Rogers model of counselling skills

Carl Rogers developed Person-centered therapy in the 1940s. Rogers model of counselling
skills also known as names person centered approach, nondirective counselling and client
centered counselling. Rogers work regarded as one of the principal forces in shaping current
counselling and psychotherapy.

▪ In Rogers model of client centered therapy, human beings posses goodness and the desire
to become fully functioning i.e. to live as effectively as possible.
▪ According to Rogers model, if people develop freely, they will flourish and become
positive, achieving individuals.
▪ Because Rogers’s theory expresses faith in human nature, it is considered as humanistic
approach to counselling.
▪ Rogers model of client centered therapy is based on a theory of personality referred to as
self-theory.
▪ An individual’s view of self within the context of environment influences his actions and
personal satisfactions.
▪ If provided with a nurturing environment, people will grow with confidence toward self-
actualization.
▪ If they do not receive love and support from significant others, they will likely to see
themselves as lacking in worth and see others as untrustworthy.
▪ Behavior will become defensive and growth toward self actualization will be hampered.
▪ Thus, the client centered therapist’s perception of people is based on four key beliefs:
People are trustworthy
People innately move toward self – actualization and health
They have the inner resources to move themselves in positive directions and
People respond to their uniquely perceived world.
Goals of Rogers model of Client Centered Therapy.
▪ Person centered therapy, also known as client centered, non directive, or Rogerian therapy.
▪ It 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.
▪ The goal of client centered therapy is to provide a safe, caring environment where clients
get in closer touch with essential positive elements of themselves that have been hidden or
distorted.
▪ Moreover, less distortion and more congruence lead to greater trust that their organism can
be relied on for effective reactions to people and situations.
▪ Two primary goals of person centered therapy are, increasing self esteem and greater
openness to experience. Some of the related changes that this form of therapy seeks to
foster in clients include:
1. Closer agreement between the client’s idealized and actual selves
2. Better self-understanding
3. Lower levels of defensiveness, guilt, and insecurity
4. More positive and comfortable relationships with others and
5. An increased capacity to experience and express feelings at the moment they occur.
▪ Person centered therapy focuses on the person, not on the person’s presenting problem.
▪ Goal is to assist clients in their growth so they are better able to cope with both today’s
problems and future problems.
▪ The basic drive to fulfillment implies that people move toward health if the way seems
open for them to do so.
▪ Thus, the goals of counseling are to set clients free and to create those conditions that will
enable them to engage in meaningful self-exploration.
▪ Moreover, general goals of therapy are:
1. Becoming more open to experience,
2. Achieving self-trust,
3. Developing an internal source of evaluation,
4. Being willing to continually grow.

Rogers model of the Counselling Process

The core conditions of counselling as described by Rogers are empathy, unconditional
positive regard and also congruence or genuineness considered necessary and sufficient for
therapeutic personality change.
The Person Centered approach remains one of the most popular forms of
psychological counselling.
It provides a frame of reference as much as if not more than a counselling method.
However, in Carl Rogers’ original perspective, clients (as all people) engage
continually in the attempt to self-actualize.
The core conditions are necessary and sufficient for clients to experience therapeutic
change. They are (Carkhuff1969):
1. Unconditional positive regard
2. Empathic understanding
3. Genuineness and congruence
4. Transparency
5. Self disclosure
6. Concreteness
7. Cultural awareness
Creating trust in the helping relationship is a fundamental tenet of all Person Centered
therapy. Not only must the client learn to trust the counsellor, but also the counsellor must
trust that the client is the best person to set their own goals and access their own resources to
achieve them.
1. Unconditional positive regard.
People need love acceptance, respect and warmth from others but unfortunately these
attitudes and feelings are often given conditionally.
As many people who come into counselling have experienced these attitudes, Rogers
believed that counsellors should convey unconditional positive regard or warmth towards
clients if they are to feel understood and accepted.
This means that clients are valued without any conditions attached even when they
experience themselves as negative, bad, frightened or abnormal.
When attitudes and of warmth and acceptance are present in counselling, clients are
likely to accept themselves and become more confident in their own abilities to cope.
2. Empathic understanding.
▪ It refers to the counsellor’s ability to understand the client at a deep level.
▪ Rogers refers to the internal frame of reference to denote the client’s unique experience of
personal problems.
▪ In order to stay within the client’s internal frame of reference, it is necessary for the
counsellor to listen carefully to what is being conveyed (both verbally and nonverbally) at
every stage of counselling.
▪ Once the counsellor understands the feelings and experiences of the client, the same thing
needs to be communicated to the client.
▪ Rogers also uses the term external frame of reference to describe the lack of understanding
and contact.
▪ When a counsellor perceives the client from an external frame of reference, there is little
chance that the client’s view will be clearly heard. This does not help the client to benefit
from counselling.
3. Genuineness and congruence.
▪ The Person Centered Therapy relationship must always be an honest one.
▪ The counselor needs to be real and true in the relationship.
▪ Individuals who cannot accept others (i.e. because of personal values and beliefs they hold
rigidly and apply to all), or who will not listen and try to understand cannot do Person
Centered Therapy.
▪ The therapist must embody the attitudinal quality of genuineness and to experience
empathic understanding from the client’s internal frame of reference and to experience
unconditional positive regard towards the client.
▪ When the client perceives the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional
positive regard, the actualising tendency of the client is promoted.
▪ Congruence means that the counsellor is authentic and genuine.
▪ The counsellor does not present an aloof professional facade, but is present and transparent
to the client.
▪ There is no air of authority or hidden knowledge, and the client does not have to speculate
about what the counsellor is ‘really like’.

4. Transparency.
Transparency means even negative feelings about a client, if any exist, are expressed.
The therapist shows a non-possessive feeling of love for the client and is able to, after
a time, be empathetic enough to understand the client enough to metaphorically walk in the
individual’s shoes.
5. Self disclosure.
Self disclosure and self expression are most likely to be helpful to the client and the
therapeutic relationship when
 They are relevant to client and the client’s present experiencing.
They are a response to the client’s experience.
A reaction to the client is persistent and particularly striking.

However, in response to the questions and requests from the client, the therapist
answers openly and honestly and helps dispel the mystique.
When it seems the client wants to ask a question but does not directly voices it.
To make an empathic observation – that is to express a perception of an aspect of the
client’s communication or emotional expression

Furthermore, to correct for loss of acceptance or empathy or incongruence.

To offer insights and ideas.6. Concreteness
▪ The next condition, concreteness, is the counsellor’s skill in focusing the client’s
discussion on specific events, thoughts and feelings that matter while discouraging
intellectualized story telling.
▪ Concreteness is a precaution against the rambling that can occur when the other three
conditions employ without sufficient attention to identifying the client’s themes.
▪ If the counsellor is totally accepting of each client as a person, relates emphatically to the
client’s reality and behaves in a genuine way, the client will be free to discover and
express the positive core of his being.
▪ Moreover, as clients come to perceive themselves more positively in the nurturing
environment, they will function more effectively.
▪ Counsellors not only provide the nurturing environment that is missing in client’s lives but
also serve as role models of how fully functioning persons relate with others.
7. Cultural awareness.
▪ In Culture-Centered Counseling, recognizing the centrality of culture can augment therapy
as well as result in effective treatment of all clients.
▪ This approach also involves recognizing cultural assumptions and acquiring knowledge
and skills to get beyond them, something that may be done no matter what treatment model
a therapist might use.
▪ Cultural awareness means being cognizant of culture differences that may use different
standards for loudness, speed of delivery, spatial distance, silence, eye contact, gestures,
attentiveness and response rate during communication.

Reference:

https://www.careershodh.com/rogers-model-of-counselling-skills/
 Carkhuff’s Model of Counselling Skills
Helping and Human Relationship Theory- Carkhuff’s model of Counselling Skills.
In 1967, Carkhuff published his Toward Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy. This was
followed by a more in-depth work on Carkhuff’s model of Helping and Human Relations,
Vol. I and II in 1969. Slowly his work revolutionized both clinical psychology and counseling
in school settings.
▪ Helping and human relationship theory is a theory of professional interaction developed by
Robert R. Carkhuff.
▪ In Carkhuff’s model, he began by forming definitions and observing the interactions
during any helping behavior.
▪ He believed that all human interactions are helping behaviors.
▪ Some interactions are more equal than others.
▪ There are interactions where one person is the leader and attempts to give the other person
reasons to change, usually to their point of view.
▪ Other interactions involve a trade, where each member of the interaction is seeking a
specific goal.
▪ Carkhuff believed that most professional interactions are helping relationships.
▪ He included among these teaching, medicine, parenting, training and repairmen. In short,
the helper skills are universal among human beings.
▪ Carkhuff drew up his model of helping and human relations theory to use to conclude
successful interactions and to evaluate the success of the interaction.
▪ Nursing is one of the helping professions, involving an interaction that will improve the
situation of the client. Nursing theory includes theory on the helper relationship.
▪ This nursing theorist framework for the art of helping and human relationship fits very
well with the nurse-client relationship.
Robert R. Carkhuff’s model begins around the four components of any helping relationship.
• Attending
▪ Responding
▪ Personalizing
▪ Initiating
Four Components of Carkhuff’s Model of helping relationship.
Attending.
Attending involves the initiation of the interaction.
It includes a greeting, introduction by each member of the relationship and an attempt to put
the client at ease.
According to Carkhuff’s model of helping and human relationship theory, the nurse must be
physically present during the interaction.
This means the nurse’s attention is all directed to the client, and he or she looks at, directs
actions and words toward the client to make sure the client is aware that the nurse is there for
the client’s benefit.
The nurse should observe all the reactions of the client. Is the client withdrawing from the
interaction? Is the client ready to be open about their problem? Are they talking about
something else to put off the needed interactions?
The nurse needs to listen to the client and verify that they fully understand what the client is
trying to say.
He/ she needs to let the client complete his or her version of the situation.
The nurse should be trained in professional communication strategies to be able to verify that
the client has communicated what the nurse believes she has heard.
This process is crucial to the nurse-client interaction. Without completing the attending step
properly, the interaction will be a failure.
Attending Skills:

Here are specific skills that assist with the Attending stage:

• Noting both nonverbal and verbal behaviors

• Responding to basic messages by paraphrasing
• Focusing discussion by clarifying issues
• Review beliefs of client concerning their problem

Responding.
Once the establishment of purpose of the interaction occurs and the client agrees with it, the
nurse should begin to let the client know what the response will be and options available, if
any.
The helper begins to respond to the client. She looks for feelings to give a response to.
She looks for content to fill in the reasons for the client needing help.
Lastly, the nurse should be able to able to understand the meaning of the situation to the
client.
Together the client should work with the nurse in developing a way forward that they can
both agree to undertake.
Responding Skills:

Like attending, responding has its own set of shills. Skill to emphasize are:

Empathy with the client’s needs.

• Respect the client’s opinions.
• Use rephrasing to verify your understanding of the client.
• Personalizing.
• This is the step where the client agrees to take on the needed steps to complete the
goals that have been established.
• The way to be most successful at this level is to relate these goals to a past action or
situation.
• The more positive the situation is, the better the results.
• However, a situation that did not go well could be used to show how the client can
change the results in the future.
• Perhaps an addict who was clean for a time returned to drug use due to pressures in
his life.
• The focus of this interaction would be to examine options when he feels pressured and
to develop new skills to deal with this situation.
Personalizing Skills:

Personalizing uses a different set of skills. Here are some to develop:

• Describing feelings
• Sharing personal feelings with client
• Confrontation skills with client
• Reflective phrasing to verify goals
 Initiating.
▪ Once they agree upon the steps to change, the nurse then assists the client to implement or
initiate these changes in their life.
▪ The part includes developing clear goals and checklists to reach these goals.
▪ The client should be aware of all of the steps and how to reach the nurse if they have a
problem with completing the goals.
▪ The client should be made aware that many clients need to revise their treatment plan once
they start fitting it into their lives and not feel like a failure for having to come up with a
revised plan.
▪ The goal should be to succeed; not simply to follow one and only one set of goals and
checkpoints.
▪ Each professional should also include a feedback stage where they look at both their
success with this client and any areas where they had problems.
▪ This will also give the caregiver a guide to behaviors he or she needs to work on to
improve their results with clients.
▪ Carkhuff went on to specifically investigate what skills assisted with each of his four steps.
▪ Therefore, this allows the helper to work on those skills that do not come naturally to them.
▪ Some of the four steps have more skill areas than the others.
Initiating Skills:
This step sets up the path for success and for verification of the interaction. Skills needed
here are:

▪ Ability to define useful goals

▪ Capability to provide options in case of problems
▪ Also ability to conduct focused inquiries to verify goal completion

Reference:

https://www.careershodh.com/rogers-model-of-counselling-skills/

IPR model of counselling training

▪ APA defines IPR model as a method used for understanding the processes of
psychotherapy and for the training of counselors and therapists.
▪ It involves videotaping or audiotaping counseling or psychotherapy sessions
▪ They reexperience these tapes later and the counselor or therapist analyze them in the
presence of a supervisor.
▪ Supervisor questions and discusses the thoughts and feelings of the counselor or therapist
and client.
▪ Norman Kagan and colleagues developed the IPR model of counseling.
▪ IPR model is a supervision strategy.
▪ It empowers counselors to understand and also act upon perceptions to which they may
otherwise not attend.
▪ The goals of IPR model are
▪ To increase counselor awareness of covert thoughts and feelings of client & self,
▪ To practice expressing covert thoughts and feelings in the here and now without
negative consequences, and,
▪ Consequently, To deepen the counselor/client relationship
▪ IPR is built around the notion that counselors’ selective perceptions of surface issues block
their therapeutic efforts more than any other variable.
▪ IPR is based on two elements of human behavior.
Two elements of human behavior that IPR is based on are:
that people need each other and
that people learn to fear each other.
Kagan (1980) proposed that people can be the greatest source of joy for one another.
However, because a person’s earliest imprinted experiences are as a small being in a large
person’s world, inexplicit feelings of fear and helplessness may persist throughout one’s life.
These fears are most often unlabeled and uncommunicated.
This combination of needing but fearing others results in an approach-avoidance syndrome as
persons search for a “safe” psychological distance from others. As a result, people often
behave diplomatically.
Kagan (1980) believed the “diplomatic” behavior of counselors is expressed in two ways:
“feigning of clinical naivete” and tuning out client messages.

Feigning clinical naivete, most often an indicant that counselors are unwilling to become
involved with clients at a certain level, occurs when counselors act as if they did not
understand the meaning behind client statements.
Tuning out occurs most often among inexperienced counselors who are engrossed in their
own thought process. He might be trying to decide what to do next. The result is that the
counselor misses messages from the client, some of which may seem obvious to the
supervisor. Thus, a wealth of material in counseling sessions are acknowledged by neither the
client nor the counselor.
Interactions occur on many levels, but clients and counselors label only a limited range of
these interactions (Kagan, 1980).
IPR helps counselors become more attuned to dynamics of the counselor/client relationship
that they may be missing due to their tendency toward diplomatic behavior.

Steps in Conducting IPR.

IPR conduction is with the counselor alone, but in some instances the inquirer may meet with
the counselor and his/her client. He might as well choose to meet with the client alone.
Mutual recall sessions often help counselors learn to communicate with clients. For example,
about the here-and-now of their interaction for future counseling sessions.

The following steps are a guideline for conducting a recall session:

Review the tape (audio or video) prior to the supervision session. It is not typically possible
to review the entire tape during the recall session. It is important to preselect sections of tape
that interpersonally weigh the most.
Introduce the recall session to the supervisee. Create a nonthreatening environment,
emphasizing that there is more material in any counseling session than a counselor can
possibly attend to. Also that the purpose of the session is to reflect on thoughts and feelings
of the client and the counselor reviewed during the session.
Begin playing the tape; at appropriate points, either per-son stops the tape and ask a relevant
lead to influence the discovery process. If the supervisee stops the tape, he/she will speak first
about thoughts or feelings that were occurring at that time in the counseling session. The
supervisor facilitates the discovery process by asking relevant open-ended questions. During
 this period of inquiry, attend to supervisee’s nonverbal responses and process any
incongruence between nonverbal and verbal responses.
During the recall session, do not adopt a teaching style and teach the supervisee about what
they could have done differently. Rather, allow the supervisee to explore thoughts and
feelings to some resolution.
The inquirer leads:
What do you wish you had said to him/her?
How do you think he/she would have reacted if you had said that?
What would have been the risk in saying what you wanted to say?
If you had the chance now, how might you tell him/her what you are thinking and feeling?
Were there any other thoughts going through your mind?
How did you want the other person to perceive you?
Were those feelings located physically in some part of your body?
Were you aware of any feelings? Does that feeling have any special meaning for you?
What did you want him/her to tell you?
What do you think he/she wanted from you?
Did he/she remind you of anyone in your life?
Conclusion.
▪ IPR, provides supervisees with a safe place to examine internal reactions through re
experiencing the encounter with the client in a process recall supervision session.
▪ IPR also has been shown to be useful in supervisor supervisee relationships (Bernard,
1989), group supervision (Gimmestad and Greenwood, 1974), and peer supervision
(Kagan, 1980).
▪ Research has consistently supported the use of IPR as an effective medium for supervision.
▪ For example, Kagan and Krathwohl (1967) and Kingdon (1975) found that clients of
counselors being supervised with an IPR format fared better than clients of counselors
supervised by other methods.
▪ They demonstrated the model to be effective with experienced counselors, entry-level
counselors and paraprofessionals (Bernard, 1989).
▪ It is possible, however, to magnify the interpersonal dynamics between the counselor and
client to the point of distortion (Bernard and Goodyear, 1992).
▪ Thus, they do not recommend IPR as the sole approach to supervision. Used effectively
and in conjunction with other supervision approaches.
▪ IPR provides counselors with the opportunity to confront their interpersonal fears,
understand complex counselor/client dynamics, and maximize the interpersonal encounter
with their clients (Kagan, 1980).

References:
https://www.careershodh.com/ipr-model-of-counselling-training/