Client Centered Approach in Counselling

2. Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
• THERAPEUTIC GOALS
• THERAPISTS ROLE AND FUNCTIONS
• TECHNIQUES
• CONCLUSION

3. Client Centered Approach
• Person-Centered Therapy, Rogerian
Therapy
• Client Directed Therapy
• Based on Humanistic perspective

4. Rogerian Philosophy
• Rogers - ‘Counselling and
Psychotherapy’
• Assumptions
-are that people are essentially
trustworthy.
-vast potential for understanding
themselves and resolving their own

5. • According to Roger’s Person centered therapy, there is a basic sense
of trust in the client’s ability to move forward in a constructive
manner if conditions fostering growth are present.
• And people are trustworthy, resourceful, capable of self
understanding and self-direct, able to make constructive changes,
and able to live effective and productive lives. A significant change
in the client is most likely to occur when therapists are able to
experience and communicate their realness, support, caring, and
nonjudgmental understanding.
• He maintained three therapist attributes to create a growth-
promoting climate in which individuals can move forward and
become what they are capable of becoming: (1) congruence
(genuineness, or realness), (2) unconditional positive regard
(acceptance and caring),and (3) accurate empathic understanding
(an ability to deeply grasp the subjective world of another person).
• If therapists communicate these attitudes, those being helped will
become less defensive and more open to themselves and their
world, and they will behave in prosocial and constructive ways.
• The person-centered approach rejects the role of the therapist as
the authority who knows best and of the passive client who merely

6. • Rogers emphasized the attitudes and
personal characteristics of the therapist
and the quality of the client–therapist
relationship as the prime determinants of
the outcome of the therapeutic process.

7. • In the first period, during the 1940s, Rogers developed
nondirective counselling, which provided a powerful
and revolutionary alternative to the directive and
interpretive approaches to therapy then being
practiced.
• In the second period, during the 1950s, Rogers (1951)
wrote Client-Centered Therapy and renamed his
approach client-centered therapy, to reflect its
emphasis on the client rather than on nondirective
methods.
• The third period, which began in the late 1950 to 1970,
addressed the necessary and sufficient conditions of
therapy.
• The fourth phase, during the 1980s and the 1990s, was
marked by considerable expansion to education,
industry, groups, conflict resolution, and the search for

8. In a comprehensive review of the research on person-centered
therapy over a period of 60 years, Bozarth and colleagues
(2002) concluded the following:
• In the earliest years of the approach, the client rather than the
therapist was in charge. This style of nondirective therapy was
associated with increased understanding, greater self-
exploration, and improved self-concepts.
• Later a shift from clarification of feelings to a focus on the
client’s frame of reference developed. Many of Rogers’s
hypotheses were confirmed, and there was strong evidence for
the value of the therapeutic relationship and the client’s
resources as the crux of successful therapy.
• As person-centered therapy developed further, research
centered on the core conditions assumed to be both necessary
and sufficient for successful therapy. The attitude of the

9. • 'It is that the individual has within himself
or herself vast resources for self-
understanding, for altering his or her self-
concept, attitudes and self-directed
behavior - and that these resources can be
tapped if only a definable climate of
facilitative psychological attitudes can be
provided'.
-Rogers (1986)

14. TECHNIQUES

15. • For person centred therapists, the quality of
the counselling relationship is much more
important than techniques( Glauser and
Bozarth, 2001)
BUT.........

16. Rogers(1957) believed that there are three
necessary and sufficient conditions of
counselling:
1. empathy
2. Unconditional positive regard
(acceptance, prizing)
3. congruence(genuineness, openness,
authenticity, transparency)

17. 1. Empathy
(feeling with the client)
• The ability to grasp the client’s subjective
world.
• Helper attitudes are more important than
knowledge.
• It may be subjective empathy, inter personal
empathy, and objective empathy

18. Subjective empathy- It enables a counsellor
to momentarily experience what it is like to be
a client
Inter personal empathy- it relates to
understanding a client’s phenomenological
experiencing
Objective empathy- It uses reputable
knowledge sources outside a client’s frame of
reference

19. • In short, empathy is an attempt to think with
the client and grasp the client’s
communication, intentions, and meanings.
• This empathy results in clients’ self-
understanding and clarification of their beliefs
and world views.

20. • Two processes foster empathic understanding:
reflection and clarification.
Reflection/mirroring- though the two may
overlap , a distinction is often made between
reflection of content and reflection of feeling
• but good reflection does not entail the
mechanical repeating of what the client has
just said
• Clients require helping relationships with
people , not parrots!!

21. Therefore u need...
 capacity to respond accurately and flexibly to your clients
without being a parrot
 Try to make use of simple and direct language
 Psychological jargon is definitely to be avoided
 Colloquialisms can add colour and freshness to your
responses
 Reflecting feelings entails expressive listening and
responding
 feelings need to be correctly identified
 their level of intensity needs to be correctly expressed

22. 2. Unconditional positive regard
• It is also known as acceptance, which is a
deep and genuine caring for the client as a
valuable person(accepting the client as they
presently are)
• Acceptance is the recognition of clients’ rights
to have their own beliefs and feelings
• Therapist need not approve of all client
behaviour
• Prizing the person for just being

23. • Acc to Rogers, “self is an outgrowth of what a
person experiences and awareness of self
helps a person differentiate him/her from
others.”
• ‘Real self ’(one’s conception of who one is )
• ‘ideal self’ (the self-concept that one would
like to possess or like to be )
• The more is the gap b/w real self and ideal
self, the more will be the maladjustment.
• For a healthy self to emerge, a person needs
positive regard

24. 3. Congruence
• genuineness and realness in the therapy session
• Therapist’s behaviours match his/her words
• It is the condition of being transparent in the
therapeutic relationship by giving up roles and
facades(Rogers 1980)
• It is the counsellor’s readiness for setting aside
concerns and personal preoccupations and for
being available and open in relationship with the
client

25. 6 CONDITIONS where necessary and
sufficient personality changes to
occur..
1. Two persons are in psychological contact
2. The first, the client, is experiencing
incongruence
3. The second person, the therapist, is
congruent or integrated in the relationship

26. 4. The therapist experiences unconditional
positive regard or real caring for the client
5. The therapist experiences empathy for the
client’s internal frame of reference and
endeavours to communicate this to the client
6. The communication to the client is, to a
minimal degree achieved.

27. Key Points in person centered theory:
(Kirschenbaum & Henderson 1989)
• Therapist-Client Relationship: a relationship where
each person’s perception is important and valued.
• Client incongruence or vulnerability: incongruence
exists between the client’s experience and awareness
(the real versus the ideal). The client is vulnerable to
anxiety which motivates them to stay in the
relationship and work on themselves.
• Therapist Congruence or Genuineness: the therapist is
congruent within the therapeutic relationship and they
can draw on their own experiences (self-disclosure) to
enhance the relationship

28. • Therapist Unconditional Positive Regard:
accepts the client unconditionally exactly as
they are.
• Therapist Empathic understanding:
understanding of the client’s frame of
reference. BECOME PART OF THE CLIENT’S
WORLD seeing it through their eyes
• Client Perception: the client perceives the
therapist’s unconditional positive regard and
empathic understanding.

29. Person-Centred therapy EMPHASIZES,
Therapy as a journey shared by two fallible
people
The person’s innate strive for self-
actualisation(humanistic approach)
The personal characteristics of the therapist
and the quality of the therapeutic relationship
The counsellor’s creation of a permissive,
“growth promoting” climate

30. Person-Centred therapy CHALLENGES
The assumption that “ the counsellor knows
best”(never express over expertance; client
must be the supreme)
The validity of advice, suggestion, persuasion,
teaching, diagnosis and interpretation
The belief that clients cannot understand and
resolve their own problems without direct
help
The focus on problems over persons

31. LIMITATIONS of Person-Centred
therapy
• The approach may be too simplistic,
optimistic, leisurely, and unfocused for clients
in crisis or who needs more structure and
direction
• The approach depends on bright, insightful,
hardworking clients for best results. It has
limited applicability and is seldom employed
with the severely disabled or young children

32. • The approach ignores diagnosis, the
unconscious, developmental theories, and
innately generated sexual aggressive drives.
Many critics think it is overly optimistic
• The approach is more attitudinal than
technique based. It is void of specific
techniques to bring about client change

33. APPLICATIONS
• Used to treat a broad range of people
• People with schizophrenia
• Persons suffering from depression, anxiety,
alcohol disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and
personality disorders
• Can be used in individual, group, or family
therapy

34. Therapist’s Role and function
• Therapist usually assume an anonymous kind of
role, also known as the “Black-Screen Approach ”
where they limit self-disclosure that will then
promote a transference relationship with the
client, where the client will pour projections ,
where, according to Luborsky , et.al(2008)
• “Refers to the transfer of feelings
originally experienced in an early relationship to
other important people in a person’s present
environment ”.

35. The rapist’s Role and function
• Function: to be present and accessible to
clients, to focus on immediate experience, to
be real in the relationship with clients
• Through the therapist’s attitude of genuine
caring, respect, acceptance, and
understanding, clients become less defensive
and more open to their experience and
facilitate the personal growth.

36. • Therapist’s Role: Therapist’s attitude and belief
in the inner resources of the client, not in techniques,
facilitate personal change in the client
• Be present and accessible
• Therapist is genuine, integrated, and authentic.
• Be real, genuine, honest…
• Use of self as an instrument of change
• Enter clients world.
• Focuses on the quality of the therapeutic relationship
• Serves as a model of a human being struggling
toward greater realness
• Can openly express feelings and attitudes that are
present in the relationship with the client
• Accept client &Empathetic understanding of client.

37. Person-Centered Therapy
• CLIENTS EXPERIENCE
 use relationship to gain self-understanding
Explore feelings, thoughts, beliefs
Discover hidden aspect of self
Becomes less defensive over time
Explore self
Empower self to lead own life
Experience life in ‘’here and now ‘’not the past or
future

38. Relation Between Therapist and Client
Therapy is a journey taken by therapist and
client
The person-to-person relationship is a key
The relationship demands that therapists be in
contact with their own phenomenological
world
The core of the therapeutic relationship
 respect& faith in the client’s potential to cope
Sharing reactions with genuine concern &
empathy.

39. The Relationship between the
Client and Therapist
• Therapist and client mostly hold a tranference
relationship. Transference again is the resurfacing of
old experience that were reactions from significant
people from repressed memory and having them
shifted to the therapist.
• Clients and therapists go through a working-through
process . where they both tackle unconscious material
and defenses.
• Therapist must be well aware of countertransference
where in the therapist’s own unconscious conflict
comes out and projects them into the client . Not call
counter transference feeling are bad, but other cases
may seem beneficial to both client and therapist.

40. Relation Between Therapist and Client
• Adlerian’s considered a good client-therapist
relationship to be one between equals that is
based on cooperation, mutual trust, respect,
confidence and alignment of goals

41. Relationship Between Therapist
and Client
• Emphasizes the attitudes and personal characteristics of the
therapist and the quality of therapeutic relationship.
• Characterized by equality.
• Therapists are transparent, true to themselves, authentic.
• Therapist listening in an accepting way to their clients, they
learn how to listen acceptingly to themselves
• 3 ATTITUDES THERAPIST MUST CONVEY
• Congruence - genuineness or realness
• Unconditional positive regard and acceptance- acceptance
and caring, but not approval of all behavior(value & accept client as
they are)
• Accurate empathic understanding – an ability to deeply
grasp the client’s subjective world
– Helper attitudes are more important than knowledge.

42. THANK YOU...