Person-Centered Counseling: Historical Development of a Major Therapeutic Model
1.1 Explain the historical development of one major therapeutic model, including the people influential in its development
Person centred counselling came around in the 1940-1950’s by a psychologist called Carl Rogers, Rogers and Abraham Maslow held meetings to discuss the future of the humanistic approach, they later went on to establish the American association for humanistic psychology.
Person centred counselling came about due to their only being two other therapeutic models, psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Behaviourism focused on conditioning that produces behaviour, where psychoanalysis focused on the unconscious drive that motivates people. Person centred counselling or humanistic counselling tends to focus on the more positive emotions and stress how growth is important, where in the other models it seems to focus more on the negatives. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Maslow talks of how we all need core conditions to become a healthy, normal person (represented below).
Rogers believed that people were born with the intention of being good and naturally wanted to strive to better themselves. Rogers study showed how he used the term client rather than patient as patient portrayed the person as being sick or ill,
“Rogers initially started out calling his technique non-directive therapy. While his goal was to be as non-directive as possible, he eventually realized that therapists guide clients even in subtle ways. He also found that clients often do look to their therapists for some type of guidance or direction. Eventually, the technique came to be known as person-centered therapy. Today, Rogers' approach to therapy is often referred to by either of these two names, but it is also frequently known simply as Rogerian therapy”. (Cherry,2013)
The way Rogers did his study changed the way psychologists and counsellors will act for centuries and was called “one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century” for his forward thinking from Freud’s
Person centred counselling came around in the 1940-1950’s by a psychologist called Carl Rogers, Rogers and Abraham Maslow held meetings to discuss the future of the humanistic approach, they later went on to establish the American association for humanistic psychology.
Person centred counselling came about due to their only being two other therapeutic models, psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Behaviourism focused on conditioning that produces behaviour, where psychoanalysis focused on the unconscious drive that motivates people. Person centred counselling or humanistic counselling tends to focus on the more positive emotions and stress how growth is important, where in the other models it seems to focus more on the negatives. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Maslow talks of how we all need core conditions to become a healthy, normal person (represented below).
Rogers believed that people were born with the intention of being good and naturally wanted to strive to better themselves. Rogers study showed how he used the term client rather than patient as patient portrayed the person as being sick or ill,
“Rogers initially started out calling his technique non-directive therapy. While his goal was to be as non-directive as possible, he eventually realized that therapists guide clients even in subtle ways. He also found that clients often do look to their therapists for some type of guidance or direction. Eventually, the technique came to be known as person-centered therapy. Today, Rogers' approach to therapy is often referred to by either of these two names, but it is also frequently known simply as Rogerian therapy”. (Cherry,2013)
The way Rogers did his study changed the way psychologists and counsellors will act for centuries and was called “one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century” for his forward thinking from Freud’s