If the problem pivots around the ‘pervasive and persistent’ need (Carl Rogers, ‘A Theory of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships as Developed in the Client-Centred Framework’, Psychology: A Study of Science, Volume 3: Formulations of the Person and the Social Context, ed. Sigmund Koch (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959) 223) for positive regard, and the perceived threat to this caused by the challenge to the integrity of one’s strategies for achieving it (one’s ‘conditions of worth), then a possible solution to the problem might be the existence or presence of positive regard via another channel: positive regard offered from another ‘unconditionally’ – without condition or having to do anything for the receipt of it. Freire, for example, writes that ‘the therapist has to accept the client in order that the client may change’ (‘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) 145). Mearns writes that

‘all…aspects of the personality [being]…given non-judgemental attention… …works against the conditionality’ (‘The Dance of Psychotherapy’ (1994), Person-Centred Practice: The BAPCA Reader, ed. Tony Merry (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2000) 83).

 

Rogers writes that ‘unconditional positive regard’

  • might be offered to the client through ‘experienc[ing]’ and ‘communicat[ing] to the client a deep and genuine caring for the client’ – a ‘positive, nonpossessive warmth without reservations and without evaluations’ (Carl Rogers and Ruth Sanford, ‘Client-Centered Psychotherapy’, The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 5th ed., eds. Harold Kaplan and Benjamin Sadock (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1989) 18-19),1 and that it
  • ‘must exist’ in a ‘context of empathic understanding’ for it to be communicated to the client (‘Theory of Therapy’, 230) – which is to ‘accurately and sensitively…understand the…feelings of the client and the meanings they have’ (Rogers & Sanford, ‘Client-Centered Psychotherapy’, 14-15).2

 

The significance of the ‘congruence’ of the helper or therapist – of what is felt ‘at an experiential or visceral level’ being ‘present in awareness and…available for direct communication…when appropriate’ (Rogers & Sanford, ‘Client-Centered Psychotherapy’, 22) – for facilitating the client’s exploration of his or her view or understanding of him/herself is also emphasised by Barrett-Lennard. For the client to have the possibility of ‘deeply open[ing]’ his or her ‘self’ ‘to view and review’ Barrett-Lennard writes that the client needs to

  • ‘experience…[the therapist] as open and revealing of his/her own personhood’ through ‘a way of responding that expresses what is immediately present in…[the therapist’s] experiencing’, and to
  • have ‘repeatedly experienced…having…felt…[the therapist] resonating and almost knowing “what it is like to be me” ‘ – ‘being deeply heard’ by the therapist (The Pathway of Client-Centred Therapy (Paper presented to the First International Conference on Client-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy, Leuven, Belgium, 1988) 13).

 

‘ “I have been talking about hidden things, partly veiled even from myself, feelings that are strange, possibly abnormal… And yet he has understood…” ’ (Carl Rogers, ‘Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being’ (1975), A Way of Being (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980) 6.)

‘ “If I am not being judged perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought. …” ’(Rogers, ‘Empathic’, 7.)

‘ “this other individual trusts me, thinks I’m worthwhile. Perhaps I am worth something. …” ’ (Rogers, ‘Empathic’, 6.)

 

‘The therapist’s trust in the client’s self-direction and self-determination fosters her unconditional acceptance of the client’s experience.’ (Freire, ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’, 147.)

 

1‘the warmth expressed in the therapist’s unconditional positive regard is the manifestation of the therapist’s presence.’ – ‘it is the therapist’s willingness to be present in the client’s private world’ (Freire, ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’, 150).
2Similarly Freire writes that ‘through…empathic understanding’ the therapist is ‘able to unconditionally accept the client’s experience…[in] put[ting] her self [or ‘frame of reference’] aside’ (‘Unconditional Positive Regard’, 149).

 

 

‘Personal Working Alliance’
‘Two Strong Influences Upon Behaviour’