Carl Rogers

1
Carl Rogers

• Person-Centered Psychotherapy

2
Person-Centered Theory

• When Carl Rogers was training to be a
  psychologist in the 1920s, two approaches were
  available behavioral and psychoanalysis.
• Neither offered warmth nor the human relationship
  factors that Rogers thought were needed.

3
Basic Concepts

• These are qualities the therapist must offer
• Congruence
• Unconditional Positive Regard
• Empathy

4
Rogers Basic Assumptions

• Kottler (2002)
• When Rogers formulated his theory, several views
  were radical for his time
• 1.Listening with the third ear and responding
  with empathy -
• 2. He researched the core conditions of helping
  and labeled them congruence, unconditional
  positive regard, empathic understanding.

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Assumptions

• Kottler (2002)
• 3. Used the therapeutic relationship as a means
  to encourage greater self-acceptance.
• 4. Included interventions with more than
  individuals wanted growth in groups,
  classrooms, etc.

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Rogers Core Conditions (Kottler, 2002)

• Rogers offered the following factors as
  necessary and sufficient for change to take
  place
• 1. Contact this is the relationship between the
  counselor and client (this involves some sort of
  psychological contact (e.g., teaching, coaching,
  therapeutic service) in which the two are

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Core Conditions - Kottler, 2002

• involved in some kind of psychological contact
  where the participants are open to each other
  and subject to mutual influence
• 2. Genuineness being real, congruent,
  authentic. Rogers saw this as critical.

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Core Conditions

• 3. Unconditional positive regard Rogers
  believed that you have to accept people
  unconditionally, even if their behaviors are not
  accepted.
• 4. Empathy this is walking in another persons
  shoes, it is the process of knowing someone
  deeply, echoing their feelings and experiences
  without being judgmental or evaluative

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Therapeutic Goals

• Rogers described self-actualized people as
  having
• 1. An openness to experience
• 2. A trust in themselves
• 3. An internal source of evaluation
• 4. A willingness to continue growing

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Relationship Between Therapist and Client
(Kottler, 2002)

• Rogers saw these as necessary and sufficient
  conditions for personality change to occur
• 1. Two people are in psychological contact.
• 2. The first, whom we shall term client, is
  experiencing incongruency or is anxious.

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Relationship

• 3. The second person, whom we shall term the
  therapist, is congruent or integrated in the
  relationship
• 4. The therapist experiences unconditional
  positive regard and acceptance for the client
• (Kottler, 2002)

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Relationship

• 5. The therapist experiences an empathic
  understanding of the clients internal frame of
  reference and strives to communicate this
  experience to the client
• 6.The communication to the client of the
  therapists empathic understanding and acceptance
  is to a minimal degree achieved.
• (Kottler, 2002)

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Your Thoughts
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Thoughts

• What is the most fundamental and pervasive
  concept in Person-Centered Therapy?
• A. Nonjudgmental Stance
• B. Trust
• C. The Relationship
• The Answer is Trust Corsini and Wedding, 2001

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Whats Your Opinion?

• Rogers did not think that you could teach anyone
  anything worth learning.
• Instead he thought the job of the helper was to
  be a facilitator of change. This is done by
  making a climate that includes the core
  conditions trust, caring, empathy (Kottler,
  2002)

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Thoughts

• Person-centered therapists tend to avoid
  evaluation. They do not interpret for clients, do
  not question in a probing manner, and do not
  reassure or criticize clients transference is
  not a necessary part of a clients growth or
  change (Corsini Wedding, 2001, p. 137).

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Thoughts

• P-C therapists offer the same basic conditions
  to all prospective clients. These conditions do
  not include psychological tests, history taking,
  or other assessment procedures leading to
  diagnoses and treatment plans. Diagnostic labels
  take away from the person of the client assuming
  a professional posture takes away from the person
  of the therapist (Corsini, 2001).

18
Discuss

• The foundation of Rogerss approach is an
  actualizing tendency present in every organism,
  the tendency that moves individuals to their full
  potential

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Person-Centered Therapy

• Research seems to indicate that the attitudes of
  therapists, rather than their knowledge,
  theories, techniques, facilitate personality
  change in the client. Basically, therapist use
  themselves as instruments of change. When they
  encounter the client on a person-to-person
  level, their role is to be without roles.
  Their function is to establish a therapeutic
  climate that helps the client grow(Corey, 175).

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• The basic theory of P-C is that if the therapist
  is successful in conveying genuineness,
  unconditional positive regard, and empathy, then
  the client will respond with constructive changes
  in personality organization (Corsini Wedding,
  2001, pp. 146-147)

21
Discuss

• Rogers hypothesis
• Self-directed growth follows a relationship
  characterized by genuineness, non-judgmental
  caring, and empathy.

22
Discuss

• Carl Rogers said, Never overlook something that
  seems to be simple.

23
Film and Website

• Three Approaches to Psychotherapy , Part 1, Carl
  Rogers (1965)
• www.nrogers.com (links to photos, film, videos,
  etc. This is Natalie Rogers site (Carl Rogers
  daughter).