The document discusses Carl Rogers and his person-centered therapy approach. Some key points include: - Rogers believed people have an innate potential for growth and self-actualization given the right environment. - The therapeutic relationship is the most important factor in therapy, with the therapist displaying genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding. - The goal of therapy is to help clients fully understand themselves by exploring their feelings in a non-judgmental setting. Clients are seen as capable of solving their own problems.

1. Anil Kumar
Master of Social Work

3. Born the fourth of six children
Mother was a devout Christian (Protestant) and was very strict on
Carl and his siblings, although he has described his family
relationships as “warm and close”
Carl was socially introverted as he was discouraged from playing
He developed an active imagination and focused on academics.
Because his family lived on a farm, Carl had many chores, therefore
becoming very independent and self-disciplined
As a college student, he was selected to go to Beijing for the “World
Student Christian Federation Conference.” There, he was exposed to
different religious philosophies and began to question his own
religious beliefs. This experienced shaped his views on human
behavior
Rogers joined the staff at the Western Behavioral Sc0iences Institute
in La Jolla, California in 1964
His theory became widely known during the 60’s and 70’s as the
progression of psychotherapy into the humanistic movement

4. Based on concepts from humanistic
psychology, many of which were articulated
by Carl Rogers in the early 1940s.
Humanistic Therapy based on the ideas of
self-empowerment, self-actualization,
freedom, choices, values, purpose, meaning.
A humanistic theory—each of us has a natural
potential that we can actualize and through
which we can find meaning
Shares with existentialism a focus on respect
and trust for the client

5. People are honest, smart, and have ability to
understand themselves
People have the ability to solve their own
problems
People are capable of self-directed growth if
they are involved in a specific kind of
therapeutic relationship.

6. Rogers did not present the person-centered
theory as a fixed and complete approach to
therapy.
He was open and receptive to change.

7. Zimring and Raskin (1992) &Bazarth and
colleagues (2002-
First phase during the 1940s, Rogers developed
what was known as nondirective counseling.
He was published (1942) counseling and
psychotherapy: Newer concepts in practice,
It emphasized the counselor’s creation of a
permissive and nondirective climate.
He also challenged the validity of commonly
accepted therapeutic procedures such as advice,
suggestion, direction, persuasion, teaching,
diagnosis, and interpretation.

8. Focused mainly on reflecting and clarifying
the client’s verbal and nonverbal
communications with the aim of helping
clients become aware of and gain insights
into their feelings.

9. Second period, during 1950, he wrote Client-
centered Therapy and renamed his approach
client-centered therapy.
Focused more explicitly on the actualizing
tendency as the basic motivational force that
leads to client change.
Third period, which began in the late 1950s and
extended into the 1970s, addressed the
necessary and sufficient conditions of therapy.
Significant publication was “on becoming a
person, 1961. characterized by an openness to
experience, a trust in one’s experience, an
internal locus of evaluation, and the willingness
to be in process.

10. The fourth phase, during the 1980s and the
1990s, was marked by considerable
expansion to education, industry, groups,
conflict resolution, and the search for world
peace.

11. View of Human nature:
At their core, humans are trustworthy and
positive
Humans are capable of making changes and
living productive, effective lives
Humans innately gravitate toward self-
actualization
◦ Actualizing tendency
Given the right growth-fostering conditions,
individuals strive to move forward and fulfill
their creative nature

12. Therapy is a Growth-Promoting Climate
Congruence
◦ Genuineness or realness in the therapy session
◦ Therapist’s behaviors match his or her words
Unconditional positive regard
◦ Acceptance and genuine caring about the client as a
valuable person
◦ Accepting clients as they presently are
◦ Therapist need not approve of all client behavior
Accurate empathic understanding
◦ The ability to deeply grasp the client’s subjective world
◦ Helper attitudes are more important than knowledge
The therapist need not experience the situation to develop
an understanding of it from the client’s perspective

13. Therapeutic goals:
Help client grow
Focus on person, not problem
People become more actualized
1. open to experiences
2. Trust themselves
3. Self-evaluation
4. Continue growing
The therapist does not choose specific goals for
the client.

14. GOAL OF COUNSELING:
Set clients free to engage in self exploration
Positive view of human nature
Focus on what is right about someone
Look at positive side of people
Clients work on moving forward, positively, in
their world

15. Client deals with obstacles that are blocking
growth
Therapist is real and empathetic; facilitates
change in client
Work in ‘here and now’

16. THERAPIST ROLE AND FUNCTION
Create a climate conducive to self-
exploration
Create a relationship that lets clients explore
freely denied or distorted areas of life
Be real, genuine, honest….
Don’t see client in diagnostic categories

17. THERAPIST ROLE AND FUNCTION
Enter clients world
Defenses are let down because therapist is
real, genuine, caring
Show unconditional positive regard
Accept client
Empathetic understanding of client

18. CLIENTS EXPERIENCE
Use relationship to gain self-understanding
Explore feelings, thoughts, beliefs
Discover hidden aspect of self
Become less defensive over time
Explore self
Empower self to lead own life
Experience life in ‘here and now’ not past or
future

19. 3 ATTITUDES THERAPIST MUST CONVEY
Genuineness: open, real, honest
Unconditional positive regard and
acceptance: value and accept client as they
are
Empathetic understanding

20. EMPATHY: experiencing others feelings and
thoughts while remaining objective
Communicate to someone your
understanding of his/her thoughts and
feelings
Helps clients understand themselves
Understand clients world as they see and feel
it

21. Two persons are in psychological contact
The first, the client, is experiencing
incongruency
The second person, the therapist, is
congruent or integrated in the relationship
The therapist experiences unconditional
positive regard or real caring for the client

22. The therapist experiences empathy for the
client’s internal frame of reference and
endeavors to communicate this to the client
The communication to the client is, to a
minimal degree, achieved

23. It implies that therapists are real, that is they
are genuine, integrated, and authentic during
the therapy hour.

24. Is deep and genuine caring for t client as a
person or a condition of unconditional
positive regard.

25. Understand client’s experience and feelings
sensitively and accurately as they are revealed
in the moment to moment interaction during
the therapy session.

26. Emphasizes the attitudes and
personal characteristics of the
therapist and the quality of
therapeutic relationship.
Therapist listening in an accepting
way to their clients, they learn how to
listen acceptingly to themselves.

27. Congruence - genuineness or realness
Unconditional positive regard- acceptance
and caring, but not approval of all behavior
Accurate empathic understanding – an
ability to deeply grasp the client’s
subjective world
◦ Helper attitudes are more important than
knowledge

28. It is not technique-oriented
A misunderstanding---this approach is simply
to restate what the client just said or the
technique of reflection of feelings (It is
incorrect).
The therapeutic relationship is the primary
agent of growth in the client
Therapist’s presence: being completely engaged
in the relationship with clients.
The best source of knowledge about the client is
the individual client

29. Therapist takes on the role of facilitator
Creates therapeutic environment
Techniques are not stressed
Exhibits deep trust of the group members
Provides support for members
Group members set the goals for the group
Group setting fosters an open and accepting
community where members can work on self-
acceptance
Individuals learn that they do not have to
experience the process of change alone and grow
from the support of group members

30. individual counseling, group
counseling, education, human
relations training…..
A variety of problems: anxiety, crisis
intervention, interpersonal difficulties,
depression, personality disorder…..

31. Contributions
◦ Has reached more than 30 counties and has been
translated to 12 languages
◦ Reduction of racial and political tensions…
Limitations
◦ Some people need more structure, coping skills,
directedness
◦ Some may focus on family or societal
expectations instead of internal evaluation
◦ May be unfamiliar with people in different
cultures

32. Contributions
◦ Active role of responsibility of client
◦ Inner and subjective experience
◦ Relationship-centered
◦ Focus on therapist’s attitudes
◦ Focus on empathy, being present, and respecting
the clients’ values
◦ Value multicultural context

33. Limitations
◦ Discount the significance of the past
◦ Misunderstanding the basic concept:
e.g., reflection feelings.

34. Reflection
Q sort technique

35. The mirroring of emotional communication
In order to understand what the client is
telling her, she sometimes restates and
summarizes what the client has said but in
other words. Summary should include
perception of content and feelings.
Client: And everything is just terrible right
now. My boyfriend has just left me and even
though it is good in a way because we
always argued I also feel very sad because I
still love him.
Therapist: Your boyfriend has just left you
and you have mixed feelings about this?

36. A way of assessing the self-concept and the ideal self
It is used before, under and after therapy
An individual is presented with deck of 100 cards, each of
which contains a personal statement (e.g., “I’m a friendly
person”; “I’m tense most of the time”)
The individual decides which statements best describe his or
her own self, which statements are the next best, and so on,
right down to those statements that are the least descriptive
The same procedure is followed with respect to the ideal self
The therapist statistically works out the size of the gap
between the statements selected as descriptive of the self and
the ideal self by use of correlation

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

38. WEAKNESSES
Client is not challenged
Too simplistic
No interventions/techniques
Undirected
Not all clients are able to find their own
answers

39. WEAKNESSES
Not much research on theory and practice
Theory has not evolved since the 1960’s