1. CHAPTER 5: PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY
Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy
Third Edition
By Nancy L. Murdock
Prepared by
Marcy Stites

2. Carl Rogers ( )

3. Case Study
“Richard”

4. Highlights of Roger’s Background
Nondirective – client-centered – person-centered therapy
Raised in strict and religious environment
Theological Union Theological Seminary
Staff psychologist in Child Study Department
Troubled boy and his mother
Client knows the problem and has the solution
Cornelius-White (2005)
“On Becoming a Person (Box 5.1)
Encounter groups
“Client”: someone seeking psychotherapy
Significant contribution: willingness to submit the counseling process to the rigors of research
Rogers lived his theory
and

5. Basic Philosophy Human beings are inherently good
Innate need to grow and develop
Destructive or anti-social is a product of experience in the environment
Self-directing and accept full responsibility
Humanistic and phenomenological

6. Human Motivation
Maximize the organism – Tendency to grow to full potential in constructive, positive ways

7. Central Constructs Experience
Noun = refers to everything that is going on in the individual at a given moment
Verb = the process of the person receiving what is going on around and within him/her
Actualizing tendency – most basic human process “to develop all its capacities…”
Organismic valuing process – evaluating experiences
Self
Positive Self-concept: perceived recognition of “me” and the attached values
Negative Self-concept: inconsistent self-concept
Ideal Self: would like to be

8. Continued…
Self-actualizing tendency: propensity of the self to grow and maximize
Need for Positive Regard and Self-Regard
Learned through experiencing
Conditions of Worth
To seek love from important others
Initially externalized, then internalized

9. Theory of Person and Development
Life is an active process
Infant motivated by actualizing tendency
Differentiation of self
Conditions of worth are established

10. Health and Dysfunction
“Good life” is a process not a destination
Congruent person perception of self is consistent with what he experiences
Creative and take risks in life
Dysfunction
Incongruence (the roots) inconsistent between self and experience
“subceived” – dimly perceived
Neurotic: Defensive and rigid
Disorganized: self-structure is damaged

11. Nature of Therapy Assessment: do NOT use any form
Therapeutic Atmosphere
Counselor is non-expert
Roles: equals
Provide a climate for self-actualizing
Client is to be genuine
Goals: facilitate the client’s journey toward full potential – congruence

12. Process of Therapy http://www.carlrogers.info/video.html
Three historical stages
Nondirective interaction
Attitude of therapist
Congruence or genuineness of the therapist
Provide optimum environment
Congruence (genuineness, transparence, or realness)
– free flowing awareness
Immediacy: “here and now”
Unconditional Positive Regard – “prizing”
Empathy – perceives the internal experience of another as if he/she were that person
4th condition? Transcendental state
Resistance to therapy
Avoidance to painful experience
Counselor becomes inhibitive to the process by their biases

13. Stages of Therapy Stage 1: resistant to therapy
Stage 2: problems are external
Stage 3: cautious approach to self experiences and feelings
Stage 4: express intense past experiences
Stage 5: free expression of own feelings
Stage 6: awareness and insight to incongruence (irreversible)
Stage 7: generalization to living

14. Techniques No techniques Recently, innovations
“experientialists” – focusing approach and Process-Experiential Therapy
Information processing
Aimed at intensifying client experiencing
Pre-therapy (Prouty, 1998)
Reality, affective, and communicative contacts
Motivational Interviewing (Miller, 1983) – Socratic questioning

15. Evaluation Wearing “rose-colored glasses”
Methodology of Person-Centered
Research
Theory is imprecise and difficult to standardize/operationalize
In general, has supported Person-Centered
Rogers’ core conditions are considered necessary but not sufficient
Outcome Research
Bozarth et. al. (2001) – supports positive outcomes
Stiles, e. al (2008) – no difference in effectiveness of PC, psychodynamic, or CT therapy
Others have supported but also mixed results
Theory-Testing
University of Chicago Counseling Center
Barrett-Lennard, 1959
Truax and Carkhuff, 1965
Patterson, 1984

16. Diversity and Culture
Too much individualism, emotional expression, nondirective, and self-disclosure
The client determines the goals of counseling
Egalitarian relationship aligns with the feminist approach to counseling, however, ignores cultural context

17. Personal Centered Therapy and Traditional Males
Gillion (2008) argues PC emphasis on vulnerability, experiencing and relationship may create difficulty for full engagement in therapy for men strongly socialized into traditional masculine roles.

18. Suggestions for Adaptation of PC for Traditional Males
Gillion (2008)
Educating male clients at the beginning of therapy
Using language that is characteristic of masculine tendencies (e.g. distancing or objectifying) in pinpointing clients’ meanings
Empathasizing with any difficulties in expressing and experiencing

19. Summary Optimistic view of people – meaning growthful beings
Actualization is the development of self
Do NOT diagnose or assess
Too simplistic and ignores human nature
Individualistic

20. To accept the freedom of being
Conclusion
To accept the freedom of being