapy, is also known as client-centered, non-directive, or Rogerian therapy, is “an approach to counseling and psychotherapy that places much of the responsibility for the treatment process on the client, with the therapist taking a nondirective role” (Friedrich 2003). The primary goals of PCT are increased self-esteem and greater openness to experience. The expected changes are those of better self-understanding due to closer agreement between the client’s idealized and actual selves, lower levels of guilt, defensiveness, and insecurity, more positive and comfortable relationships with others, and an increased capacity to experience and express feelings at the moment they occur (Friedrich 2003). The client-centered therapy was developed in 1930s by an American psychologist Carl Rogers. Unlike other psychoanalytical schools, Roger based his theory on the belief into the innate good of human being. He also rejected the traditional hierarchic relationships, when the therapist was viewed as an all-knowing expert. The introduction of the term ‘client’ instead of ‘patient’ underlined this position. Roger supported the postulate of the human potential movement explaining human behavior by a drive to achieve one’s fullest potential (Pescitelli 1996). Perceiving human nature as good and trustworthy, Roger based his therapy on the actualizing tendency. He wrote: “Practice, theory and research make it clear that the person-centered approach is built on a basic trust in the person . . . (It) depends on the actualizing tendency present in every living organism’s tendency to grow, to develop, to realize its full potential. This way of being trusts the constructive directional flow of the human being toward a more complex and complete development. It is this directional flow that we aim to release” (Rogers, 1986, p. 198). In case self-actualization is blocked by unhealthy concepts of self, the individual starts having psychological problems. Having focused on self-actualization Roger developed his client-centered approach to make people analyze their inner potential themselves without interventions and external control. Roger introduced such kinds of work as encounter groups. He widely used massage and meditation, communing with nature, consciousness raising, organic food (Messina PPT lectures). Roger distinguished three core therapist’s attitudes that are more important than knowledge: congruence/ genuineness, unconditional positive regard and accurate emphatic understanding. First of all, the therapist should be himself in the relationships with his client, “putting up no professional front or personal facade”. Second, in creating a climate of change the therapist should experience “a positive, nonjudgmental, accepting attitude toward whatever the client is at that moment”, demonstrating ‘acceptance, or caring or prizing’. Third, the therapist should sense accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and communicate this acceptant understanding to the client (Rogers cited in Brodley 1986). Thus there are six “necessary and sufficient conditions” of the successful CCT: 1. Two persons are in psychological contact. 2. The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious. 3. The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship. 4. The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client. 5. The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client. 6. The communication to the client of the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved (Roger 1957, Cited in Bozarth 1998). Speaking of the essence of the approach Bozarth and Brodley wrote: “The essence of CC/PC therapy is the therapist’s dedication to going with the client’s direction, at the client’s pace and in the client’s unique way of being” (Bozarth 1988, p.59, in Bozarth 1998) And: “It is the full commitment . . .to trust in the client’s own way of going about dealing with his problems and his life” (Brodley 1988, p.59, in Bozarth 1998, Chapter 1). The process of therapy goes as follows. The client concentrates on externals not self, describing his feelings but not recognizing (“owning”) them personally and talking of self as an object in terms of past experiences while of his feelings in present but detachedly. Accepting his feelings in immediacy and richness, the client learns to trust new experiences and relate to others openly and freely (Messina, PPT Lectures). The tasks of the therapist, as Mathew Ryan (1999) puts it, are: “to listen and try to understand how things are from the client’s point of view; check that understanding and treat the client with the utmost respect and regard”. The therapist should focus on the quality of the relationships, being genuine, integrated and authentic, and serving as a model of a human being struggling toward greater realness. The therapist can openly express feelings and attitudes (Messina, PPT Lectures). Being nondirective, the CCT is often useful in case when traditional directive approaches do not work. So the recent study at Delphos Institute revealed that person-centered therapy is “an effective strategy for the promotion of childrens and adolescents resilience, even in the context of multiple adverse conditions such as socioeconomic disadvantage, neglect, maltreatment, and abandonment”. The authors conclude that the multicultural feature of PCT “explains its effectiveness in this distinct population of Brazilian lower-class and non-White children and adolescents” (Schmitt Freire et al. 2005, p. 225). Person-centered therapy has often been criticized for the absence of strict structure and non-directiveness. Much criticism has been directed at Rogers’ “necessary and sufficient conditions”. However, researchers indicate that this may come only from misunderstanding of the theory. Rogers’ approach is used by most of modern psychological schools building the therapist-client relationships on the principles proclaimed by CCT. It should be also noted that Rogers’ views developed through his life. So Bowen (1996) pointed to the change, which took place in Rogers as a therapist by the end of his life. In a demonstration session with a client named Jill Rogers implements a very directive style and makes numerous interpretations. Bowen suggests that “nondirectiveness is an illusion, except where therapists are overly passive, have such a slow reaction time that to identify what is going on within themselves and with the client is difficult, or are technique-bound” (pp. 89-90); and further “therapists are constantly making choices...as to which aspect of what the client is saying they are going to respond” (p. 90). Similar observations are made by Brodley (1996), who describes her impressions of Rogers’ session with his ‘anger and hurt’ client. Carl Rogers behaves in ‘a systematically directive way’ and seems “to have specific objectives for the client” (p.312). Reexamining the notion of unconditional positive regard, Lietaer (1984) argues that Carl Rogers reinforced client behavior selectively (p.46) and wrote that “with more seriously disturbed clients unconditionality may be experienced as indifference and that a more conditional and demanding attitude is probably more effective in building up a relationship” (p.46). Obviously, there needed a combined approach to CCT. Greenberg, Elliott and Lietaer (1994) suggest that “One possibility is to provide a balance of directive and nondirective elements individualized for each client” (p. 533). It is a mistake to consider that the person-centered therapist needs only to focus on observing the core conditions, and all will be well. Moreover, Means (1994) strictly warns therapists against this mistake, while personal therapy cannot substitute personal development. Finally, Rice (1984) writes of different kinds of ‘task-relevant relationship factors’, facilitating different kinds of ‘cognitive-affective reprocessing tasks’. She suggests that “successful client-centered therapy involves the resolution of a series of cognitive-affective reprocessing tasks, and that therapists can become much more effective facilitators of these reprocessing functions if they can recognize and understand some of the different classes of tasks that clients undertake in productive psychotherapy” (p. 183). Rice explains that contrary to the person-centered dogma as it is viewed by many, “the selective use of different therapist responses to facilitate particular reprocessing tasks need not be inconsistent with the primary relationship conditions”. In this case, the client is still ‘the expert on his or her own experience’ and the therapist is ‘the expert on process’. “In other words, the therapist will be somewhat process-directive, but the “track” that is being followed will be the client’s own” (p. 183). Carl Rogers’ person-centered approach remains one of the leading branches of psychotherapy and counseling. His core concepts laid foundation for the modern notion of therapist-client favorable relationships. However, it should be understood, that this system is not a closed one. Person-centered therapy has its dynamics and it can and should be implemented in combination with other psychotherapeutic approaches. References: Bozarth, Jerald. D. (1998). Person-centered Therapy: A revolutionary paradigm. Ross-on-Wye, England: PCCS Books. Chapter 1. Retrieved January 27, 2008 form personcentered.com/pcch1.html - 40k Bowen, M. (1996). The Myth of Nondirectiveness: The Case of Jill. In Farber, B.A., Brink, D.D., and P.M. Raskin (eds), The Psycotherapy of Carl Rogers: Cases and Commentary. New York: Guilford Press, 1996. pp. 84-94. Brodley, B.T. (1996). Uncharacteristic Directiveness: Rogers and the “Anger and Hurt” Client. In Farber et al (1996). pp. 310-21. Brodley, Barbara T. (1986). CCT - What Is It What Is It Not. Presented at the First Annual Meeting of the Association for the Development of the Person-Centered Approach which met in Chicago, Illinois at International House on the University of Chicago Campus September 3 – 7. Retrieved January 27, 2008 from http://world.std.com/~mbr2/whatscct.html Friedrich, Sandra L (2003). Person-centered therapy. Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders. FindArticles.com. 29 Jan. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5197/is_2003/ai_n19119473 Greenberg, L., Elliott, R. and G. Lietaer (1994). Research on Experiential Psychotherapies. In Bergin, A.E. and S.L. Garfield (eds), Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, 4th edition. New York: Wiley, 1994. pp. 509-39. Lietaer, G. (1984). Unconditional Positive Regard: A Controversial Basic Attitude in Client-Centered Therapy. In Levant, R.F. and J.M. Shlien (eds), Client-Vetered Therapy and the Person-Cetered Aprorcah: New Directions in Theorry, Research and Practice. New York: Praeger, 1984. pp. 41-58. Mearns, D. (1994). Personal Therapy is Not Enough. In Mearns, D. Developing Person-Centred Counselling. London: Sage, 1994. pp. 34-36. Messina, James J. Person-Centered (Humanistic)Therapy. C6436 Individual Counseling Theory and Practice. PPT Lectures. Retrieved January 27, 2008 www.coping.org/write/C6436counselther/lectures/C6436-5th-Humanistic.ppt Pescitelli, Dagmar (1996). Rogerian Therapy. Personality & Consciousness. Retrieved January 27, 2008 from pandc.ca/?cat=carl_rogers&page=rogerian_therapy - 10k Rice, L.N. (1984). Client Tasks in Client-Centered Therapy. In Levant and Shlien (1984), pp. 182-202 Roger, Carl R. (1986). A Client-centered/Person-centered Approach to Therapy. In Kutash J.C. and A. Wolf (Eds.), Psychotherapist’s casebook: theory and technique in practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp.197-208 Ryan Mathew (1999). Short Description of Client-Centered Therapy. Retrieved January 27, 2008 from world.std.com/~mbr2/cct.html - 6k Schmitt Freire, Elizabeth, Koller, Silvia Helena, Piason, Aline, Da Silva, Renata Beatriz (2005). Person-Centered Therapy with Impoverished, Maltreated and Neglected Children and Adolescents in Brazil. Journal of Mental Health Counseling. Volume: 27. Issue: 3. 225-237. Read More