Person Centred Therapy

Person-centered therapy (PCT) is also known as person-centered psychotherapy, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy.

PCT is a form of talk-psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. It’s one of the most widely used models in mental health and psychotherapy.In this technique, therapists create a comfortable, non-judgemental environment by demonstrating congruence (genuineness), empathy, and unconditional positive regard toward their patients while using a non-directive approach.This aids patients in finding their own solutions to their problems. CT is predominantly used by psychologists and counselors in psychotherapy The therapist’s role is that of a facilitator and to provide a comfortable environment, rather than to drive and direct the patient toward recovery.

While in session, therapists encourage patients to discuss their experiences and express their feelings. Therapists then empathetically repeat emotionally significant statements back to their patients. The purpose is to allow patients to arrive at solutions to their problems by examining their own thoughts. Patients can then decide for themselves in what ways they need to change.

Although this technique has been criticized by some for its lack of structure, it has proven to be a vastly effective and popular treatment.

The person-centred 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 own potential for growth. It recognizes, however, that achieving potential requires favourable 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.

One reason this may occur is that individuals often cope with the conditional acceptance offered to them by others by gradually coming to incorporate these conditions into their own views about themselves. They may form a self-concept which includes views of themselves like, “I am the sort of person who must never be late”, or “I am the sort of person who always respects others”, or “I am the sort of person who always keeps the house clean”. Because of a fundamental need for positive regard from others, it is easier to ‘be’ this sort of person — and to receive positive regard from others as a result — than it is to ‘be’ anything else and risk losing that positive regard. Over time, their intrinsic sense of their own identity and their own evaluations of experience and attributions of value may be replaced by creations partly or even entirely due to the pressures felt from other people. That is, the individual displaces personal judgements and meanings with those of others.

Psychological disturbance occurs when the individual’s ‘self-concept’ begins to clash with immediate personal experience — i.e., when the evidence of the individual’s own senses or the individual’s own judgement clashes with what the self-concept says ‘ought’ to be the case. Unfortunately, disturbance is apt to continue as long as the individual depends on the conditionally positive judgements of others for their sense of self-worth and as long as the individual relies on a self-concept designed in part to earn those positive judgements. Experiences which challenge the self-concept are apt to be distorted or even denied altogether in order to preserve it.

Clients who have a strong urge in the direction of exploring themselves and their feelings and who value personal responsibility may be particularly attracted to the person-centred approach. Those who would like a counsellor to offer them extensive advice, to diagnose their problems, or to analyse their psyches will probably find the person-centred approach less helpful. Clients who would like to address specific psychological habits or patterns of thinking may find some variation in the helpfulness of the person-centred approach, as the individual therapeutic styles of person-centred counsellors vary widely, and some will feel more able than others to engage directly with these types of concerns.