Person Centred Approach Essay

The person-centered approach views the client as their own best authority on their own experience, and it views the client as being fully capable of fulfilling their won potential for growth. It recognizes, however, that achieving potential requires favorable conditions and that under adverse conditions, individuals may well not grow and develop in the ways that they otherwise could. In particular, when individuals are denied acceptance and positive regard from others-or when that positive regard is made conditional upon the individual behaving in particular ways-they may begin to lose touch with what their own experience means for them, and their innate tendency to grow in a direction consistent with that meaning may be stifled.
Unfortunately, disturbance is apt to continue as long as the individual depends on the conditionally positive judgments of others for their sense of self-worth and as long as the individual relies on the self-concept designed in part to earn those positive judgments. Experiences which challenge the self-concept are apt to be distorted or even denied altogether in order to preserve
The client is free to explore all thoughts and feelings, positive or negative, without danger of rejections on condemnation. Crucially, the client is free to explore and to express without having to do anything in particular or meet any particular standards of behavior to “earn” positive regard from the counselor. The second-empathic understanding-means that the counselor accurately understands the client’s thoughts, feelings, and meanings from the client’s own perspective. When the counselor perceives what the world is like from the client’s point of view, it demonstrates not only that that view has value, but also that the client is being accepted. The third-congruence- means that the counselor is authentic and genuine. The counselor does not present an aloof professional façade, but is present and transparent to the client. There is not air of authority or hidden knowledge, and the client does not have to speculate about what the counselor is “really