Client Centered Approach

The client centred therapy was developed by Carl Rogers in 1942 and was based on his personal experience with clients. He believed that everyone is capable of solving their own problems if the right conditions are provided. He proposed that the therapist’s role was to listen to clients, be empathic with them, and accept them for who they were rather than offer deep interpretations of unconscious material or mechanistically change behaviors. He emphasized the real relationship between the therapist and the client rather than the transference relationship, and suggested that therapists should be open and genuine with their clients. He summed this up in six conditions that he thought were necessary for successful therapy.
These conditions were:

1. The relationship between the client and therapist
2. Client’s incongruence or vulnerability to anxiety- that motivates them to stay in the relationship
3. Therapist’s congruence or genuineness- not acting, self-disclosure, listening, awareness of own feelings, openness
4. Therapist’s unconditional positive regard for the client
5. Therapist’s empathetic understanding- accurate, both active and passive aspects of empathy.
6. Client’s perception of therapist UPR and empathetic understanding
Three of these conditions are dominating; they are empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence. C. Rogers called these conditions “core conditions”.
Empathy
It is extremely important that the counsellor is able to empathize with his client and see the world through his eyes and be able to share the same feelings. Carl Rogers says in his book A therapist view of psychotherapy on becoming a person (1961):”Acceptance does not mean much until it involves understanding. It is only as I understand the feelings and thoughts which seem so horrible to you, or so weak, or so sentimental, or so bizarre – It is only as I see them as you see them, and accept them and you, that you feel really free to explore all hidden nooks and