Person-Centered Theory
Carl Rogers developed person-centered therapy because he saw people "as strong and capable and trusted their ability to handle their difficulties, grow and develop, and realize their potential" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014, p.149). The goal of treatment was to help individuals get these abilities back and make use of their inner resources in order to become happier and more fulfilled in their lives. "The client is viewed as having the power and motivation to help themselves and are given the responsibility to solve their own problems with little guidance from the therapist" (Langmaid, 2014)
Goals
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Concepts
Humanism - The focus on human strengths rather than divine or supernatural matters.
Human Potential - People are naturally inclined to toward actualization, expansion, growth, and health.
Actualization - A person's full potential, self-actualization is different for each individual. Roger's believed that people "need the right conditions to enable them to evolve in holistic and unified ways" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 149). This process often takes an entire lifetime.
Human Potential - People are naturally inclined to toward actualization, expansion, growth, and health.
Actualization - A person's full potential, self-actualization is different for each individual. Roger's believed that people "need the right conditions to enable them to evolve in holistic and unified ways" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 149). This process often takes an entire lifetime.
Conditions of Worth - This develops in people's through childhood and what kinds of interactions they have with the most important people in their lives. Negative interactions create negative conditions of worth. "The child's personal sense of worth is dependent on how others regard them" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p.150).
Organismic Valuing Process - "A person's intuitive ability to understand what they need in order to feel fulfilled and self-actualized" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 150). Typically a person will feel a nagging sense that something is wrong and they will take action to change that in order to be fulfilled. If a person is only acting to please others and not themselves, they feel a sense of incongruence, which results in confusion, anxiety, and adjustment problems.
The Fully Functioning Person - The following characteristics are what Carl Roger's believed a person required in order to be considered fully functioning:
- Openness to experience
- Living with a sense of meaning and purpose
- Trust and congruence in self
- Unconditional positive self-regard and regard of others
- Being fully aware in the moment
- Living creatively
Phenomenological Perspective - Each person reacts to life situations as it pertains to their own reality. For example a house with a family of 5 gets the news that they are snowed in and cannot leave. Each person will take this information differently depending on their own reality. They will each produce different behaviors, thoughts and emotions.
Treatment
Carl Roger's viewed the following conditions necessary for therapy. Without them the client will not be able to to initiate a personality change
Overall the environment needs to feel safe and the counselor needs to accept the client as they are and support them no matter what. There are no techniques or therapeutic tools used with this type of therapy. It is simply the environment the counselor and client are in and these conditions that are necessary for change to occur. |
Unconditional Positive Regard
"Caring about, respecting, linking, and accepting people the way they are without placing any requirements on them to act, feel, or think in certain ways to please their clinicians" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 156). Empathy "Temporarily living in the other's life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments; it means sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 157) Congruence "The clinicians' ability to be genuine and authentic, well integrated, and aware of themselves and how they are perceived by others" (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014 p. 155) |
Example
Information provided by:
Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (October 22, 2006). Person centered therapy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew8CAr1v48M
Langmaid, Roy. (January 6, 2014). Psychology on a page 7- Carl rogers. Retrieved from http://www.langmaidpractice.com/blog/psychology-on-a-page-carl-rogers/
Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L. (2014). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills. (4th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (October 22, 2006). Person centered therapy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew8CAr1v48M
Langmaid, Roy. (January 6, 2014). Psychology on a page 7- Carl rogers. Retrieved from http://www.langmaidpractice.com/blog/psychology-on-a-page-carl-rogers/
Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L. (2014). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills. (4th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.