Person-Centered Therapy

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Person-Centered Therapy
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Person-Centered Therapy

• Carl Rogers
• Fundamentalist upbringing
• Trained theology and clinical psychology
• His therapy was a reaction to directive therapies
  (e.g., psychoanalysis, behavior therapy)
• Based on a philosophy of human nature as an
  innate striving to better oneself

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Theory of Personality

• Human beings are whole organisms
• One primary drive SELF ACTUALIZATION
• Humans inherently strive to develop optimal
  capacities to serve and maintain the organism
• Basic needs
• Tension reduction
• Relating to others
• Cultural engagement

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Theory of Personality

• Organismic Valuing Process
• We naturally value those things that help us
  actualize
• Self-concept
• We differentiate experiences that are us vs.
  those that belong to others
• Self-experiences form together to yield a unified
  concept of self.
• Development of SC leads to need for POSITIVE
  REGARD

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Positive Regard to Conditions of Worth

• Need for PR, to be loved, prized, valued, becomes
  the most potent in developing person.
• Parents and community place CONDITIONS of WORTH
  on those behaviors that lead to PR.
• Peoples SC then begins to mirror the way people
  give out PR ----- Self-regard

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Psychopathology

• Related to degree of conditionality
• Experiences consistent with worth are allowed in
  ones that arent are distorted
• Distortion leads to INCONGRUENCE
• Discrepancy in Self vs. Experience
• Leads person to be more fractured than whole
  and distorts what people see as a worthy avenue
  of actualization
• Symptoms manifest as people attempt to prevent
  threatening experiences coming into awareness

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Person-Centered Therapy

• Therapy is a permissive, non-directive climate
• Phenomenological approach seeing and
  understanding others from their reference,
  perception
• Therapist creates a growth promoting
  environment, non directive, not the expert, non
  controlling, caring, accepting, genuine.
• Client remove obstacles that are blocking
  growth

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Person-Centered Therapy

• GOALS OF THERAPY
• Work through distortions that create incongruence
• Lessen the impact of conditions of worth
• Become more here and now
• Become more actualized
• Open to experiences
• Trust themselves
• Realistic Self-evaluation
• Continue growing

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Therapeutic Relationship

• Rogers speaks of six conditions that comprise the
  TR
• Relationship
• Vulnerability
• Motivates and maintains the relationship
• Genuineness
• Congruence/No deception of client or self
• Unconditional Positive Regard
• Caring reduces conditions of worth
• Accurate Empathy
• Perceive and reflect the clients inner world and
  perceptions
• Bracket our own feelings and perceptions
• Perception of Genuineness
• Client has to see all these things in the
  therapist

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Change Processes

• Consciousness raising
• Happens through reflection, organization and
  attention allocation toward emotional experience
• Surrogate information processes
• Cartharsis
• Positive regard leads to safety
• Therapist follows the affect.

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Therapeutic Content

• Intrapersonal
• Distortion or denial of experiences
• Conflict between ideal and real self
• Fulfillment
• Self-actualization

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Person-Centered Therapy

• STRENGTHS
• Empathy
• Phenomenological approach
• Reflection
• Increase self-understanding
• Genuine
• Unconditional positive regard and acceptance

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Person-Centered Therapy

• WEAKNESSES
• Client is not challenged
• Too simplistic
• No interventions/techniques
• Undirected
• Not all clients are able to find their own
  answers
• Not much research on theory and practice
• Theory has not evolved much since the 1960s

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Motivational Interviewing

• Client centered and directive
• Resolve ambivalence
• Four principles
• Express empathy
• Roll w/resistance
• Develop discrepancy
• Support self-efficacy

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MI Basic Strategies

• Open questions
• Affirmation
• Reflections
• Parrot
• Rephrase
• Meaning
• Feeling
• Summary

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MI Processes of Change

• Same as Rogers
• Consciousness raising
• Catharsis
• Selective reinforcement of CHANGE Talk
• Desire
• Ability
• Reasons
• Need
• Commitment

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Commitment Language Pattern A inDrug Abuse
Treatment Session
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Outcomes for Pattern A Group
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Commitment Language Pattern B
Amrhein et al., Journal of Consulting Clinical
Psychology 2003 71862-878
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Outcomes for Pattern B Group