Person Centred Approach

Explore the Person Centred approach in relation to counselling practice

The roots of the Person Centred approach, now considered a founding work in the Humanistic school of psychotherapies, began formally with Carl Rogers in the 1950’s. Dealing in the 'here and now' and not on the childhood origins of the client's problems, basic assumptions of the Person Centred approach state that clients are essentially trustworthy; that they have a vast potential for understanding themselves and resolving their own problem and that they are capable of self-directed growth when in a therapeutic relationship. In counselling there is a focus on the client’s ability to move in positive directions and towards a single ‘force of life’ called the ‘actualizing
There are three basic core conditions a counsellor will use to support an individual's natural inclination for positive growth. Firstly there is the act of being congruent. ‘Congruence’ means that in counselling sessions the counsellor's outward responses match their inner awareness and feelings; that they are genuine, real, open, authentic and transparent. ‘Congruence’ is not a question of the counsellor blurting out compulsively every passing feeling; rather it is a state of being. Feelings only are to be expressed when they are persistent and of great strength and when communication of them assists the therapeutic process. In endeavouring to be so open the counsellor acts as a role model sending the message that it’s ok to feel and communicate feelings. In order to develop and maintain ‘congruence’ counsellors need to constantly work at being aware of their underlying feelings and also to realise the importance of having supervision and working on their own personal growth. As the counsellor I have felt most congruent when naturally being myself and not thinking too hard about how I should act towards the client. As an observer I have witnessed ‘congruence’ when the counsellor has given a genuine statement about how the client’s situation affected them. The client stated they felt overwhelmed by their circumstances. The
‘Empathy’ in counselling practice is the process of the counsellor understanding the client ‘as if’ they were that person but without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality. If the ‘as if’ quality is lost then the process can become one of identification whereby the counsellor is no longer understanding the event from the client's ‘internal frame of reference’ but rather from their own experience of a similar event. Moving away from an ‘external frame of reference’ of the counsellor judging, advising, preaching or moralising is paramount. In sessions when clients experience their counsellors as deeply empathic they are helped to explore their inner selves more profoundly and change is more likely to occur. Alienated clients also feel more connected and less