BY: T. Franklin Murphy | July 15, 2021 (modified December 24, 2022)
Person centered therapy focuses on the person not the problem. The goal of person centered therapy is to provide an environment amical for growth. The person is then responsible for improving their life.
The client is given the independence to rationally decide for themselves what is wrong and right for their lives and how to act on those beliefs. The therapist plays a role of friend and counselor who listens and encourages. "If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur.” ~Carl Rogers The Client is In ChargePerson-centered therapy uses a non-authoritative approach, allowing clients to lead discussions so they can discover their own solutions. The therapist is a compassionate facilitator of this process, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without directing the conversation.
History of Person Centered TherapyPerson-centered therapy originated from the work of Carl Rogers who believed that everyone’s view of his or her own world was different, and they should be trusted to manage that world. His style of therapy began to take root in the 1940's and 50's.
Many of todays therapy styles evolved from Carl Roger's person-centered therapy. Three Necessary ConditionsThe success of person-centered therapy relies on three conditions:
Person Centered Therapy and Self ActualizationPerson-centered therapy seeks to facilitate a client's natural tendency to self-actualize. Rogers believed that people have a natural proclivity toward growth and fulfillment. The three conditions of acceptance (unconditional positive regard), therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding creates the environment necessary to open a path to self actualization.
Rogers expressed that this self actualization is the essence of the client becoming a person. He describes this state of being as, "thus to an increasing degree he becomes himself—not a façade of conformity to others, not a cynical denial of all feeling, nor a front of intellectual rationality, but a living, breathing, feeling, fluctuating process—in short, he becomes a person" (1995, location 1922). cy to self-actualize. Rogers believed that people have a natural proclivity toward growth and fulfillment. The three conditions of acceptance (unconditional positive regard), therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding creates the environment necessary to open a path to self actualization. Rogers expressed that this self actualization is the essence of the client becoming a person. He describes this state of being as, "thus to an increasing degree he becomes himself—not a façade of conformity to others, not a cynical denial of all feeling, nor a front of intellectual rationality, but a living, breathing, feeling, fluctuating process—in short, he becomes a person" (1995, location 1922). Six Conditions for Therapeutic Change
Seven Stages of TransformationRogers explained the clients transform on a "significant continuum is from fixity to changingness, from rigid structure to flow, from stasis to process" (location 2182). He breaks down this process into seven stages.
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
Stage IV
Stage V
Stage VI
Stage VII
Person Centered Therapy's InfluenceAs I went through Roger's stages of change, I recognized the profound influence his work has on present positive psychology treatments. His work laid groundwork for mindfulness, acceptance, and growth mindsets. Carl Rogers and the humanism movement was revolutionary.
References:Rogers, C. (1995). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Mariner Books; 2nd ed. edition
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