Instructions for Beginning to

Practice Client-Centered Therapy

Barbara Temaner Brodley, Ph.D.
Illinois School of Professional Psychology, Chicago

Client-centered therapy is a therapy based on attitudes. Unlike other therapies its essence
involves the implementation of therapeutic attitudes congruence, unconditional positive
regard and empathic understanding (Rogers 1957; 1959), not the diagnosis of disorders
and subsequent application of treatments. The client-centered therapist's behavior is
guided by a philosophy of persons and by her/him holding the therapeutic attitudes in
relationship with a client; it is not an application of techniques.

Nevertheless, for the very beginner, it is usually helpful in learning the approach to start
behaving like a client-centered therapist before the philosophy and the therapeutic
attitudes have been understood and assimilated well enough to guide the therapist's
practice. Instructions concerning what to try to do and what to try not to do may be useful
in that they help the student to enter into a relationship and to experience and to observe
some of both the client's and the student's actions and reactions. Such experiences can
help the student to understand the client-centered philosophy of persons, the therapeutic
attitudes and some of the benefits to clients in a personal and experiential way.

It may, however, smack of "applying techniques" to behave like a client-centered

therapist before being guided by the therapeutic attitudes. Thus, introductory instructions,
such as these which follow, risk stimulating misunderstandings of client-centered work.

These instructions are only an introductory way to experience a client-centered

relationship. Study of and reflection upon client-centered philosophy of persons and the
therapeutic attitudes are essential for developing a true client-centered way of practicing.
This should be kept in mind when employing the instructions because of the hazard they
bring of confusing client-centered work with application of techniques.

These instructions may be validly useful and not be misleading only if they are used
while you are learning about the philosophy, the values and the therapeutic attitudes that
are the essence of client-centered work.

The basic situation for which these instructions are intended is one in which a speaker
(client) is explaining or expressing some personal concern, problem or symptom s/he
currently experiences to a listener (therapist). The listener (therapist)in the situation
attends to the speaker (client) and attempts to understand the speaker from the
perspective of the speaker's internal frame of reference. This intention, to attempt to
understand a speaker from the speaker's perspective, is what is called "empathic
understanding" in client-centered work.
Empathic understanding is fundamentally a subjective experience on the part of the
listener (therapist). It is a subjective and tentative understanding of thoughts and feelings
that are being expressed by a speaker. Empathic understanding can only be tentative
understanding unless or until it is confirmed by a speaker.

The attentive listener (therapist) absorbs the client's communications and personal
expression and, at some point, comes to have a feeling of understanding the client. From
time to time, then, the listener needs to articulate her/his felt understandings to find out
from the speaker whether or not they are accurate according to the speaker. The speaker
is the only possible judge concerning what s/he has been meaning or intending to express
and communicate.

The listener's articulations of felt understandings along with expressive intonations and
gestures are often called "reflections of feeling' or "empathic understanding responses" in
client-centered work. They are usually expressed in the form of declarative statements.
Although empathic responses are usually in the form of statements, they are always
implicit questions addressed to the speaker. They implicitly ask the speaker "Is this what
you have been telling me?", or or "Do I understand you correctly?".

Empathic responses in client-centered work are almost always expressed with the sole
intention to check or verify the accuracy of the listener's empathic understandings
(Rogers, 1986). They are offered by the therapist to give the client the opportunity to
confirm, reject or qualify them.

The Instructions
Listen to the client. Try to do the following:
1. Absorb the meanings the client is expressing to you. Ask yourself to give your
full attention to the client and to what the client is saying to you.
What is the client succeeding in "getting at", or what is the client trying to "get
at"?
2. When you express your tentative understanding, think of yourself as trying to
check whether or not you have understood. This tentativeness may be expressed
by your intonation, or you might initiate your empathic response with an
introductory statement that communicates your tentativeness and your interest in
the client's assessment of your accuracy of understanding. Examples of
introductory statements are "Is this right..?", or "Are you saying..?" or "Is this a
correct understanding right now?...." or "I think I understand, is this what you
mean?...". You might use an assertive form of introduction to your empathic
response, although it should be in a tentative spirit, such as "You are feeling...." or
"You want to....." or "You are telling me that...".
3. Avoid introductions to your empathic responses which suggest you are trying to
interpret the client or that your task is to find or elicit "deeper" meanings in what
the client is expressing. Introductions which sometimes create such
misunderstandings are "I sense you are feeling...", or "You sound like you.....".
4. In your responses that are intended to express the client's point of view, frame of
reference, perspective on things, perceptions, feelings and other reactions about
things, stay entirely within the client's frame of reference. Try to grasp, as you
listen, the client's perspective or viewpoint with the meanings and feelings that are
the client's at that time. Try to absorb those things into yourself in order to reach a
feeling of understanding, without the reservations and interference of skepticism
or criticism. Put aside any doubts or critical feelings about the client's statements
and try to understand the client's point of view and feelings.
5. If you don't understand what the client has been expressing to you - perhaps your
thoughts were distracting you, or perhaps the client's communication was eluding
you at the time - simply say you haven't understood yet, and ask the client if s/he
would repeat or say in a different way what s/he was expressing.
6. Allow your client to initiate the next response after you make an empathic
understanding response. Allow silence. Relax and give yourself and your client a
chance to think and feel further to reflect upon the experiences that are being
expressed between you.
7. If your client asks you a question (a) give yourself a chance to absorb the
question, (b) ask for further clarification of the question if you need it, (c) respond
to the question in a direct, person-to-person manner. This means different things,
depending upon the nature of the question, your own knowledge and expertise in
regard to different matters, your own personal feelings about self-disclosure and
personal feelings about expressing opinions. In any case, to respond to a question
in a direct, person-to-person manner means one does not avoid the question or
treat the client as the issue for asking a question. Depending on the factors
mentioned above you may literally answer the question, you may say you "don't
know the answer to that question", you may say you don't feel comfortable trying
to answer that type of question, you may say you don't feel comfortable telling
such personal things, or you may say something that is a general answer to the
question but also demur because do not know the general answer applies in the
present situation. After responding in some way directly to the client's question
you may want to check as to the client ' faction or dis-satisfaction with your
response. It is also possible to respond to questions directly and, in addition,
express an empathic response in respect to the feelings, concerns or perspectives
that seem to spark the question. Responding to the feelings behind a question,
however, should not be a means of avoiding the question.
8. In setting up a practice client session early on in your learning it may be easier to
ask the client to defer questions until after the practice. This may be best for you
because the process of responding to questions in the context of empathic process,
in a client-centered manner, is very dependent upon having the therapeutic
attitudes firmly developed in your character. And because it is difficult, at an
early stage, to respond to a client's self-exploratory expression and to integrate
that with responding to questions.
9. Do not ask questions that are leading or probing questions. Examples of typical
leading or probing questions are "How do you feel about that?", "Tell me more
about......", "What do you think s/he would feel about that?", "Can you tell me
more about your relationship to....?". Also, do not ask your client questions that
 involve assumptions or theories that are not part of those expressed or clearly
implied in what your client has been saying. Examples of such interpretive
probing questions are "Do you find yourself waking up early and not being able to
go back to sleep?", "Do you remember how you felt about things when your
brother was born?", "How do you feel when someone has authority over you?",
etc.
Of course, many empathic understanding responses may be literally in the form of
a question because you are wanting to find out if your subjective empathic
understanding is correct or not. And sometimes you will find you need to ask a
question for simple factual clarification. For example, "Did you say that was your
sister or your cousin?" or "Did you say you got home late or that he got home
late?" or "Did you mean 'now' in the sense of 'these days' or in the sense of 'right
now' here with me?"
10. Do not volunteer interpretations of any kind.
11. Do not volunteer comments upon what the client has expressed.
12. Do not make a client's statement into a generality if it is specific and do not make
a client's statement into a specific if it is a generality, unless that is what the client
seems to be intending that you understand.
13. Do not abstract feelings or emotions from the content or Situation that the client is
expressing, unless the client's point is the feelings or emotions.
14. Do not volunteer suggestions or guidance of any kind.
15. If your client indicates s/he feels stopped and doesn't know how to proceed and
asks for your help, a relatively non-directive response that is often helpful is to
say something such as "Sometimes, if one gives oneself a bit more time, some
thoughts or direction will come to mind". Or "I feel there's no hurry, so if you can,
try to let yourself relax to give yourself a chance to see if something comes to
you".
16. If your client says s/he doesn't have anything more to say about a topic and
doesn't know what to do now, and you have tried the approach above, and the
client ask for more help - then you may suggest s/he give her/himself time to
consider if there is some other topic s/he feels concern or worry about. Or say
"Sometimes it helps to think back over the concerns that brought you in". We do
not intend to avoid giving guidance or help in proceeding in the interaction when
the client requests it, but the best guidance is usually the encouragement to take
time and search the client's own experience and thoughts.
17. Unless the client has lost her/his train of thought or forgotten what s/he was
saying and asks for help, do not prompt or remind the client. Scattered thoughts
and discontinuity of theme should be accepted in the same manner as developed
and coherent thought.
18. Do not integrate for the client (e.g., "That sounds like it may be related to the
problem you have with your mother"). Client-centered therapy often results in
integrations, but it is not the therapist's responsibility to find or direct such
connections.
19. Do not volunteer comments about the client's apparent feelings, state or other
experiences (e.g., "You seem to have a lot of emotions about that topic", or "It
seems you have an issue with abandonment or loss", or "You are feeling pretty
 angry at me right now"). Of course, these examples may be the same or similar to
empathic responses, if the client has been expressing any of these ideas. Self-
objectification is one of the productive things clients do in therapy, but the
therapist's task is not to produce that particular relation of the client to
her/himself. Self-objectification is a common reaction on the part of clients if the
therapist volunteers comments about the client's apparent experiences.
20. In general, try to orient yourself to the client as a whole person who, like yourself,
lives, acts and reacts in a world centered in her/his own perceptions, motives and
feelings. The client-centered therapist's interest is in the client as a whole person,
not as a complex of problems or symptoms. The client's wholeness is represented
by the client functioning as agent in relationship to the therapist. The client
chooses to enter the situation, comes to the session, talks to the therapist, and
represents her/himself to the therapist. The client is the reason for both of you
being there and the primary source of what happens.

The client-centered therapist's respect for and trust in the client is felt by the therapist and
communicated to the client primarily by means of the therapist's expression of interest in
the client's representations of her/his inner world, inner perspective and reactions to
her/his world.

The client-centered therapist's presence, influenced by her/his philosophy of persons,

values (Bozarth & Brodley, 1986) and the therapeutic attitudes and the therapist's
behavior articulating empathic understandings are the media for communication of the
therapist's empathy, acceptance and congruence in the particular relationship.

The instructions listed above are deliberately and rationally restrictive in keeping with the
fact that the therapeutic attitudes are, usually and typically, communicated through the
checking of felt understandings and the therapist's presence.

There is more freedom for the therapist in client-centered work than these introductory
instructions suggest. Spontaneous responses from the therapist's frame of reference occur
in client-centered practice (Brodley, 1987). In a sample of therapeutic interviews
conducted by Rogers, nine percent (9%) of Rogers' responses were found to be other than
empathic understanding responses (Brodley & Brody, 1990; Brody, 1991).

Functioning consistently as a client-centered therapist, in some interviews Rogers

produced occasional, unsystematic comments, statements of agreement, interpretations or
asked probing questions. When they occur in Rogers' interviews they can be seen to
contribute to the overall sense of Rogers' non-directive and empathic presence in relation
to his clients. Nevertheless, the client-centered therapeutic attitudes are successfully
communicated to clients for the most part by the combination of the expression of
understandings and the omission of many other forms of response (which may, especially
when systematic, convey attitudes which are different from and contradictory to the
client-centered therapeutic attitudes).
As you try to learn the client-centered approach, when you feel constrained or inhibited
by the instructions, it may be helpful to take a break and practice with a co-counselor,
giving yourself permission to "break the rules" and make whatever responses you feel
like making. It may also be helpful to remind yourself that, in general, in the whole
process of ongoing interaction with another person - it is what one does not think, feel
and do along with what one does think, feel and do, that communicates our attitudes, our
intentions and our understandings to the other person.

References
Bozarth, J. D. & Brodley, B. T. (1986). The core values of the person-centered
approach. Paper presented at the First Annual Meeting of the Association for the
Development of the Person-Centered Approach (ADPCA), at the University of Chicago,
International House, in September, 1986.

Brodley, B.T. (1987). A client-centered psychotherapy practice. Paper prepared for the
Third International Forum on the Person-Centered Approach, in La Jolla, California,
August 7 to 14, 1987.

Brodley, Barbara T. & Brody, Anne, F. (1990). Understanding client-centered therapy

through interviews conducted by Carl Rogers. Paper prepared for the panel Fifty Years of
Client-Centered Therapy: Recent Research, at the American Psychological Association
Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, August, 1990.

Brody, Anne F. (1991). A study of therapeutic interviews conducted by Carl Rogers.

Clinical Research Paper prepared for partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Psychology
degree at the Illinois School for Professional Psychology, Chicago, Illinois.

Rogers, Carl R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic

personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21, 95-103.

Rogers, Carl R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships

as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A Study of
a Science. Vol III. Formulations of the Person in the Social Context. New York: McGraw
Hill.

Rogers, Carl R. (1986). Reflections of feelings. Person-Centered Review, 1, 375-377.

Copyright 1991 Barbara T. Brodley.

Permission granted to distribute freely with copyright intact.