Person-

Centered
Approach to
Groups
by Ooi Yee Huei (MHP211036)
Table of contents
1. Introduction

2. Key Concepts

3. Role & Functions of Group Leader

4. Stages of a Person-Centered Group

5. Evaluation

6. Conclusion
01
Introduction

Founder and historical background

Founder & Historical Background
Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987)
● A “wounded therapist”, influenced by his own early emotional deprivations (Nelson-
Jones, 2011)
● First to examine counselling process in depth by analyzing transcripts of sessions
● De-emphasized pathology and emphasized on individuals strengths and resources

Historical Background:
● 1940s: birth of client-centered therapy from nondirective approach
● 1974: changed its name to person-centered therapy
o more adequately acknowledged the human values and the mutuality underlying
the approach
● 1960s & 1970s: applied person-centered principles to group work
02
Key Concepts
Trust in the Group Process
● Individual: self-actualizing tendency and self-determining characteristic
● Group: group’s ability to develop in a constructive direction, trust the abilities of group
members to grow in a favorable direction
● Challenge(s) for group leader:
o Lack of belief in the therapeutic process
● Suggestion:
o To have faith in what they are doing and value the unique attributes of a group
approach
Core Conditions
● Individuals’ resources can be activated and constructive growth can occur when the
attitudinal conditions can be provided and consistently presented over a period of
time

Genuineness
- Congruence
Unconditional - Authenticity
- Presence
Positive Regards
& Acceptance Empathy
- Warmth - Empathic
- Nonjudgemental attitude understanding

Therapeutic
Conditions for Growth
Genuineness
● Not putting on professional facades, having direct person-to-person contact
● Only express what is congruent his or her inner experience, at least during the time of
therapy
● Challenge(s) for group leader:
o absence of counsellor’s self-disclosure
o misapprehension that genuineness means indiscriminately open
o change of group’s focal point by discussing personal problems in great details
● Suggestion:
o examine own motivations – members’ needs or own needs
o aware of the purpose of disclosure
o know the boundaries of appropriate self-revelation
Unconditional Positive Regard
● A non-possessive caring, warmth, and acceptance attitude
● Acceptance of the subjective and experiential world of the group member
● Acceptance of where the group is, without trying to impose a direction on it
● Can be expressed through gestures, eye contact, tone of voice, and facial expression
● Challenge(s) for group leader:
o unrealistic expectation that they must always be accepting and consistently
respond with warmth in all situation
● Suggestion:
o develop an acceptive attitude towards oneself as well as clients
o have realistic expectation: “it is a rare group facilitator who can genuinely
provide unconditional acceptance for every member on an consistent basis”
(Corey, 2020)
o not to be confused the difference between acceptance and approval, to set aside
reactions to the behaviors that they disagree, at least during the course of the
group
“The curious paradox is that
when I accept myself just as
I am, then I can change.”
- (Rogers, 1961)
Empathy
● “To sense the client’s private world as if it were your own but without ever losing the ‘as
if’ quality” (Rogers, 1961)
● To accurately sense what is going on with members’ internal and subjective frame of
reference, and able to communicate this understanding effectively to group members
● Free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality
● Aims to foster client self-exploration and dissolves alienation
● Accurate empathy – able to hear the meanings expressed by the group members that
often lie at the edge of their awareness
● Challenge(s) for group leader:
o misconception that one needs to have directly went through similar experience
● Suggestion:
o remain open to our own emotions, allow ourselves to be touched by the
emotions of others, willing to reexperience certain difficult events
 03
Role and
Functions of the
Group Leader
Role of Group Leader

Instrument
Companion Facilitator
for Change
- Accompany - Emphasize the - Establish therapeutic
members in their importance of interactions relationship with members
journey toward self- between group members - Be the role model to help
discovery in a non- - Assist members in members work toward
directive way expressing themselves greater realness, through
own authenticity
Characteristics of Group Facilitators

Faith Attentive Safe

Trust in group process Listen carefully and Make every effort to
and ability to move, sensitivesly to each create a psychological
even without direct member safe climate for
intervention members

Acceptance Congruence Offer feedback

Try to empathically Express their here-and- If appropriate, challenge
understand and accept now experiences and members on specifics of
individuals and group personal feelings their behavior without
judging
Functions of Group Leader
● Establish a caring, empathetic & accepting climate in which group members will
interact in increasingly authentic and honest ways
● Encourage members to express feelings & expectation openly
● Listening in an active and sensitive way, accepting, understanding, respecting,
reflecting, clarifying, summarizing, sharing personal experiences, responding
● Encourage members to explore the incongruities between their feelings and behaviors,
and to move toward getting in touch with their inner feelings and subjective
experiencing
● Work to create a climate of safety that encourages members to take risks
● Provide support for members as they try new behaviors
● Promote group cohesion to ensure interpersonal challenges can be processed
constructively
● Assist members in overcoming barrier to direct communication
● Help members integrate what they are learning in the group, and find ways to apply it
to their everyday lives.
● Encourage members to make an ongoing assessment of what is going on in their group
and determine whether they want to change anything
● Go with the flow of the group rather than trying to direct the way the group is going,
and affirm a member’s capacity for self-determination.
(Hutchison, 2014; Corey, 2020)
 Stages of a
04 Person-Centered
Group
Characteristics of the Group

Two forms of person-centered group:

● Meet weekly for about 2 hours for an unspecific number of meetings
● A personal growth workshop that meets for a weekend, a week, or longer

Rules or procedures:
● For the selection of members, both facilitator and members agree that a group
experience would be beneficial
● During initial meets, it is up to group members to formulate the rules for their
sessions and to establish norms that they agree will assist them in reaching
their goals
Unfolding of the Group Process These 15
processes/ trends
do not occur in a
1. Milling around clear-cut sequence,
and may vary
considerably from
2. Resistance to personal expression or exploration group to group

3. Description of past feelings

“there-and-then”

4. Expression of negative feelings

5. Expression and exploration of personally meaning

material
6. Expression of immediate interpersonal feelings in the
group

7. Development of a healing capacity in group

8. Self-acceptance and the beginning of change

9. Cracking of facades

10. Feedback
11. Confrontation

12. The helping relationship outside the group sessions

13. The basic encounter

14. Expression of feelings of closeness

15. Behavior changes in the group

(Corey, 2020; Gupta & Tripathi, 2020)

Outcomes of the group experience

Open & honest Self-accepting

Express themselves Gradually become less
more directly critical and more self-
accepting & trust in self,
move toward self-direction

Genuine Safe
Less need to defend Not easiliy threatened
selves, drop facades to because of safety of group
be more like the self changes their attitude
that they wanted to be towards themselves and
others
Outcomes of the group experience
In touch with
self Realistic
More in touh with More open to outside
own internal and reality, more realistic
subjective and objective
experience

Understanding Good
& Acceptance relationship
More understanding More empathetic,
and acceptance of who accepting & congruent
others are within the with others, and thus
group more capacity for
meaning interpersonal
relationships
 05
Evaluation of the
Person-Centered
Approach to Group
Strengths
1. Emphasis on
therapeutic conditions
for growth
-Universal/ near universal and likely to 2. Emphasis on group
have a constructive impact on all
individuals (Mohamad, et al., 2011;
counsellor as a person, and
Spence & Smale, 2015) the assumption that client as
- Empathy: prerequisite to any group the major change agent in a
apprach, particularly the early stage
therapy group
-
- The members’ self-healing forces and the
healing forces present in the group as a
community will become operate, that leads
to self-acceptance, and ultimately self-
direction is decision making
Limitations
1. Lack of structure and
nondirective role played
by group leader
- May limit group’s effectiveness
- May not be a good fit for some
clients, especially those who are in dire
need to deal with their current crisis,
who wants to learn certain coping
skills or find solutions for pressing
problems, they may expect a directive
leader
2. Challenging to be
practiced exclusively in
community agency settings or
outpatient clinics
- May not be suitable for short-term group
or task-oriented group
- May not be suitable when practitioners are
required to demonstrate concrete and
measurable outcomes
 06 Conclusions
“It is people who heal people, not
techniques”.
— Cain, 2010 (as cited in Corey, 2020)
 References
● Brouzos, A., Vassilopoulos, S. P., & Baourda, V. C. (2014). Members’ perceptions of
person-centered facilitative conditions and their role in outcome in a
psychoeducational group for childhood social anxiety. Person-Centered & Experiential
Psychotherapies, 14(1), 32–46. doi:10.1080/14779757.2014.965843
● Cain, D. J. (2010). Person-centered psychotherapies. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
● Corey, G. (2020). Theory & practice of group counseling (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.
● Gupta, G., & Tripathi, K. (2020). Basic encounter groups: A reflection of effect of
person-centered BEG theory in the context of anxiety in the Indian working women.
Juni Khyat, 10(11), 204-209. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857498
● Hutchison, C. G. (2014). Trusting the process? Anxiety-provoking situations as
challenges to the symbolization and processing of experience in person-centered
groups. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 14(1), 47–
61. doi:10.1080/14779757.2014.981654
 References
● Mohamad, M., Mokhtar, H. H., & Samah, A. A. (2011). Person-centered counselling
with Malay clients: spirituality as an indicator of personal growth. Procedia – Social
and Behavioral Sciences, 30, 2117-2123.
● Nelson-Jones, R. (2011). Theory and practice of counselling & therapy (5th ed.). Sage.
● Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
● Sa’ad, F. M., Yusooff, F., Nen, S., & Subhi, N. (2014). The effectiveness of person-
centered therapy and cognitive psychology Ad-din Group counseling on self-concept,
depression and resilience of pregnant out-of-wedlock teenagers. Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 114, 927–932. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.809
● Spence, S., & Smale, U. (2015). Group work with bereaved people: developing person-
centered practice. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 14(1), 3–
17. doi:10.1080/14779757.2014.978982
ROLE PLAY
- Second session
- Common issue experienced by group members: marital issues
- Counsellor will attempt to be non-directive, and create a authentic,
caring, accepting atmosphere to promote growth of group members
Q & A
Thanks!
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