Carl Rogers and Person-Centred Counselling
Although this is a blog about self help, there are always times when we do need to look for others for help. For mental health, this often means counselling or therapy, a much misunderstood field. So I have decided to write a series of articles exploring different types of counselling and therapy, what they mean, how they work, and some of the pros and cons, together with some links to titles to read further about the different kinds of counselling.
First up, I decided to look at Person Centred, or Client Centred, therapy, from the humanistic school of thought. I am going with this first, because I have personally benefited from this type of counselling, and am indeed training to become a person-centred counsellor!
Person-centred counselling originated in the thinking of Carl Rogers, an eminent American psychologist. He believed that each individual human being had more knowledge and resources to promote their healing and growth than any therapist could ever have – so that the therapist’s job was to create conditions whereby the client could begin to explore and uncover these resources in themselves, rather than directly influence the client from a position of “expertise” or “greater knowledge”.
These conditions, often referred to as the “core conditions” for therapeutic change, are Congruence, Empathy, and Unconditional Positive Regard.
Congruence refers to a quality of “realness” or “genuiness” on the part of the therapist within the therapeutic relationship. In a world where people wear masks, the congruent therapist is not an actor, but a real person, someone who is self aware, has knowledge of their own person and individual issues, but who is not confused or anxious about being and expressing their true self as it is in that moment. In a world of facades, it is vital for the client to see the therapist as someone who will be true, who will be real, who will have the courage to honestly be and express who they are.
Empathy refers to the quality of the therapist being able to move around in the client’s frame of reference, to understand the client’s unique position and perspective. Not simply on a “I know how you feel” level, but by sharing the client’s feelings, by identifying what is going on for the client, by communicating this understanding to the client. Rogers considered it vital that this understanding was communicated to the client, so that the client knew they were being understood. This part of the therapeutic relationship is, like congruence, something that the client may rarely have experienced before.
Unconditional Positive Regard refers to the therapist’s ability to “prize” the client as a uniquely valuable person in their own right, without applying conditions of worth. Conditions of worth refer to the unfortunate tendency in society, and when growin up, to feel that one is only valuable when certain conditions are met. For example, “If I am a good boy, I have value; if get into a fight, I am bad and have less value.” or “If I like blue and everyone else likes red, I have less value than everyone else, because I am different.” or “If you are calm, that is more valuable than if you get angry.” In the therapeutic relationship, unconditional positive regard allows the client to start moving away from these conditions of worth, to start becoming a person in their own right, and stop being the person others want them to be. At some stage in the therapeutic process, they will learn that the therapist prizes them in spite of what they reveal about themselves, and this often leads to greater courage in expressing and exploring who they really are.
Combined, these conditions help the client to begin to trust themselves more, to move from a state of incongruence, towards congruence, and become more fully functioning.
Person-centred counselling is not without criticisms, one of which is that it might not be as effective for serious mental illness and is therefore a bit of a luxury for the “worried well”. Carl Rogers would disagree. To an extent, the outcomes of Person centred counselling are difficult to measure, whereas something like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) are favoured by, for example, the Uk NHS as proving a more measureable outcome. Client Centred therapy can take longer, but I am not convinced measurability is always key.
Personally, I have benefited hugely from person centred Counselling. I have moved from rigidity to fluidity, from anxiety to calm, from shyness to confidence. All thanks to experiencing the core conditions with my therapist. My next few years of studying Rogerian counselling/therapy are going to be a fantastic journey.
A selection of UK Person Centred Counselling Books:
A Selection of US Based Client Centred Counselling Books: