The person-centered approach to counseling has its roots
in the work of Carl Rogers, who moved away from the previously deterministic
paradigms of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. These prior ideologies were
significant as they laid the foundation for what was to come. However these
precursory approaches on working with clients had been characterized by
treating the person coming into therapy as a patient, who lacked free will
(McLeod, 2013)
What Carl Rogers did was pioneer a movement that drew
away from the original question a therapist would ask themselves “How can I
treat or cure this patient?” to the quite apparently non-directive “How can I
provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
(Rogers, 1961). By listening not diagnosing, Rogers and the humanistic movement
that grew alongside radically challenged the norms that the therapist was the
expert, that clients lack free will and further, he placed the relationship
between client and counselor at the heart of practice. While this shift was
revolutionary in its inception in the mid 20th Century, it is no
less important to review now. This essay will attempt to appraise the
person-centered approach and to further a critical appreciation of its
practical application in its current context.
The key concepts
underpinning Rogerian or humanistic theory were built upon the idea that clients
have an innate ability to self-heal (Mearns & Thorne, 2007). They are able
to do this because all people have the ability to find their own solutions with
support, and that we are all intrinsically good. People have within them an
organismic valuing process that tells us what is good for us and that we know
what will contribute to our well-being (Mearns & Thorne, 2007). By
witnessing the results that came from simply being with a client, Rogers belief
that the environment was crucial to personal growth began to take hold led him
to examine the therapeutic environment and come to a position that the
therapist should display a set of values and attitudes toward the client,
supporting their innate attitude to heal themselves. This relationship is
marked by three core characteristics, the core conditions of empathy, congruence
and unconditional positive regard.
Being present in the
here and now or having empathy is a core condition for a person centered
approach. It can be thought of as trying to see the world through someone else’s
eyes or trying to feel their feelings. Congruence, another core condition is
very much about genuinness and honesty and integrity being a pillar of the
relationship. Rogers view was in fact that the act of choosing to be real with
others was the single most important decision a person can make (Lees-Oakes, 2011).
Unconditional positive regard is a fundamentally warm and accepting attitude a
counselor must have towards his client. It’s a non-judgmental attitude that
deeply values the humanity of the client which is not deflected by any
particular client behaviors.
Also inherent within
the person centered approach is the idea that people have within them an innate
drive to better themselves, to reach their potential and to self-actualize.
This function of the human condition is something that drives us as individuals
to travel towards this collection of goals or ideals. For the counselor this
means that they can hold firm with confidence that the client sat oppositve
them will if given the right opportunities and environment strive towards what
ever it is that they want to become. Accepting this means that the counselor
can trust their client as the expert on themselves. However it is useful also to be mindful of the
negative influences that can distort our conscious goals away from our
actualizing tendencies (Mearns & Thorne, 2007).
By recognizing that
the actualizing tendency can become distorted a therapist can be aware of the
pressures that are placed upon the client, and this greater understand might
create a greater empathic response. By knowing other aspects of the person
centered understanding of the self such as a person’s locus of evaluation and
whether it is internal or external might enable a counselor to better
appreciate the extent to which the client is acting on his thoughts and feeling
or upon those of others around them. By knowing this and understanding this it
can surely help the counselor to understand the person opposite.
However, it is worth
noting the pitfalls that can befall therapists in the person-centered field.
For example it is the opinion of this author that by expanding the
understanding of the client before him, the therapist may unknowingly draw
conclusions and bias as to how the client could or should be re-organizing.
Essentially a paradox of furthering the understanding of the person centered
approach is to unwittingly become more knowing of the client and potentially
create environments or construct direction in the exchanges. While well meaning
the steering of the sessions by the well-informed counselor is certainly a trap
that would undermine the very essence of the client as the expert.
Person centered counseling is in this authors mind very
much the foundation of therapy. To be valuing of the client, to be with them
every step of the way, to feel that the client themselves knows what is best
for them all seems to be so crucial a perspective to have in working in the
clients best interests. The view of the client is that they will move through a
process of development as they become enabled to change from a rigid view of
the world that has kept them passive and accepting of fate, to a more flexible
and fluid state of being able to adapt to what life has thrown and will throw
at them by through being honest and congruent to themselves and others
(Lees-Oakes, 2011). From a person-centered perspective the process of helping a
client is to a large extent enabled or facilitated by establishing a
relationship between counselor and client. It is that relationship and its
depth that best create an environment for growth and change in the client. As
the relational depth is characterized by the core conditions, it follows then
that the client will feel safe and trusting and be open to experiencing and re-organizing
their thoughts and experiences.
One criticism of the person centered approach is that it
describes a way of being that is in actuality a collection of ideals, that it
can never actually be achieved (Thorne & Sanders, 2012). For the therapist
to offer completely unconditional positive regard or similarly be completely
empathic for example, are impossible ideals and therefore not attainable ways
of being (Lees-Oakes, 2016). Further, it has been noted in contemporary
research that a person-centered approach could reasonably be found to be
lacking with certain presentations such as severe mental disorders, working
with clients who lack empathy (sociopathic) or for clients who may simply want
a more structured and involved approach to support. This author finds these
critiques valid and can relate to his own experience of working with addictions
to reinforce some measure of contemplation for applying more directive
approaches. However despite these areas for exploration into the application of
the person centered approach this author still views the very essence of
humanistic practice, namely the core conditions, as the very necessary basis
being the foundation for all therapy.
To elaborate I find drug or alcohol clients are possibly
less able to access their actualizing tendency as it seems to be hidden from
them somewhat by the overwhelming desires and drives to stave off withdrawal in
what I perceive as a short termist life that they have forged. Being
contemplative or thoughtful enough to step inside that world for both parties
is in this author’s experience, an idealistic goal. Secondly, the very fact
that a therapist may be working with clients that are causing harm to
themselves, or placing others including children at risk means that a duty of
care can override the focus of the time spent with the client. It can sometimes
be necessary to limit harm, reduce risks and make quick assessments to ensure
that the client is safe and others are equally so. While this is a pressure on
this authors journey into applying humanistic techniques, it certainly is not
the situation that trusting the client to know what is best for them and that
their organismic valuing process cannot be trusted. Indeed contemporary
research suggests that it is helpful to understand the evolution of the
self-concept that may have been distorted by conditions of worth in a
drug-using client (Wilders & Robinson, 2012). Indeed by applying the core
conditions and offering unconditional acceptance, the conditions of worth could
potentially be lessened thus enabling the client to re-evaluate their defenses
and hopefully increase congruence.
It can certainly be noticed that there is a prevalence
of more quick fix therapies in the helping environment. For this reason there
is possibly a strain on the appropriateness of person-centered therapy, as it
requires a period of relationship building. Other approaches offer diagnoses
and this is likely an attractive feature, as it would provide some understanding
for the client, or at least the illusion of. However if we consider how
imperative it must be to have a meaningful and honest relationship with another
person, and what that could enable, it is the opinion of this author that the
person-centered therapy is incredibly appropriate in the modern day.
To this author the modern world is characterized by a
life that from the earliest age channels us like cattle through a system designed
solely to create contributors to an economy. We enter into a class structure we
will likely never leave and are faced with a media placing impossible
aspirations upon us all, yet it simultaneously fools us into feeling as if we
could rise like the American dream. How can our organismic valuing processes
compete with this onslaught? We are foisted into a soulless existence of
consumerism whereby we can enter the lottery, enter the X factor, get on Big
Brother and have our 15 minutes. We are bombarded with messages that fame or
adoration are things to value. While playing this game it must be all too easy
to lose touch with who we are and what we really want. It surely is all too
easy to get lost in the constant ‘learn, work, breed, consume’ march to our
coffins, that our identity and our relationships are such a fallen priority
that we cannot maintain a healthy connection with ourselves. For these reasons
this author feels that the relevance of a person-centered approach, as has been
described, is greater than ever before.
In conclusion, knowing from my own experience of
supervision and working with clients just how valuable the connection and
relational depth can be, the importance of the quality of the relationship in
person-centered therapy brings this author to advocate applying the core
conditions at all times in his interactions with clients. To me it is an
optimistic and positive way to interact as it fosters mutual understanding and
lays the foundation for what is to happen next, a relationship between client
and counselor. In reality though, gaining a greater understanding of certain
conditions that clients present, has also led me to be mindful of competing
pressures and that there may be times when a more structured approach is
necessary given the practical and environmental pressures that lack of time and
resources will no doubt generate in the real world. Further, certain presentations,
which have been explored, such as types of severe depression, historical abuse
or abandonment and the complex issues that often present with drug and alcohol
addicted clients may not lend themselves well to a purely person-centered
approach (Lees-Oakes, 2016). However, from this authors experience, his perception
of the consumerist environment in which he feels a hapless observer and
contemporary research presented in this essay, the humanistic approach to
working with clients, whereby they are valued, respected and listened to, must exist,
for the very necessary basis for the foundation of the relationship that occurs
between client and counselor. It is on this very foundation that the
environment can be created to facilitate personal growth, in all people.
References
·
Lees-Oakes, R. (2011) Person Centered Therapy. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ySUml2Cxmc
(Accessed 8 March 2016).
·
Lees-Oakes, R. (2016) Critique
of Carl Rogers, Counselling Tutor [Podcast].
4 March 2016. Available at: http://www.counsellingtutor.com/category/podcast/
(Accessed 9 March 2016).
·
McLeod, S. (2013) Free will and determinism in psychology Available
at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/freewill-determinism.html
(Accessed 8 March 2016).
·
Mearns, D & Thorne, B.
(2007) Person Centered Counselling in
Action 3rd Ed. Sage. London.
·
Rogers, C. (1961) On becoming a person: A therapists view of
psychotherapy. Amazon.com [Kindle]. Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005DKRFLO?keywords=carl%20rogers%20on%20becoming%20a%20person&qid=1457516697&ref_=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2&sr=8-1
(Accessed 12 January 2016).
·
Thorne, B. & Sanders, P.
(2012) Carl Rogers 3rd Ed.
Sage. London.
·
Wilders, S. & Robinson, S.
(2012) Addiction: Is counseling
sufficient? Therapy Today.net. Available at http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/3100/from-the-archive/
(Accessed 8 March 2016).
No comments:
Post a Comment