An Evaluation Of Person-Centered Therapy

Carl Rogers and evaluation of person – centered therapy

Introduction
Carl Ransom Rogers is “the most influential psychologist in American history” according to Kirchenbaum & Henderson (1989). According to study made in 2002 by Haggbloom et al. using multiple criteria, Carl Rogers is the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, after Sigmund Freud. He is widely known as a founder of client – centred therapy. He was honoured for his pioneering research by the American Psychological Association in 1956 with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions and was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize shortly after the end of his life.
In his name current psychologists can be awarded with Carl Rogers’
He described it as a desire for fulfillment, desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming. His concept of the hierarchy of needs and the need to satisfy lower level needs in order to address higher level needs was used by many psychotherapists. Rogers extended his theory to all living creatures, including mushrooms and plants.
In 1961 Rogers described this self-actualisation as full function. People who achieve their goals and fulfil their wishes, become self – actualised or fully functioning persons. As achieving of this state has such a powerful effect, Rogers called it the curative force in psychotherapy, force of life. Logically the aim for psychotherapy is to help the client achieve this, to fulfill their potential.
There are various aspects of self – actualisation and obstacles that can be identified during therapy. Some of them are described in this essay: locus of control, conditions of worth, positive regard and self- regard.

Locus of
If there are any techniques they are listening, accepting, understanding and sharing, which seem more attitude-orientated than skills-orientated. The advantage for the therapist is no need for lengthy training and memorising schemes and concepts but to focus on client in here and now. On the other hand this may be a disadvantage in less gifted therapists who may fail to be natural in this relationship which is basically direction deprived.
The client feels great when the therapist takes him as a unique individual rather than putting him in a labelled box. This approach was proved very important for example in women with eating disorders as these clients are very sensitive to a good rapport with the therapist. On the other hand the non - directive approach might be perceived by the client as a lack of competences of the therapist, it may seem like a friendly chat with no structure rather than actual