Evaluate the Claim That Person-Centred Therapy Offers the Therapist All That He/She Will Need to Treat Clients.
CPD Continual Personal Development
PC Person-Centered
PCA Person-Centred Approach
UPR Unconditional positive regard
Introduction and background
“Evaluate the claim that Person-Centred Therapy offers the therapist all that he/she will need to treat clients”.
Person-Centred (PC) counselling also known as Client-Centred or Rogerian counselling is a humanist therapy, which emerged in the 1950’s, offering individuals an alternative to other Behavioral/Psychoanalytic methods. Humanistic therapy concentrates on the ability of a person to make rational choices and develop towards their maximum potential. Dr Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) an American psychologist developed the Person-Centred approach. To identify if PC therapy offers the therapist all that is needed to treat a client we must investigate the truths and principles behind the theory (Counselling-directory.org.uk 1950).
Dryden’s handbook of individual therapy states ‘Diagnosis and interpretation are far removed from the primary concerns of a contemporary person-centred therapist and in an important sense Rogers’s progressive disillusionment with both these activities during his time in Rochester marks the beginning of his own unique approach’ (Dryden, 2007, p. 144).
Rogers’ non-directed therapy was developed out of protest against the diagnostic forms of therapy commonplace at the time. Non-directivity promotes the clients' own self-dependents. The client-centred approach focuses on ‘conscious as opposed to the unconscious processes’ (Rogers 2003, p. 5) and the belief that the human organism already has within them an innate tendency towards growth and wholeness. (Hough, 1998) suggests that ‘Rogers believed that people will, if given the right conditions and opportunities, move towards autonomy and self direction’ (Rogers, 1961); a ‘Self-Actualising’ tendency pushing them to fulfill their own potential. Those of us open to life’s experiences that consistently display the states below
PC Person-Centered
PCA Person-Centred Approach
UPR Unconditional positive regard
Introduction and background
“Evaluate the claim that Person-Centred Therapy offers the therapist all that he/she will need to treat clients”.
Person-Centred (PC) counselling also known as Client-Centred or Rogerian counselling is a humanist therapy, which emerged in the 1950’s, offering individuals an alternative to other Behavioral/Psychoanalytic methods. Humanistic therapy concentrates on the ability of a person to make rational choices and develop towards their maximum potential. Dr Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) an American psychologist developed the Person-Centred approach. To identify if PC therapy offers the therapist all that is needed to treat a client we must investigate the truths and principles behind the theory (Counselling-directory.org.uk 1950).
Dryden’s handbook of individual therapy states ‘Diagnosis and interpretation are far removed from the primary concerns of a contemporary person-centred therapist and in an important sense Rogers’s progressive disillusionment with both these activities during his time in Rochester marks the beginning of his own unique approach’ (Dryden, 2007, p. 144).
Rogers’ non-directed therapy was developed out of protest against the diagnostic forms of therapy commonplace at the time. Non-directivity promotes the clients' own self-dependents. The client-centred approach focuses on ‘conscious as opposed to the unconscious processes’ (Rogers 2003, p. 5) and the belief that the human organism already has within them an innate tendency towards growth and wholeness. (Hough, 1998) suggests that ‘Rogers believed that people will, if given the right conditions and opportunities, move towards autonomy and self direction’ (Rogers, 1961); a ‘Self-Actualising’ tendency pushing them to fulfill their own potential. Those of us open to life’s experiences that consistently display the states below