PERSON CENTERED THERAPY

“We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true
empathy. Yet [active] listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most
potent forces for change that I know.”
Carl Rogers

Presented by Rosita Sequeira

 Introduction
Carl Rogers' person-centered approach to therapy represents a departure from earlier methods by focusing on
the client's conscious mind rather than delving into the unconscious.

Rogerian psychotherapy is also distinct from some other therapies in its assumption that every person can
benefit from person-centered therapy and transform from a “potentially competent individual” to a fully
competent one (McLeod, 2015).

Unlike traditional hierarchical relationships between therapists and patients, Rogers emphasized a more
collaborative model, recognizing the client as an expert in their own experiences. In this approach, the
therapist is knowledgeable about therapeutic techniques, while the client is an expert in their own life.
“It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what

problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried. It

began to occur to me that unless I had a need to demonstrate my own

cleverness and learning, I would do better to rely upon the client for the

direction of movement in the process.”

Rogers believed in the uniqueness of each individual and rejected a one-size-fits-all approach.

He viewed the client's thoughts and experiences as central to the therapeutic process,
empowering individuals to tap into their potential for positive change.

Rogers emphasized the importance of personal experience as the highest authority and
highlighted the individual's autonomy in realizing their full potential.

In essence, person-centered therapy prioritizes the client's unique experience as the cornerstone
of the therapeutic journey
Sarah, a 30-year-old woman, has been feeling stuck in her career and personal life. She feels unfulfilled in her job
and is experiencing a lack of motivation and low self-esteem. Sarah decides to seek therapy to explore her
feelings and find a way forward.

•Sarah: "I feel like I'm just going through the motions at work. I used to be so passionate about what I do, but
now I just feel empty.“
•T: "It sounds like your work used to be a source of passion for you, but now it feels more like a routine. Can
you tell me more about what changed for you?"

•Sarah: "There was a time when I led a project that made a real difference in the community. I felt so proud and
connected to my work.“
•T: "That project seems to have been a significant experience for you, one where you felt proud and connected.
What aspects of that experience do you think contributed to those feelings?"
•Sarah begins to identify her core values and interests. She realizes that she thrives in
environments where she can make a meaningful impact and collaborate with others.

•T: "You have a strong sense of what brings you fulfillment and purpose. Trust in your
ability to pursue these goals and make choices that align with your values. How do
you feel about taking the next step towards these changes?“

Over time, Sarah gains a clearer understanding of her strengths and aspirations. She
starts to take proactive steps towards a career change that aligns with her values and
passions. With Therapist support, Sarah develops greater self-confidence and a
renewed sense of purpose in her life.
 History
The person-centered approach originated from humanistic psychology, which perceives individuals as
capable and autonomous, capable of resolving difficulties and realizing their potential.

Carl Rogers, a key figure in this approach, emphasized the humanistic perspective and the importance of
therapeutic relationships fostering self-esteem, authenticity, and actualization.

Initially, the focus was on empowering clients to take charge of therapy, leading to increased self-
understanding and improved self-concepts.

Over time, the approach evolved to emphasize the client's frame of reference and essential therapeutic
conditions, including empathic understanding from the therapist.
 The evolution of person-centered therapy

• Becoming a Person: During the 1960s, Rogers

• Nondirective Counseling: This period began in the
began to focus on self-development more clearly.
1940s and was characterized by Rogers’s growing
His work was strongly associated with the human
aversion to directive, traditional therapy methods.
potential movement.

• Client-Centered Therapy: In the 1950s Rogers

• Worldwide Issues: In the 1970s and 1980s, Rogers
changed the name of his approach from nondirective
became more concerned with worldwide issues. He
counseling to client-centered therapy. During this
founded the Center for the Study of the Person in
period Rogers published Client-Centered Therapy and
La Jolla, California, in 1968 and began dedicating
changed his focus from nondirective technique to an
much of his work to improving interracial relations
honouring of the client’s ability to lead the therapy
and bringing about world peace.
process
 Actualization Conditions of worth

Key concepts

The fully functioning Phenomenological

person perspective
 Therapeutic goals
◦ Rogers did not believe the aim of therapy was to solve problems. Rather, it was to assist clients
in their growth process so clients could better cope with their current and future problems.

◦ The underlying aim of therapy is to provide a climate conducive to helping the individual
become a fully functioning person.

◦ Its focus is on the person, not on the person’s presenting problem.

 Rogers described people who are becoming increasingly actualized as having

clients in a relationship
An
openness to with a facilitating therapist
experience have the capacity to define
and clarify their own goals.
A trust in
themselves
An internal
source of
The therapist does not evaluation A willingness
choose specific goals for to continue
the client.
growing.
Rogers believed everyone is different, he believed everyone would take different paths to self-
discovery. Therefore, person-centered therapy goals will be undoubtedly different for all.
However, in terms of the therapy itself, there are unifying outcomes that therapists aim to reach.

• Positive mental and physical well-being for their client

• Client self-discovery and realization

• Gained independence and autonomy within their client

• Guide the client to a life of reflection for continued growth

Conditions of person centered therapy
1. Two persons are in psychological contact. There must be a relationship in which two people
are capable of having some impact on each other. Brodley (2000) describes the concept of
presence which refers to the therapist not just being in the same room with the client but also
bringing forth her abilities to attend to and be engaged by the client.

2. The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or
anxious.

3. The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the
relationship.
4. The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.

5. The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference
and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.

What do you mean by internal frame of reference?

Client: I don't feel very normal, but I want to feel that way. ... I thought I'd have something to
talk about —then it all goes around in circles. I was trying to think what I was going to say. Then
coming here it doesn't work out. ... I tell you, it seemed that it would be much easier before I
came. I tell you, I just can't make a decsion; I don't know what I want. I've tried to reason this
thing out logically—tried to figure out which things are important to me. I thought that there are
maybe two things a man might do; he might get married and raise a family. But if he was just a
bachelor, just making a living — that isn't very good. I find myself and my thoughts getting back
to the days when I was a kid and I cry very easily. The dam would break through. I've been in the
Army four and a half years. I had no problems then, no hopes, no wishes. My only thought was
to get out when peace would come. My problems, now that I'm out, are as ever. I tell you, they
go back to a long time before I was in the Army. ...
I love children. When I was in the Philippines —I tell you, when I was young I swore I'd never
forget my unhappy childhood — so when I saw these children in the Philip pines, I treated them
very nicely. I used to give them ice cream cones and movies. It was just a period —I'd reverted
back —and that awakened some emotions in me I thought I had long buried. (A pause. He seems
very near tears)
As this material was read, such thoughts as the following would represent an external frame of
reference in you.

I wonder if I should help him get started talking. Is this inability to get under way a type of dependence?

Why this indecisiveness?

What could be its cause?

What is meant by this focus on marriage and family? He seems to be a bachelor. I hadn't known that. The crying,
the "dam," sound as though there must be a great deal of repression.

He's a veteran.

Could he have been a psychiatric case?

I feel sorry for anybody who spent four and one-half years in the service. Some time he will probably need to dig
into those early unhappy ex periences.

What is this interest in children? Identification? Vague homosexuality

client's internal frame of reference would tend to be of this order:

You're wanting to struggle toward normality, aren't you?

It's really hard for you to get started.

Decision-making just seems impossible to you.

You want marriage, but it doesn't seem to you to be much of a possibility.

You feel yourself brimming over with childish feelings.

To you the Army represented stagnation.

Being very nice to children has somehow had meaning for you. But it was — and is — a
disturbing experience for you
6. The communication to the client of the therapists empathic

understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree

achieved.

In general, the 6 conditions are considered as to have two basic

components, those associated with the actions and experiences of the
therapist (conditions 3, 4 and 5), and those linked to the client’s
experiences and capacity to engage in a therapeutic relationship.
Conditions 3, 4 and 5, the so-called ‘therapist conditions’ (Barratt-Lennard,
1998) are often termed the core conditions, and are those most often referred to
within other therapeutic orientations (e.g. Egan, 1998) as well as providing the
focus for much research and analysis (e.g. Norcross, 2002).

They are seen as core because they concern the conduct the therapy itself and
are thus often seen as the vehicle through which change is enabled. Each is
seen to play a different, but equally important, part in facilitating a client to
become more congruent.
 Unconditional
Congruence
positive regard

Techniques

Non
Empathy
directiveness
 Congruence and Non directiveness
Congruence is whether or not therapists are genuine and authentic in what they say and do. Quite often,
if the therapist is saying one thing but the body language is reflective of something else, clients are aware
of this and may impact on their trust and openness in the therapeutic relationship (Seligman, 2006).

Non directiveness The person-centred approach utilises non directiveness as a technique by its therapists.
Non directiveness refers to allowing clients to be the focus of the therapy session without the therapist
giving advice or implementing strategies or activities. The "therapist" should focus on using open-ended
questions and reflective listening without giving advice or solutions
A client is uncertain about whether to take a new job offer.

Client: "I'm not sure if I should take this new job. It's a big decision."

Therapist's response (non-directive): "It sounds like you're facing a significant decision. What
are some of the thoughts and feelings you're having about this new job offer?"

The therapist avoids giving their opinion or advice, allowing the client to reflect on their own
values, goals, and concerns, leading to a more autonomous decision.
 Unconditional positive regard
The therapist must have no conditions of acceptance but must accept and appreciate the client as he/she is.
Hurtful, painful, bizarre, and unusual feelings, as well as good feelings, are to be accepted by the therapist.

Even when the client lies, the therapist accepts, and eventually the client is likely to confront his own lies
and admit them to the therapist. Acceptance does not mean agreement with the client but rather refers to
caring for the person as a separate individual.

Therapists do not always feel unconditional positive regard for their clients, but it is a goal toward which
they strive. By appreciating clients for being themselves, the therapist makes no judgment of people’s
positive or negative qualities. As the client values the unconditional positive regard of the therapist, there
is an increase of positive self-regard within the client.
Empathy

Empathy is aa skill used by person-centred therapists to show understanding of the clients

emotions. Zimring (2000) adds that empathy helps clients grow and change their way of
being rather than helping clients find some hidden inner truth. Empathy involves
understanding another individual by “living” in their internal frame of reference
Intellectual empathy

Involves seeing the world from the client’s perspective in a

distant or intellectual way

Emotional empathy

Occurs when you naturally or spontaneously begin feeling an

emotion in response to the client’s words or emotional state

Imaginative empathy

Involves asking yourself the empathy question: “How would I

feel if I were in my client’s situation?”
 Empathy v/s Sympathy
Client: I feel as though no one cares about me and that I am all alone

Empathy response: So you are feeling alone at the Sympathy response: I’m sorry that you feel that
moment and as if no one cares. way.

The most common method of experiencing empathy is to listen to closely to what a client is saying, not only
though words, but also through all forms of non-verbal and bodily communication. Empathic understanding is only
effective in person-centred terms if is effectively communicated (condition 6) to a client, a process that ensures the
client knows that the therapist understands how he feels as well as checks the extent to which the empathy
expressed is accurate
There are a number of common mechanisms employed within person-centred therapy to achieve this.
Perhaps the most familiar of these is reflecting back, or paraphrasing, a client’s personal experiencing
(which can include, thoughts, feelings and, indeed, motivations for future actions; Bohart, 1997). In order
to ensure accuracy, however, any kind of empathic statement has within it the implied question ‘is this how
it is for you?

Example of empathic reflection C: I have been having a dreadful time recently, what with all the
disruption at home and work. It just seems as if things couldn’t get much worse.

T: So, it’s been a terrible both at home and at work. It seems to be coming at you from all sides. Things
couldn’t get any more awful than they are at the moment?

C: Yes, I’m at my wits end (becoming tearful)

Therapist 1: "You resent her criticism."
Therapist 2 : "If I understand you correctly, you feel pretty resentful toward her criticism. Is that
right?"

Client would probably respond "Yes, that is the way I feel, and I perceive that a little more clearly
now that you have put it in somewhat different terms.“

If this is the attitude and tone which is used, it would probably be experienced by the client as
aiding him in further expression.

“You resent her criticism" may be given with the same attitude and tone with which one might
announce "You have the measles," or even with the attitude and tone which would accompany the
words "You are sitting on my hat." the statement is declarative, it becomes an evaluation, a
judgment made by the therapist 1, who is now telling the client what his feelings are. The process
is centered in the therapist, and the feeling of the client would tend to be, "I am being diagnosed."
Other techniques
• Reflection of feelings

Reflective feeling, or reflection of feelings, involves the therapist identifying and articulating the
emotions that the client is expressing, either directly or indirectly. This helps the client become
more aware of their emotional state.

Client: I didn’t know what to do, I was so confused and angry.

T: So you are feeling confused and angry.

• Open Questions

Client: I had a car accident the other day and the other person got out and started abusing me.

T: And how did that make you feel?

"Can you tell me more about what it feels like when you think you’re not good enough?"
"What do you think are the underlying reasons for your feelings of sadness?"
• Paraphrasing

Client: I have been feeling depressed for the past 2 months since I broke up with my partner. I am having trouble
sleeping and can’t concentrate at work.

T: So the feeling of depression is impacting on your everyday life.

Therapists can let clients know that they understand what the clients have told them by repeating what they have said
back to them in the therapist’s own words; this can also help the client to clarify their feelings or the nature of
their problems.

• Encouragers

Client: It makes me feel like crying, I don’t know what to do.

T: Uh-huh

These words or phrases, like “uh-huh,” “go on,” and “what else?” are excellent at encouraging the client to continue;
these can be especially useful for a client who is shy, introverted, or afraid of opening up and being vulnerable
• Silence
The therapist uses silence as a tool to give the client space to think and feel without interruption. This can
encourage deeper self-reflection and expression.
Client: "I'm not sure what to say next."
Therapist: "That's okay. Take your time. I'm here when you're ready to share more."

• Validation
The therapist acknowledges and accepts the client’s feelings and experiences, affirming that their emotions are
valid and understandable.
Client: "I feel so guilty for feeling relieved when my friend moved away."
Therapist: "It makes sense to feel relieved. It sounds like that relationship was really stressful for you, so it's
natural to feel some relief."
 Non-Directiveness:
Paraphrasing: focuses Empathy: To build a strong allowing the client to
on restating content in therapeutic alliance, validate guide the conversation
the client's words to the client's feelings, and create and come to their own
show understanding. a safe space for them to open conclusions,
up supporting the client's
autonomy and self
discovery

Reflective Feeling: emphasizes

mirroring the client’s emotions
identifying and reflecting the
emotions that the client to help
them recognize and understand
their feelings.
Client: "I feel like I'm failing in every part of my life. Work is a mess, my relationship is falling apart, and
I just don't know what to do."

Paraphrasing: “You're feeling like everything is going wrong both at work and in your relationship,
and it's leaving you uncertain about what steps to take.”

Reflective Feeling: “It sounds like you're experiencing a lot of frustration and sadness about these
situations.”

Non-Directiveness: “What do you feel might be your first step in addressing these challenges?”

Empathy: “It sounds incredibly tough to feel overwhelmed in so many areas of your life at once.
It's understandable to feel lost and unsure of where to begin.”
 Therapist’s function and role
➢The role of person-centered therapists is grounded in their attitudes and ways of being rather than their
knowledge or techniques. Research suggests that the therapist's attitude, specifically their belief in the
client's inner resources, plays a crucial role in facilitating personality change.

➢In this therapeutic approach, therapists view themselves as instruments of change and strive to connect
with clients on a person-to-person level, transcending professional roles.

➢In a therapeutic relationship where the therapist endeavors to keep himself out, as a separate person, and
where his whole endeavor is to understand the other so completely that he becomes almost an alter ego of
the client, personal distortions and maladjustments are much less likely to occur
➢"How do I see this? How do I understand this material?" the door is wide open for the personal needs
or conflicts of the therapist to distort these evaluations.

But where the therapist’s central question is "How does the client see this?" and where he is
continually checking his own understanding of the client’s perception by putting forth tentative
statements of it, distortion based upon the counselor's conflicts is much less apt to enter, and much more
apt to be corrected by the client if it does enter.”

➢Therapists are tasked with being present, accessible, and focused on the client's immediate
experience.

➢Their primary role is to be authentic and real in the therapeutic relationship, embodying qualities of
congruence, acceptance, and empathy.
➢Person-centered therapists should avoid from certain functions, such as asking leading questions, making
interpretations, evaluating client ideas or plans, and deciding on the frequency or length of therapy.
Instead, they provide an environment where clients feel the freedom to explore aspects of their lives that
may have been denied or distorted. Self-initiated and responsible action proved far more effective
than guided action.

Study

Coch and French (41) comes to the same conclusion regarding industrial workers. With conditions of pay
held constant, some groups of workers were shifted to a new task and carefully instructed in the way to
handle it and in wavs of increasing efficiency on the new task. Other groups were shifted to the new task,
and permitted to discuss, plan, and carry out their own way of handling the new problem. In the latter
groups productivity increased more rapidly, increased to a higher level, held a higher level, and morale
◦ /
 How do you think client perceives therapy and
the interview ?
“Before I asked Dr. to take me on as a client, I hunted in these books for everything the clients had said
about the experience. "Was it painful? Did it work? How safe was it to give your confidence to
someone else?" were the questions I had before counseling began”.

◦ It is evident that clients come with widely varying expectations, many of which will not match the
experience they meet
Client’s Experience in Therapy
◦ Experiencing responsibility

◦ Experiencing the therapist

◦ Experiencing the process of exploration

◦ Experiencing the self

◦ Experiencing change
 Experiencing responsibility

In therapy, clients learn that they are responsible for themselves both in the therapeutic relationship and more
broadly.

One veteran writes:

“I was lost in your presence, especially when I was told that I had an hour with you. I could either sit or talk
or do as I pleased. The impression I received was of being left alone, all on my own with my problem. But I
soon discovered that by talking of my indecision and problem I was able to see clearly that my problem was
being solved of my own initiative rather than the counseling of my interviewer. The therapist was trying to
make me think everything out for myself.
At times his silence would anger me, but at the same time I felt he must have a purpose. Because
of his silence of not answering or giving opinions, I had to delve in my own mind deeper and
deeper. In other words, the answers were my own completely & for this reason have stuck with
me.”

Although clients may at first be frustrated or puzzled by the therapist’s emphasis on the client’s
experience, person-centered therapists believe that clients soon come to accept and welcome this
Experiencing the therapist
Gradually, the client comes to appreciate the empathy and nonconditional positive regard of the
therapist. There is a feeling of being cared for and being fully accepted (Rogers, 1953). The
experience of being truly cared for assists clients in caring more deeply for themselves and for
others.
 Experiencing the process of exploration

The caring and empathy of the therapist allow the client to explore fearful or anxiety-producing experiences.

These attitudes allow for the client to change and develop. By exploring feelings that are deeply felt rather

than feelings that should be sensed, the client can experience a feeling of total honesty and self-awareness.
Client’s experience

“I remember a good deal of emotional tension in the second in interview where I first mentioned
homosexuality. I remember that I felt drawn down into myself, into places I didn't want to go,
hadn't quite been to before, and yet had to see. I think I dreaded this interview more than any of
the other early ones because I had been so afraid before counseling began that I would get to that
subject. And afraid that I wouldn't. I'm surprised that under those conditions I got to it so soon,
particularly since the immediate worry concerned someone's remark, which I had misinterpreted,
about the counselor and me. I still remember the warm, acceptant voice of the counselor and my
feeling that it was just a little more acceptant than I could be of the fears I was expressing but not
enough different to be reassuring in a threatening way.”
The safety of the relationship with the therapist, the complete absence of any threat, which
permits honesty even in the expression of inconsistency, appears to make this exploration very
much different from ordinary conversation.

Clients speak of talking about "things I had never previously thought of,'' or use other phrases to
describe this aspect of their experience.

One client, a man of limited education, puts it this way: “At first I wondered why I had to do all
the talking but as it went on I could see that it had the effect of making me dig deep inside of me
and bring up things that 1 hardly knew were troubling me. I know that practically every time I'd
start off hardly knowing what to talk on but as time progressed I talked much more freely.”
 The Experience of Reorganizing the Self
As individuals deal with their angry and hostile feelings, discomfort, they gradually encounter positive
feelings about themselves and others. reorganization of self in essence, they are exploring who they really
are and their inner world, as well as dropping pretences about who they should be.

CASE – Miss Har

An account of an experience involving deeper reorganization is given by Miss Har. Much of her life and
her pattern of selfhood has been organized around her hatred for her father. What happens when she
realizes that she has been denying the opposite feeling is well told in her own words.
“The eighteenth interview represents to me a mixture of feelings. In this interview I came close to saying that I liked my
father some times. I felt then as if I had come to the edge of an awful canyon; I referred to it later as a pit I had dug for
myself. When I asked, "What does that do to the basis of my whole life?" I could barely speak. I felt more deeply than I
can describe that I had reached a point far away from everything I had ever known. Despair, fear and grief —all greater
than any I had felt before — were behind the for. question. As soon as the interview was over I wanted to hear it played
back, as we occasionally did. I remember lying down to listen to it and shivering as it came closer to the point where I
was afraid I had said "I love my father." I think I never did hear that part I was waiting I fell asleep and slept until the
recording was over. I was scared and unhappy when I woke up.

At the beginning of the next interview I talked all around it. Throughout that following session, I was angry and
confused, afraid of what I might do or say next. In between the two sessions I had hours of real panic. It was a
disintegrating experience which ended in better integration but was hard to bear at the time.

The three following interviews show how hard I tried to run away from it and how impossible it was to deny an
experience that had once been brought to light. It wasn't until the twenty-second interview, eighteen days later, that I was
able to be fairly calm about it
 Experiencing of progress
Contrary to what one might suppose, progress appears to be experienced by the client almost from the first. It is the fact
that he discovers that some of the issues he has discussed, some of the denied experiences which have been accepted, no
longer cause him pain or anxiety which encourages the client to go forward. The realization that one segment of
personality organization has been reconstructed, and that new forms of behavior result from it —this it is that builds the
client's confidence in his own ability to make progress in exploring himself.

CASE – Miss Har

Miss Har gives description of the inner feeling of such progress. In the fourth interview she discusses the change in her
feelings which has come about primarily through catharsis. “It's wonderful how relaxed I can get talking about ideas I
couldn't even think about last year, things that just require saying, getting rid of. Last year I kept thinking what a pleasant
way out illness would be. This year in my daydreams when the same thing happens I say, "Hell, no, that's not what I
want."
◦ Rogers (1961) was able to describe seven stages of therapeutic progress that ranged from being
closed, not open to experience, and not self-aware, to the opposite—openness to experience,
self-awareness, and positive self-regard.

◦ Important aspects of the therapeutic progress include changes in feelings, willingness to

communicate them, openness to experience, and intimacy in relating to others.

◦ When individuals are at beginning stages of openness to change, they are not likely to express
feelings or take responsibility for them. Gradually, they may come to express their feelings
with decreasing fear about doing so. At the higher stages, they will be able to experience and
readily communicate feelings to the therapist.

◦ Throughout the therapeutic process, individuals come to be more internally congruent, that is,
more aware of their own feelings.
 The Experience of Ending
◦ How does the client experience the ending of therapy?

◦ Not infrequently, in bringing therapy to a conclusion, the client experiences fear, and sense of
loss, and a temporary un willingness to face life alone without the underlying support of the
therapeutic hour.
 Process of Person- Centered Psychotherapy

◦ Process of Person-Centered Therapy begins at first contact. In the first interview, a person-centered
therapist will go where the client goes. Respect shown immediately for client. In addition to the basic
requirements of the therapeutic environment for the therapist

◦ Therapy’s length is determined by client (In person-centered therapy termination is decided by the
client).

◦ Quick suggestions and reassurances are avoided.

◦ Person centered therapists believe that empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence are
necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic change
•In this safe environment, the client starts to discover previously denied or distorted experiences.
They begin to integrate these experiences into a new, more accurate self-structure.

•This process involves disorganization and reorganization, which can be painful and confusing as the
client fluctuates between old and new self-perceptions.

•The client learns to accept and symbolize their experiences without distortion, gradually forming a
new self-concept based on their total experience.

•If the therapeutic relationship is not strong enough, or if the client’s denied experiences are too
threatening, the client may defensively revise their self-concept, leading to a more rigid and
vulnerable self-structure.
◦ Some individuals may be so lacking in awareness that they find it difficult or impossible to initiate
the therapeutic process. They may have rigid views of themselves that cut them off from
relationships with others, including the therapist. With progress in therapy, individuals come to
understand how they have contributed to their own problems and may not blame others for them.

◦ As clients progress gradually through stages of therapeutic progress, they come closer to Rogers’s
description of the fully functioning person

◦ Sharing their fears, anxiety, and shame in the presence of the therapist’s genuine caring helps
individuals trust their own experience, feel a sense of richness in their lives, become physiologically
more relaxed, and experience life more fully
The individual in "successful" therapy tends:

• to perceive his abilities and characteristics with more objecivity and with greater comfort

• perceive all aspects of self and self-in-relationship with less emotion and more objectivity

• to perceive himself as more independent and more able to cope with the problems; to perceive
himself as more able to be spontaneous and genuine

• perceive himself as the evaluator of experience, rather than regarding himself as existing in a
world where the values are inherent in and attached to the objects of his perception; to perceive
himself as more integrated, less divided.
 Cultural Awareness
◦ Recognising the centrality of culture can augment therapy and result in effective treatment of all
clients.

◦ Cultural awareness means being cognisant 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.

Some examples of these would be:

• Arab people may avert their eyes when listening or talking to a superior.

• Someone from South America may consider it impolite if you speak with your hands in your pockets.
• Russian patients or clients may want to kiss you on the check to express their gratitude

• If client is from Norway, they may hesitate to use your first name until they know you better.

• For the Chinese or Japanese, a facial expression that would be recognised around the world as
conveying happiness, may actually express anger or mask sadness, both of which are
unacceptable to show overtly in their culture.

• Many Indians integrate spirituality and religion into their daily lives. Therapists might
consider incorporating or respecting these aspects during sessions.
Tips for considering cross cultural communication are really very basic:

1) Use common words

2) Follow basic words of grammar

3) Avoid slang

4) Repeat basic ideas without shouting

5) Paraphrase important points

6) Check for understanding

 Application
◦ Person-Centered Therapy finds broad applications across various helping professions, the voluntary sector, human
relations training, group work, education, and institutional settings where the aim is to cultivate strong interpersonal
skills and respect for others.

◦ Beneficial in crisis intervention, particularly with clients in the initial stages of crisis.

◦ Women clients, in particular, can find value in this therapy as it encourages the exploration and identification of
their own feelings and needs, fostering a capability that may be new to many.

◦ Individuals grappling with relationship difficulties also benefit, receiving respect, understanding, and openness
from the person-centered therapist that might be lacking in their everyday lives. Its applicability extends to
counseling individuals facing challenges like unwanted pregnancy, illness, or the loss of a loved one
◦ The principles of the person-centered approach extend to various therapeutic situations, including
marriage counselling and family therapy

◦ Additionally, self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous incorporate core conditions of respect,
understanding, and openness inspired by the person-centered approach to support individuals
seeking change.

◦ This therapeutic approach is adaptable to working with individuals, groups, and families, proving
successful in addressing a range of issues such as anxiety disorders, alcoholism, psychosomatic
problems, agoraphobia, interpersonal difficulties, depression, and personality disorders.
 Strengths Weakness
• Offers a perspective that is up to date and optimistic • Difficulty in therapists allowing clients to find their
own way

• many aspects are relevant to multicultural • The non-directive approach can sometimes lead to a
perspective lack of structure, which may be challenging for clients
who need more guidance and direction.
• client’s have a positive experience in therapy when • Person centered therapy doesnot draw on
the focus is on them and their experience developmental, psychodynamic or behavioural
therapy thus limiting the overall understanding of
the client
• client’s feel that they can express themselves more • simplistic and unrealistically optimistic
fully when they are being listened to and not judged
• client’s feel empowered from person centered • not appropriate for those who are nt motivated to
therapy as the responsibility is on them to make change
decisions

• has provided basis for many other therapies such as • may not be useful with significant psychopathology
the emphasis on the client therapist relationship

• research has substantiated the importance of client • listening and caring may not be enough
therapist relationship
REFERENCES
Person centered therapy techniques. (n.d.). Theraplatform.
Retrieved from
[Link]
therapy-techniques
E. Ackerman. (2017, July 21). 10 Person-Centered Therapy
Techniques & Interventions. Positive Psychology. from
[Link]
Rogers. (1965). client centered therapy . Houghton Mifflin
company, Boston.
Person centerd therapy. (n.d.). Counselling connection.
Retrieved from [Link]
content/uploads/2013/03/[Link]