Describe and examine the theoretical principals that form the basis of the person centred counselling relationship. What do you feel to be the limits and potentials of these principals?
Describe and examine the theoretical principals that form the basis of the person centred counselling relationship. What do you feel to be the limits and potentials of these principals?
Person centred counselling is a humanistic approach, developed by an American psychologist and counsellor, Car Rogers. Rogers was one of the main founders of humanistic psychology and many of his ideas and influences have been spread across the world.
Person centred counselling can also be known as 'client-centred' counselling and more often than the 'Person centred approach'. The underlying concept of this type of counselling is that attitudes and values can be applied where there is concern of people's growth and development. It is also an effective means of promoting personal change and for an individual to gain acceptance of responsibility for his or her life. This will then lead them along the path of self-awareness and self-acceptance.
This essay aims to concentrate on the theoretical principals that form the basis of person centred counselling. Within these principles there are limitations and potentials, which will also be discussed.
One of the theoretical principals that person centred counselling looks at is that of the phenomenological approach to the person. This can be explained that whatever an individual experiences is their own individual experience. Therefore, the way we respond to the world, results from meaning and sense. Meaning and sense is derived from our exclusive mixture of needs, expectations and past history. Therefore, every single one of us lives in our own subjective world, and this world cannot be fully understood by anyone else.
The phenomenological approach tries to unravel the difficulties of perceiving reality through another person's eyes. Consequently, although the counsellor cannot decide the directions in which people should change and develop, they can help clients explore their own needs from their own point of view and discover their own directions.
An individual is seen as having two basic needs. Firstly the need for self-actualisation, and secondly the need to be loved and valued by others (McLeod 1998). The 'person' in phenonomenology derives understanding and knowledge from exploring and describing experiences.
Person centred counselling takes an existential view of life. Therefore, individual freedom is a very important and significant role in a person's life. There is also great importance and emphasis on the aspect of free will. However, there are obstacles and limitations to freedom. This may be because clients find it difficult to express complete free will. A reason for this is possibly that because of difficulties in their lives, accepting complete freedom may be quite a task for clients to complete.
This humanistic approach views the person as always developing, always progressing and never in a fixed or static state. Although the process of 'becoming' can be damaged or corrupted, there is always potential for growth and development.
Facilitating client's growth is also an important principle in the person centred counselling relationship. Person centred counsellors believe that all clients have the capacity to grow and by growing they will be able to fulfil their unique identities and potentials.
If however, a person's development is blocked or distorted, the counsellor must then create new conditions in the relationship where the growth process can be continued and the distortion can be diminished.
Another theoretical principle, which must be considered within a counsellor/client relationship, is that the counsellor must always remember they are the guest within the clients experience. It is the client who is the expert. Patterson (1985), stresses that clients must be able to become engaged in a process of self-exploration, including self-disclosure for the counselling process to be effective. Therefore, the client knows best as they have their own capacity of self-knowledge. The counsellor is a facilitator and not the expert. They help the client to grow to reach actualisation and to become a fully functioning person. This is accomplished through awareness and relationship.
A person centred counsellor aims for the relationship to be warm and inviting although not domineering or sentimental. They aim to be authentic, open, real and non-judgemental with clients. Within this relationship the counsellor encourages a mutual, co-operative process with the client. Thus, forming the basis of an honest and genuine relationship, which is not based on techniques or methods, just on a 'way of being'.
Counselling, however, is not predictable as everyone is unique. Rogers (1961), believes that there are seven stages of process in therapy, starting with stage one where the client feels cut off ...
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A person centred counsellor aims for the relationship to be warm and inviting although not domineering or sentimental. They aim to be authentic, open, real and non-judgemental with clients. Within this relationship the counsellor encourages a mutual, co-operative process with the client. Thus, forming the basis of an honest and genuine relationship, which is not based on techniques or methods, just on a 'way of being'.
Counselling, however, is not predictable as everyone is unique. Rogers (1961), believes that there are seven stages of process in therapy, starting with stage one where the client feels cut off from their self, through to stage seven where the client is able to live their experiences fully and undistorted. This is the stage where the fully functioning person emerges. This is an important process in person centred counselling, as the main aim is always to reach the stage of being fully functioning. This goal can be reached through the processes of relationship and awareness.
However, there are limitations when looking at the counsellor/client relationship, which may slow down the process of reaching self-actualisation. Rogers (1951) believed a human being 'has one basic tendency-striving to actualise, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism'. The organism as the pure part of ourselves with the self-concept forming the conscious part of us. Our self-concept develops with an awareness of ourselves and it is this awareness that is fundamental in the process of a person centred counselling relationship.
One of the limitations that may occur in the counsellor/client relationship is the concept of 'paralysis'. In the case of the counsellor it means that they are in a paralysed condition and is so aware of their behaviour and its possible implications, that they cannot perform even the simplest task of responding. The concept of paralysis can come across in several different ways. One way is if the counsellor fails to respond to their own silence. If a client stops talking and looks directly at the counsellor and paralysis occurs, the counsellor may not be able to observe or respond to these clues. The counsellor may also give inappropriate brief responses to a clients question or statement. Sometimes only a brief response is needed but if a client goes into great detail then a simple 'yes' or 'I see' will not suffice.
An inability for a counsellor to 'track' a client may also been seen as a limitation in a person centred relationship. A basic skill of person centred counselling is getting on the clients 'track' and continuing the empathic flow of that track (Rennie, 1984). In a state of paralysis the counsellor loses the ability to track a client and may end up asking the client an inappropriate question.
A counsellor can also accelerate the end of their work and play down the clients continuing difficulties. If the client notices this and acts on it they may terminate the counselling without being fully ready to do so.
There are also dangers that the counsellor may become too over-involved with the client. The may be 'on the side' of the client instead of just 'beside' the client (Mearns, 2003). They may then offer the client a form of support, which they cannot be sure of sustaining. In giving this kind of biased support to the client, there is a danger that the client makes decisions and takes action, which he would not be able to do without the counsellor. This may then cause a dependency from the client, which if not resolved may cause even further problems. Dependency may also occur if the client reads messages wrong, and believes that the counsellor wants them to be more involved.
Clients may also become frustrated, especially if they feel that they are not getting anywhere in their counselling sessions, or they believe that they are totally helpless and counselling wont help them. However, all these limitations have the potential to be put right by both the counsellor and the client.
A central theoretical principle of person centred counselling is the six conditions of therapeutic process.
Rogers (1957) believed that the counselling relationship needed to be characterised by certain conditions in order for constructive change to occur.
There are six conditions in total, with three 'core' conditions included. The 'core' conditions are those that have concentrated on the most. All six conditions will now be looked at with emphasis on those, which are 'core'.
The first condition is that 'two persons are in psychological contact'. Rogers believed that during a relationship, significant changes take place. 'All that is intended by this first condition is to specify that the two people are to some degree in contact, that each makes some perceived difference in the experimental field of another' (Rogers 1957).
Therefore, fore person centred counselling to occur and to be successful, a relationship must be formed between the counsellor and the client. If this bond is not formed then psychological contact will not take place and constructive change will not take place.
It may appear that there will obviously be contact in a counsellor/client relationship. This is not always the case. It remains a fact that some clients are unable to form meaningful relationships with their counsellors. Recently, this phenomenon has been tackled by the development of 'pre-therapy'. This is an attempt to establish minimal contact (Prouty, 1990, Prouty and Cronwal, 1989).
The second condition is where the client is in a state of 'incongruence' - being vulnerable or anxious. Incongruence occurs when a client loses touch with their organismic valuing process.
Patterson (1985), stresses that clients must be able to become engaged in a process of self-exploration, including self-disclosure for the counselling process to be effective.
The level of 'vulnerability' or 'anxiety' varies hugely from client to client at different stages in the counselling process with the same client. This condition implies that an individual is experiencing sufficient psychological discomfort to seek help and is at a level where they can begin the process of self-discovery.
Incongruence in the client leads onto the third condition, which is the first of the core conditions. This is where the counsellor is congruent or intergrated in the relationship. Congruence or authenticity means that the counsellor is willing to be who he/she is, meeting the client face to face, respecting them as a person in their own right and entering into the relationship as an equal.
Congruence allows counsellors to be aware of the feelings that arise in them during the relationships they develop with their clients. It may be appropriate to share these feelings, especially if the counsellors feelings begin to interfere in their ability to listen intently. For example, if a client talks about a depressing and upsetting matter very unresponsively and unemotionally (i.e. death of a family member), then the counsellor may feel it beneficial to add their own input sensitively to try and reach the underlying problem.
Rogers (1957) defined congruence as, 'the counsellor should be, within the confines of this relationship, a congruent, genuine, integrated person. It means that within the relationship he is freely and deeply himself, with his actual experience accurately represented by his awareness of himself.'
In an ideal world the core conditions need to be fully present together, but Rogers (1959), did believe that counsellor congruence sometimes takes priority, as counsellors should be aware of experiences, attend to them and allow them accurately into awareness.
A limitation of this condition is that counsellors may be to open about themselves and their life. They may take the emphasis of the clients problems and focus attention onto themselves. This however, happens very rarely as Mearns and Thorne (1988) quote, 'when the counsellor is being congruent she is giving her genuinely felt response to the client's experience at that time. Only rarely would this response disclose elements of the counsellor's life and even then the focus would remain on the client rather than the counsellor.'
The fourth condition (second core condition) is where the therapist experiences unconditional positive regard (UPR) for the client. UPR is a matter of personal values and attitudes. The acceptance of clients is communicated by a way of being with them, rather than an emphasis of what is said and done. The communication of UPR is an indirect process like congruence. UPR is communicated to clients through a general attitude of respect and understanding of them as individuals. Being supportive of clients is best achieved without judgement.
Counselling does not imply that you must like everyone and to adopt the attitude of being over-friendly would be false. Counsellors should care about their clients as people in the process of change, rather than their behaviour or presently held attitudes.
UPR is a an attitude or set of values towards others that cannot be directly taught or learned. It is the counsellor's non-judgemental acceptance of the client as a person, which completes UPR. The clients UPR is achieved in the context of the counsellor communicating his or her empathic understanding of the client's frame of reference.
However, the presence of UPR may mean the client experiences the counselling process as one not entirely free of threat. This may be because the admission of previously distorted or denied experience into awareness is often accompanied by anxiety or threat (Rogers 1959).
UPR implies a consistent acceptance of each aspect of a persons experience. It involves feelings of acceptance for both 'positive' and 'negative' aspects of a person and can also be expressed as non-possessive caring for a person as a separate individual.
The fifth condition (third and final core condition) is that of Empathy. Empathy is thought of as a process and a quality rather than simply a skill. As time goes by, the process develops. It is more likely to develop if therapists attend to and nurture their ability to see the world in the ways their clients see it. This can sometimes be known as 'entering into the frame of reference of another person'.
Rogers (1986) believes that empathy in itself is a healing agent. It is an important characteristic of effective counselling, although counsellors get different meanings from it.
In the person centred approach, empathic understanding involves a process of 'being with' another person, attempting to see the world through the other person's eyes. Thus, doing this by laying aside one's own perceptions, values and meanings as far as possible.
It is important to remember that empathically understanding someone does not imply 'getting lost' in their world. Counsellors must retain their own separate identity.
The understanding of empathy needs to be experienced by the client for therapeutic benefit to occur. Communication is usually verbal but the touching of someone's hand for example, may be just as valuable.
Empathy requires a deep understanding of the individual's experience and a client's inner, subjective experience should be played close attention to also.
Different notions and characteristics, starting with the completely unempathic, through to deep reflection or additive empathy, can explore empathy.
In theory it may be thought that empathy is easy for counsellors to achieve. However, this is not always the case and the notion of empathy takes time, care and awareness to be put into action.
The final condition is that 'the communication to the client of the therapists empathic understanding and URP, is to a minimal degree achieved.' (Rogers 1957). By this, Rogers meant that the counsellor should achieve empathy and UPR and then they should continue this journey through to the client.
Rogers (1957) believed that, 'no other conditions are necessary. If these six conditions exist and continue over a period of time, this is sufficient. The process of constructive personality change will follow.'
Therefore the six conditions are evidentially a strong theoretical principle of the person centred counselling relationship. Through these conditions a client can learn to grow and change and reach self-actualisation.
As we have seen there are limitations in this approach but each has a solution, which gives both counsellor and client the potential to overcome them and progress forward.
Relationship is a key principle in the person centred approach, as without some kind of relationship, it is doubtful that any progress can be made in person centred counselling. The person centred counsellor must make every attempt to foster an environment in which clients can encounter themselves and become more intimate with their own thoughts, meanings and feelings.
Person centred counselling offers relationships within which people's felt realities or inner worlds can be explored from within their own frames or reference. The therapy enables the sensitive and progressive revealing of layers of meaning and experience that have led to each person's uniqueness and individuality.
The counsellor aims to contribute to this process by experiencing and communicating empathic understanding of the complex reality of each individual, by respecting and valuing each person and by remaining congruent, open and non-defensive with client's.
Today there are many people that use the work of Rogers and though the theory may appear fairly simple, many people would attest that it can be very difficult to put into practice. This may be because of the deep and complex relationship, which has to be built to ensure that person centred counselling, is obtainable and successful. However, it is a world wide approach and through the examination of theoretical principles it is clear to see how the basis of a person centred counselling relationship is formed, through communication, awareness and understanding.
References
* MCLEOD. J., 1993: An Introduction to Counselling: Buckingham: Open University Press.
* MEARNS. D., 2003: Developing Person Centred Counselling: London: SAGE Publications.
* MEARNS. D., AND THORNE. B., 2003: Person Centred Counselling in Action: 2nd Edition: London: SAGE Publications.
* MERRY. T., 1999: Learning and being in Person Centred Counselling: Herefordshire: PCCS Books Ltd.
* STEFFLRE and GRANT., 1972: Theories of Counselling: 2nd Edition: USA.
* The Carl Rogers Reader: Edited by KIRSCHENBAUM. H., AND HENDERSON. V.L., 1990: London: St. Edmunsdbury Press Limited.
* TUDOR. K., 1999: Professional Sills for Counsellors: Group Counselling: London: SAGE Publications.
Person-centred counselling Nikki Carpenter
