Individual Presentation Report:

Person-Centered Therapy to Group

Ooi Yee Huei (MHP211036)

MHPB1123 Group Counselling

Section 1

Prof. Madya Dr. Mastura binti Mahfar

School of Education

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

University Technology Malaysia

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Introduction

Person-Centered Therapy was founded by Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987), where he

emphasized the importance of therapeutic relationship, client’s internal strengths and
resources as well as therapist’s nondirective approach during the therapy process. It was
suggested that person-centered approach was influenced by his own early emotional
deprivation, where even as an old man, he still tended to blame his parents for making him
felt that he was not deserved to be loved; and person-centered therapy was constructed to
counter the effects from his parents and to meet his own growth and companionship needs
(Nelson-Jones,2011).

1940s was associated with the birth of client-centered therapy, and was later changed
the name to person-centered therapy in 1974; the person-centered principles were started to
be applied to group work by Carl Rogers in the 1960s and 1970s (Corey, 2020).

In order to have a better understanding on how to apply person-centered principles to

group, the key concepts of person-centered therapy, the role and functions of a person-
centered group leader, stages of a person-centered group as well as its strengths and
limitations will be discussed in current report.

Key Concepts

Trust in the Group Process

The first important concept when applying person-centered approach to group is trust
at both individual’s and group’s levels. A person-centered group leader has a strong faith in
each group member as an individual with self-actualizing tendency, who are driven by inner
motivation to achieve personal goals and growth. At the same time, group leader also firmly
believes in group’s natural ability to develop and grow in both constructive and favorable
direction, even without much intervention from the group leader (Spence & Smale, 2014;
Corey, 2020).

Some group leaders may find it challenging to apply the person-centered approach to
group as they experience lack of belief in either the therapeutic process or the effectiveness of
group counselling. To overcome this, it is necessary for one to possess faith in what they are
doing and appreciate the uniqueness of either person-centered or group counselling approach
in order to be effective in leading the group (Corey, 2020). In other words, if you can’t even
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convince yourselves that you are on the right path, how can you expect others to have the
confidence in following your lead?

Core Conditions

According to Roger (1962, as cited in Nelson-Jones, 2011), therapeutic relationship is

the key determining factor of the effectiveness of a therapy. Therefore, person-centered
approach emphasizes the importance of being with clients, rather than any technique or
strategy to be applied during the session. There are three essential attitudinal conditions that
need to be present and consistently maintained over a period of time in order to activate an
individual’s inner resources and facilitate the positive psychological growth. These three core
conditions are genuineness, unconditional positive regards, and empathy.

Genuineness

The first core condition is genuineness, which is considered as the most fundamental
condition to be exist in a therapeutic relationship (Corey, 2020). It is only when a group
leader is perceived as being genuine by the group members, then only his or her empathy or
warmth will be felt by them. Instead of hiding behind the professional façade, it is essential
for a person-centered group leader to have a direct person-to-person contact. That means, the
interactions between group leader and members are real and authentic, and what was
expressed by the group leader during the sessions is congruent to his or her inner experience.

Some group leaders may have difficulties in adopting person-centered approach to

group as they totally avoid self-disclosure during the group session due to their
misconception that genuineness means indiscriminately open (Corey, 2020). On the other
extend, some leaders may share too much about their personal problems during the sessions,
which then change the focal point of the group. In order to overcome these challenges, group
leader need to have a higher level of self-awareness and know the boundaries of appropriate
self-revelation. Before bringing the self-disclosure into action, he or she can pause for a while
to examine own motivation and purpose of disclosure, whether it aims to serve the members’
needs or own needs. When self-disclosure is used appropriately, group leader helps to serve
as a role model who is working towards greater realness and getting more in touch with own
internal experiencing, as well as to validate members’ reality, normalize their experiences,
enhance the therapeutic relationship or suggest alternative ways of thinking or behaving
(Corey, 2020).
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Unconditional Positive Regard

According to Roger (1977)’s belief (as cited in Nelson-Jones, 2011), most of us grow
up within an environment with certain conditions of worth, which impact the way we are able
to connect to our inner experience and move us away from our real-self. Therefore, by
showing a non-possessive caring, warmth and acceptance attitude, a group leader is able to
create an unconditional climate that encourages members to experience, explore and express
their feelings, which helps them to move towards greater acceptance for themselves as well
as others. Acceptance during a group context can happen at two levels: individual and group.
It is to accept each group member’s subjective and experiential world as well as the group, in
terms of where the group is, without trying to impose a direction on it (Corey, 2020).

One possible challenge for some group leaders in applying person-centered principles
to group is the unrealistic expectation that they must always show their acceptance and
warmth to each of their group members at a consistent basis. To counter this unrealistic
expectation, it is important for group leader to realize that “it is a rare group facilitator who
can genuinely provide unconditional acceptance for every member on a consistent basis” but
we are all human being with our limitations (Corey, 2020, p.263). Having realistic
expectation and most importantly, an acceptive attitude towards oneself, will help a group
leader to develop greater ability to be caring and accepting towards members, which then
facilitate the constructive therapeutic changes within them. Also, it is important for group
leader to bear in mind that acceptance not necessarily means approval, where one needs not
approve or react towards the members’ behaviors (e.g., domestic abuse), but still able to
accept the members as individuals who has own subjective frame of reference (Corey, 2020).

Empathy

Being authentic and accepting towards group members are essential in forming a
therapeutic relationship, but it is not enough to create a psychological conducive climate that
facilitates constructive developmental changes. A group leader also needs to show an
empathic understanding of group members’ internal and subjective frame of reference, where
he or she is able “to sense the client’s private world as if it were your own but without ever
losing the ‘as if’ quality” (Roger, 1961, p.284, as cited in Corey, 2020). According to Corey
(2020), being empathy means sensitively and accurately sense group members’ subjective
feelings and the personal meanings that they are making on their experiences, and able to
communicate this understanding effectively to members. Sometimes members may
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experience difficulty to get in touch or express the inner experiences that lie at the edge of
their awareness, a group leader can then assist in the self-exploration process by being able to
pick up these un-explicitly-spoken meanings and reflect them to members; this is called
accurate empathy (Corey, 2020).

When comes to applying person-centered approach to group, some leaders may have
the misapprehension that they are not able to show empathic understanding to members as
they never personally went through similar experiences. Corey (2020) attempted to address
the misconception and explained that as long as one has the ability to experience different
emotions, such as joy, fear, anger and love, one needs not go through the exact similar
circumstances of the other person, in order to enter the private world of him or her. In other
words, a group leader is able to develop the skill to be empathy and psychologically present
for others, by staying open to his or her emotions, allowing self to be touched by others’
emotions and getting ready to reexperience certain challenging events in life (Corey, 2020).

Role and Functions of Person-Centered Group Leader

Role of Group Leader

Despite the non-directive approach and the belief that a group has the capability to
grow towards a constructive direction at its own rate, a group leader still plays an important
role in a person-centered group. Instead of being referred as a leader who leads the group
with certain direction, group leader is called a facilitator, who facilitate the self-actualizing
process of each member as well as the interactions between members (Hutchison ,2014;
Corey, 2020). (NOTE: For the purpose of clarity, group leader will be mostly used in current
report.) At the same time, a group leader is also a companion, who accompanies and
witnesses their growth during members’ self-exploration journey. Lastly, a group leader also
use himself or herself as an instrument for change, who can be the role model for group
members to strive towards greater authenticity, acceptance and understanding towards
themselves as well as others.

Characteristics of Group Facilitator

The personal qualities of a group leader are emphasized in person-centered approach,

rather than the techniques of leading or strategies used during the group sessions. There are
many characteristics of a person-centered group facilitator, including, but not limited to
(Hutchison, 2014; Spence & Smale, 2014; Corey, 2020):
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• faith – has a great deal of trust in individual’s self-actualizing tendency and

group’s natural ability to move forward in constructive direction even without
direct intervention from the facilitator,
• attentive – able to listen carefully and sensitively to each member’s subjective
frame of reference, which was expressed through verbal and non-verbal ways,
• safe – make every effort to create a safe relational environment for the exploration
of previously unaware or distorted experiencing among group members,
• acceptance – try to empathically understand and accept each member and group as
who they are and where it is respectively, without trying to impose a direction,
• congruence – able to aware and focus on his or her here-and-now internal
experiences, and express them congruently to group members, and
• ability to offer feedback/ empathic confrontation – able to provide feedback, even
sometimes in the form of confrontation, on members’ specific behaviors, in a
nonjudgmental and empathetic way when it is appropriate.

Functions of Group Facilitator

As suggested by both Hutchison (2014) and Spence & Smale (2014), a facilitative
atmosphere characterized by the core conditions developed among the group members is
equally, if not more, important than leader’s attitudes or actions in a group context. It is the
group experience, i.e., the interactions between members that play a more important and
central role in promoting constructive psychological development; therefore, there is
considerable significance for group leader to pay attention to group dynamics issues during
the group counselling process. The functions of group facilitator during a group process are
including, but not limited to (Hutchison, 2014; Spence & Smale, 2014; Corey, 2020):

• establish a caring, empathetic and accepting climate, where each member is

experiencing minimal threat but maximal sense of safety to process their
experiencing optimally and interact in an increasingly authentic and empathetic
way with other members in the group,
• promote a cohesive group climate that focus more on the interactions between
member-to-member instead of member-to-leader, and facilitate when there is any
interpersonal challenges or barrier to direct communication within the group, to
ensure members will interact with each other in a constructive manner,
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• encourage members to clarify and deepen the exploration of their feelings and
experiencing, including the incongruencies between their feelings and behaviors,
mainly through reflection, clarification and summarizing,
• provide an optimal, threat-free relational environment for members to feel safe in
taking risks, and provide support when they are trying new alternatives or
behaviors,
• assist members to integrate the insights or learnings that they gained from the
group, and look for ways to apply these learnings into their daily lives,
• continuingly encourage members to reflect and comment on the interactions and
development of the group, and decide if they want to make any changes from
current state, and
• accept and respect the group as where it is, and affirm members’ ability for self-
determination.

Stages of a Person-Centered Group

There are two forms of person-centered group: one form meets weekly for about 2
hours for an unspecific number of meetings, depending on the group’s needs and decision;
and another type exist in the form of personal growth workshop that lasts for a weekend, a
week or longer (Corey, 2020). To be included in a person-centered group, both leader and
members have to come into consensus that a group experiences would be beneficial for the
members. Also, following person-centered principles, group members are encouraged to
come out with the ground rules for their group and decide the norms that they agree will help
them in reaching their goals during the initial sessions (Spence & Smale, 2015).

Unfolding of the Group Process

There are 15 processes or trends that happen, not in a definitive sequence and may
somewhat vary from group to group, from the initial to later stages of a person-centered
group (Roger, 1970, as cited in Corey, 2020; Gupta & Tripathi, 2020).

1. Milling around – it is expected that members may experience some initial

confusion, resentment, and frustration due to the lack of direction from leader.
2. Resistance to personal expression or exploration – group members may not be
feeling comfortable to talk openly with each other, accompanied by the feelings of
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nervousness and insecurity within new surroundings and choose to put on a façade
to protect themselves.
3. Description of past feeling “there-and-then” – disclosure of personal feelings may
begin despite of the feeling of uncertainty about the group’s trustworthiness, in the
form of “there-and-then” experiences.
4. Expression of negative feelings – there may be a shift towards the expression of
“here-and-now” experiences, which was often presented in the form of attack on
the group leader, for his or her lack of direction for the group.
5. Expression and exploration of personally meaning material – a climate of trust
may begin to develop if members perceive that their expression of negative
feelings is accepted within the group; as a result, they become more open to share
about own experiences after the initial inhibitions.
6. Expression of immediate interpersonal feelings in the group – members may find
it increasingly easier to be aware, symbolize and express own internal
experiencing towards one another within the group.
7. Development of a healing capacity in group – understanding the similar issues
experienced by other group members may help to normalizing their feelings and
promote group cohesion; members may start to find it easier to respond
empathetically to one other by express understanding, concern and support.
8. Self-acceptance and the beginning of change – members may start to feel accepted
and empathized within the themselves and other group members, and get
increasing more in touch with own inner feelings and more open to change.
9. Cracking of façades – with the sense of self begins to develop, members may feel
lesser threatened within the group and lesser need to maintain a façade, which
enable the group to move towards deeper communication.
10. Feedback – members may become more open in providing reflection or feedback
to other members and learn from others’ feedback about self at the same time.
11. Confrontation – members may start to challenge each other, which shows the
emergence of emotional aspect of members when providing feedback.
12. The helping relationship outside the group sessions – it is an extension of the
process explained in number 7, where members may begin establish contacts
outside the group context.
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13. The basic encounter – genuine person-to-person relationships may emerge among
members which motivates them to commit to work towards a common goal within
the group.
14. Expression of feelings of closeness – as members experience increasing
authenticity in expressing their feelings about self and others, they may also
develop a sense of closeness within the group.
15. Behavior changes in group – the changes of the ability to get in touch and express
inner feelings may translate into changes in behavior among group members
within the psychological safe climate.

Outcomes of the Group Experience

As a result of experiencing genuineness, unconditional positive regards and empathic

understanding from the group leader as well as among members, group members will become
more (Sa’ad, 2014; Corey, 2020; Gupta & Tripathi, 2020):

• open and honest – where they are able to access and express their inner feelings
more directly,
• self-accepting –improved self-concept, where one is less self-critical and more
appreciative towards own uniqueness and trust own self-determination,
• genuine – willing to drop their “protective” façades and be the real person who
they wanted to be,
• sense of safe – trust that they would not be judged within the group, and thus
enabled them to find a solution to their issues in life,
• psychologically congruent –find it increasingly easier to get in touch and express
own internal feelings once they are more accepting towards own identity,
• realistic – experience congruence between individual’s experience with
experience from the environment, and hence gain a more objective and realistic
view of the outside reality,
• understanding and accepting – extend the acceptance towards self to others who
are within the group, and
• able to establish good relationship with others – have more capacity for
meaningful interpersonal relationships as a result of ability to be more empathetic,
accepting and authentic in their interactions with others.

Evaluation of the Person-Centered Approach to Group

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In current report, two strengths and two limitations of person-centered approach in the
context of group counselling will be discussed respectively.

Strengths

The first strength of person-centered approach is the universality of its emphasis of

providing an authentic, caring and empathic climate as therapeutic conditions. Various
studies have suggested the constructive impact of these therapeutic conditions on different
populations (e.g., Malay clients, children in elementary school, out-of-wedlock pregnant
teenagers, Indian working women) with different issues (e.g., spirituality, social anxiety,
depression, self-concept, bereavement, anxiety) (Mohamad et al., 2011; Brouzos et al., 2014;
Sa’ad et al., 2014; Spence & Smale, 2014; Gupta & Tripathi, 2020). In addition, empathic
understanding can be considered as the fundamental prerequisite to any group counselling
approach, especially during the early stage when the group is going through the stage of trust
building (Brouzos et al., 2014). In other words, unless group members perceive that they are
being listened and understood, none of the technique of intervention plan is going to operate
smoothly within the group (Corey, 2020).

The second strength of person-centered approach is its emphasis on the self-agency of

members and self-healing forces within the group (Spence & Smale, 2014; Corey, 2020). A
person-centered group leader is not an expert who offers direction to members’ issues, but a
person who facilitates members’ self-exploration and actualizing process; while client is in
the best position to make decision relating to own lives. The non-directiveness of group
leader forces members to develop as a group, which resembles a community to achieve
increasing acceptance towards self and others, and ultimately more able to trust and direct
own decision-making process (Gupta & Tripathi, 2020).

Limitations

The first limitation is the lack of structure and nondirective role played by group
leader in a person-centered group, where it may limit the group’s effectiveness. As suggested
by Spence & Smale (2014), failure to establish adequate structure may impair the safe
relational climate which would negatively impact members’ development in the bereavement
context. Also, group leader needs to constantly reassess their own optimal distance from the
group – when to leave the members to practice their own potentials and when to intervene;
generally, when interactions between members are identified as unhelpful or destructive,
group leader should come in and actively support the members to show their empathic
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understanding toward each other, in order to maintain the cohesive and facilitative group
climate for all members, especially during the early stages when members are still
overwhelmed with their feelings of anxiety or confusion (Hutchison, 2014; Spence & Smale,
2014). In addition, as person-centered approach strongly believes in members’ and group’s
self-determination ability, it may not be a good fit for certain clients, particularly those who
are in dire need to deal with their current crisis, who have specific goals in learning certain
coping skills or who want to find solutions for pressing problems (Corey, 2020).

The second limitation of person-centered approach is its difficulty to be used as an

exclusive approach in community agency setting or outpatient clinics (Corey, 2020), as these
settings may need practitioners to demonstrate concrete and measurable outcomes. As a
person-centered group leader puts a great deal of trust in members’ and group’s own ability
to move towards constructive developmental changes at its own rate, it would be a challenge
for the practitioners to report the progress and effectiveness of the group counselling to other
multidisciplinary team members and management team.

Conclusion

Similar to any other counselling approach, person-centered approach has its own
uniqueness of strengths and limitations, especially when comes to context of group
counselling. Personally, while I strongly believe in the need to have certain psychotherapy
theories in mind to provide a direction when leading a group, especially in terms of case
conceptualization, it is also essential for group leader to be open-minded and flexible. In
order words, a group leader’s responsibilities are not limited to screen for the suitability of
clients in joining the group, but also to change the way of leading the group to meet the
members’ needs when it deemed to be necessary or beneficial to members. Having said these,
a main takeaway of person-centered approach for me is the emphasis of counsellor as a
person in the therapeutic relationship, as put by Cain (2010) – “it is people who heal people,
not techniques” (as cited in Corey, 2020, p.284).
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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

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

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.

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
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Appendices
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