‘…the client-centered therapist’s commitment is to provide the therapeutic atmosphere that releases the client’s [organismic experiencing/valuing]…’ (Elizabeth Freire, ‘Unconditional Positive Regard: The Distinctive Feature of Client-Centered Therapy’, Rogers’ Therapeutic Conditions: Evolution, Theory and Practice. Volume 3: Unconditional Positive Regard, eds. Jerold Bozarth and Paul Wilkins (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2001) 147.)
Carl Rogers wrote that the ‘…primary fact which has given…[person-centred/experiential] counselling its impetus is the realisation that a predictable, measurable process can be set in motion in the client…’ – a ‘…process of client reorientation and growth.’ (‘Psychometric Tests and Client-Centered Counselling’, Educational and Psychological Measurement 6 (1946) 139.)1 Elliott writes that
‘The most characteristic [therapist]…response…is empathic exploration. These… simultaneously communicate understanding and help clients move toward the unclear or emerging edges of their experience.’ (Robert Elliott, ‘Emotion-Focused Therapy’, The Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation: An Introduction to the Schools of Therapy related to the Person-Centred Approach, 2nd ed., ed. Pete Sanders (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2012) 114.)
The client comes to re-examine some or many of his/her beliefs and ideas about him/herself and some or many of his/her experiences – the act of which can generate an inconsistency or tension in the client’s self-concept the relieving of which can be it’s alteration or expansion. Mearns describes this inconsistency or tension as ‘dissonance’:
‘The effect…is…increase[d]…‘dissonance’ within the client’s self-concept.’ (‘The Dance of Psychotherapy’ (1994), Person-Centred Practice: The BAPCA Reader, ed. Tony Merry (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2000) 83.)
Similarly Rogers writes that the client ‘perceive[s]…new aspect[s]’ of him/herself which ‘…in an understanding atmosphere [are] owned and assimilated into a now altered self-concept.’ (Carl Rogers, ‘Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being’ (1975), A Way of Being (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980) 7.)
‘…when he senses and realises…he is prized as a person…he can slowly begin to value the different aspects of himself. …he can begin, with much difficulty at first, to sense and to feel what is going on within him, what he is feeling, what he is experiencing, how he is reacting. He uses his experiencing as a direct referent to which he can turn in forming accurate conceptualisations and as a guide to his behaviour.’ (Carl Rogers, ‘Toward a Modern Approach to Values: The Valuing Process in the Mature Person’ (1964), The Carl Rogers Reader, eds. Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Henderson (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1989) 176-177.) ‘…finds himself coming in closer touch with a wider range of his experiencing. …an expanded referent to which he can turn for guidance…’ (Rogers, ‘Empathic’, 7.) |
1‘…adherence by the counsellor to certain basic principles involving both attitudes and procedures tends to further this process…’ (Rogers, ‘Psychometric Tests’, 139.)