Person-Centered Therapy

KEY CONCEPTS OF PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY

Therapeutic Relationship - The therapist’s task is to help the client activate this inherent tendency for self-enhancement.

·         Rooted in that belief, person-centered approach views individuals as experts in what is the best possible answer or solution to their problems.

·         As the client are the ones that have the best potential to solve their own issues, person-centered therapists do not use any specific techniques or directives in their sessions.

·         The counselor works on developing a trusting therapeutic relationship, which is considered to be a necessary and sufficient factor for change to occur. Within that frame, person-centered therapists use themselves as instruments in the process, displaying accurate empathy, unconditional positive regard and genuineness (congruence). (Rogers 2005)

 The Core Conditions

 The three main core conditions that Carl Rogers considered essential for effective counseling are:

1.      Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR)

2.      Empathy

3.      Congruence

However in Roger’s paper “The necessary and sufficient conditions of Therapeutic personality change” he lists six conditions in total.

      1.       Two persons are in Psychological contact.

2.       The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.

3.       The second person, whom we shall term the therapist is congruence or integrated in the relationship.

4.       The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.

5.       The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the clients internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client.

6.       The communication to the client of the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved. …(Rogers 2005)

No other conditions are necessary. If these six conditions exist and continue over a period of time, this is sufficient…(Rogers 2005)

Therapeutic Techniques

One of the ways in which personal growth can be enhanced is through the use of expressive arts. According to Rogers’ daughter Natalie, art provides the client with an opportunity to get to the deep feelings and experiences that might be otherwise inaccessible. Creative expression can be encouraged in many different forms and through variety of mediums such as movement, painting, sculpting, music and writing. All of those methods increase the spontaneous creative expression, which further facilitates growth, healing and self-discovery. (Rogers 2005)

Therapeutic Goals

The person-centered approach aims toward the client achieving a greater degree of independence and integration.   Its focus is on the person, not on the person’s presenting problem. Rogers did not believe the aim of therapy was to solve problems. Rather it was to assist clients in their growth process so clients could better cope with their current and future problems. (Corey, 2009)

A person-centered therapist encourages clients to give up the masks and facades that were created through the process of socialization and caused them to loose contact with their true selves. It is up to the therapist to create that climate of safety, which enables the clients to open to the experience, trust in themselves, and develop an internal source of evaluation and willingness to continue growing. 

References:

(n.d.). Retrieved from:  https://share.ehs.uen.org/sites/default/files/images/7%20psychotherapy%20cartoon.jpg

Rogers, C. (2005). The Carl Rogers Reader edited by Kirschenbaum & Henderson. London: Counstable & Robertson

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, Eighth Edition. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.   

(n.d.). Retrieved from:  http://www.all-about-psychology.com/images/carl-rogers-picture.jpg

Existential Therapy



(Pic 1)

Existential therapy views the problems and issues which give rise to distress as the consequence of difficulties encountered in day to day living, rather than as indicators of mental illness or sickness.

An existentially informed approach to psychotherapy and counselling is one which is concerned with helping you to arrive at your own insights and to make the choices and decisions which you feel are right for you rather than attempting to ‘cure’ or change behaviour which may in fact be fundamental to your way of being. Existential therapy emphasises the need within all of us to find our own inner equilibrium and to live life in accordance with our own deeply held values and beliefs.

(Pic 2)

Key contributoes to Existential Therapy:

Rollo May

(1990 - 1994)

May was one of the key figures responsible for bringing existentialism from Europe to the United States and for translating key concepts into psychotherapeutic practice (Wikipedia 2013).

Viktor Frankl

(1905 - 1997)

Frankl was an Austrian Neurologist and a Psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor.  He was the founder of logo therapy, which is a form of existential analyssis (Wikipedia 2013).

Irvin Yalom

His writings on Existential Psychology centres on what he refers to as the four "givens" of the human condition:  isolation, meaninglessness, mortality and freedom, and discusses ways the human person can respond to these concerns either in a functional or dysfunctional fashion (Wikipedia 2013).

Basic Concept: 

Existential psychotherapy is more philosophical in nature.
Existential psychotherapy is not a specific technique.
Focuses on issues central to human existence.

Existential therapy is basically an experiential approach to therapy.
It is based on a personal relationship between client and therapist.
It stresses personal freedom in deciding one's fate.
It places primary value on self-awareness (Garrett, 2007).

Death:

The most obvious ultimate concern.
"A terrible truth".
Conflict between awareness of death and desire to live.
To cope we erect defenses against death awareness.
Psychopathology in part is due to failure to deal with the inevitability of death.  (Garrett, 2007)

Freedom:

Refers to the fact that humans are the authors of their own world.
We are responsible for our own choices.
Conflict is between groundlessness and desire for ground/structure.
Implications for therapy.
Responsibility.
Willing.
Impulsivity.
Compulsivity.
Decision.
Existential Psychotherapy.  (Garrett, 2007)

Isolation:

 

The fact that we are isolated from parts of ourselves is termed intrapersonal isolation Intrapersonal isolation = Fact we are isolated from parts of ourselves.
A form of isolation that refers to the fact that each of us enters and departs the world alone is existential.
Existential isolation differs from Interpersonal isolation = Divide between self and others.
Intrapersonal isolation = Fact we are isolated from parts of ourselves. (Garrett, 2007)

Meaninglessness:

Meaning creates hierarchal order of our values.
From a schema regarding the meaning of life an individual generates a hierarchy of values.
Tells us how to live not why to live.
Conflict stems from "How does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?" (Garrett, 2007)

 

Therapeutic techniques and procedures:

- It is not technique-oriented
- The interventions are based on philosophical views about the nature of human existence
- Free for draw techniques from other orientations
- The use of therapist self is the core of therapy (Garrett,2007)

Techniques are not emphasized:

- Existential therapy is not considered as a system of highly developed techniques
- Subjective understanding of clients is primary
- In the existential approach subjective understanding of clients is primary and techniques are secondary
- The term unfolding refers to the therapist's attempt to uncover with the patient what was there all along (Garrett, 2007)

 

Therapeutic Goals:

-  To expand self-awareness.
-  To increase potential choices.
-  To help client accept the responsibility for their choice.
-  To help the client experience authentic existence.



(N.D, 2011)

References:

 

(n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl

 

(n.d.). In Wikipedia.  Retrieved February 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo_May

 

(n.d.). In Wikipedia.  Retrieved February 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvin_Yalom

 

Garrett, J. (2007, October 18).  Existential Therapy. Retrieved from http://mucounseling603theories.blogspot.com/2007/10/chapter-9-existential-therapy.html

 

(n.d.).  Retrieved from http://indianatheists.com/2011/12/25/on-rough-rides-and-the-ride-into-the-sunset/franklquote/

 

(n.d.).  Retrieved from http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4052/4230538005_120fc46248.jpg

 

(n.d.).  Retrieved from  http://www.counselling-therapy.co.uk/wp-content/themes/therapy/images/slide3.jpg

 

Psychoanalytic Psychology

Psychoanalytic Psychology is concerned with the individual's past as explanation for the individual's current state of mind and personality. It was developed, formalized and popularized, although not wholly originated, by Sigmund Freud in the latter 1800s and early 1900s. Freud's version is the one most often depicted in the popular media of the person lying on a couch and a listening, wise old man seated next to the couch, taking notes. It involves focus on the unconscious mind which can be revealed, according to Freud, through dream analysis, free association, recognition of certain intrapsychic defense mechanisms and other means.

Adlerian Psychology

Also known as Individual Psychology, is concerned with the past and the unconscious, too. It also evolved from Freud's work. This Psychology, developed by Alfred Adler, views the individual as a unique being with a particular goal orientation expressed by his or her lifestyle. Creative ability is seen as a possible differentiating factor that interferes with relationships and relationships are viewed as a positive force. Lack of relationships, or poor ones, are viewed as responsible for social isolation and this, according to the theory, leads to neuroses. Although the person has many external pressures, a past influencing her or him, internal drives and an unconscious that all have their effects, she or he still has individual choice. Helping the person to see this and recognize choices, within a supportive relationship with the therapist, is the core of Adlerian (or Individual) Psychology practice.

Alfred W. Adler (February 7, 1870 – May 28, 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of inferiority - the inferiority complex - is recognized as isolating an element which plays a key role in personality development. Alfred Adler considered human beings as an individual whole, therefore he called his psychology "Individual Psychology" (Orgler 1976).

Adler was the first to emphasize the importance of the social element in the re-adjustment process of the individual and who carried psychiatry into the community.