Principles of Person-Centered (Humanistic) Therapy

Question 1

What is the role of the therapist according to the Humanistic theory?

Answer 1

• Therapists are not in business to change clients, to give them quick advice, or to solve their problems for them.
• Instead, counselors facilitate healing through a process of genuine dialogue with their clients.

Question 2

What kind of a person the therapist need to be?

Answer 2

“The kind of person a therapist is remains the most critical factor affecting the client and promoting change.

If practitioners possess wide knowledge, both theoretical and practical, yet lack human compassion qualities of compassion, caring, good faith, honesty, presence, realness, and sensitivity, they are more like technicians.

In my judgment those who function exclusively as technicians do not make a significant difference in the lives of their clients.”
Carl rogers

Question 3

Is the relationship between the client and the practitioner (therapist, psychologist, counsellors) important?

Answer 3

• Much of what is accomplished in counseling is dependent on the quality of the relationship between the counselor and the client.

Question 4

What are the Primarily three core conditions of the relationship between the client and the practitioner (therapist, psychologist, counsellors) ? And who put these condition?

Answer 4

• Derives from the work of Carl Rogers (Person Centered/Humanistic approach) in the late 1950s
• He defined “necessary and sufficient conditions for change to occur in clients”
• Primarily three core conditions:
o Accurate empathy
o Positive regard
o Genuineness

Question 5

What is Accurate empathy? And how it is achieved?

Answer 5

Empathic rapport, that is accurately sensing another’s world and being able to see things the way he or she does
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Communicative attunement, that is verbally sharing your understanding with the other person. We call this feedback
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Out of this comes the most important skill in counseling: empathic listening

Question 6

What is Positive regard?

Answer 6

• Respecting the client regardless of differences in values, differences in worldview; in short, no condition is set upon the client’s behaviors and experiences.

Question 7

Define each word:
Unconditional
Positive
regard

Answer 7

• Unconditional
o One experiencing UPR holds ‘no conditions of acceptance . . . It is at the opposite pole from a selective evaluating attitude.’
• Positive
o One offers ‘warm acceptance . . . a “prizing” of the person, as John Dewey has used that term . It means a caring for the client. ’
• Regard
o One regards ‘each aspect of the client’s experience as being part of that client . . .It means a caring for the client, but not in a possessive way or in such a way as simply to satisfy the therapist’s own needs. It means caring for the client as a separate person, with permission to have his [or her] own feelings, his [or her]own experiences.’

Question 8

How to achieve positive regard?

Answer 8

• Make it clear that you are “for” the client
• Assume the client’s goodwill
• Do not rush to judgment
• Keep the client’s agenda in focus

Question 9

Is positive regard the same as agreement?

Answer 9

• Positive regard is not to be confused with agreement
o Instead, it is an attitude of valuing the client as a unique and worthwhile person, even if you disagree with his or her behavior.
• Positive regard means you provide an overall sense of protection, support, or acceptance no matter what is divulged to you.

Question 10

What is Genuineness?

Answer 10

• Genuineness implies that counselors are real in their interactions with clients.
• Counselors are without a “false front”

Question 11

How to achieve Genuineness?

Answer 11

• Their inner and outer experiences match and they can openly express feelings and attitudes that are present in the relationship with the client
• By doing this, counselors model good behavior for clients.

Question 12

How to build a Climate of Safety for the client?

Answer 12

• Accurate empathy, positive regard and genuineness are conditions that help a client to feel safe.

Question 13

How building a Climate of Safety for the client helps?

Answer 13

• When clients feel safe, they feel trusting and free to be open and to disclose important information about themselves.
• A safe counseling environment allows a client to shed accumulated layers of defensive armor and come to see themselves clearly and reveal who they are to the counselor, so they can be helped.

Question 14

Core conditions are Accurate empathy, Positive regard, and Genuineness. What about implied condition?

Answer 14

1- Patient/Therapist psychological contact
2- Patient having anxiety/ incongruence
3- Patient must experience Therapist’s condition.

Question 15

What is congruence?

Answer 15

Agreement between therapist feeling and outer demeanor

Question 16

Why applying the condition in the relationship between the therapist and the client is more important?

Answer 16

• Counseling is NOT telling, directing, advising or reassuring
• It is rather respecting the client and assisting him or her in a process of self-discovery.
• When you do this you empower the client to find his or her own solutions – this is the best!
• So, we will spend some time learning to listen and to understand what the client is telling us. Later, we will add skills to help clients change.

Question 17

Give an example of a positive unconditional positive regard in therapy sessions?

Answer 17

• One of the best representations of unconditional positive regard in therapy sessions is a scenario in which the client shares thoughts, feelings, or behaviors with the therapist that are considered morally wrong or simply unacceptable.
o In this case, the therapist can display unconditional acceptance by asking the client about their feelings and what they believe drove the thought or behavior rather than focusing on how the client’s actions would hurt someone else or on the illegality or immorality of the action (Good Therapy, 2015).