Dave Mearns writes that the ‘implicit aim’ ‘of person-centred working is to help the client to internalise his locus of evaluation’ (Developing Person-Centred Counselling (London: Sage, 1994) x) – in other words ‘to find and…exercise more of his…personal power…regard[ing]…understanding and evaluating his actions…and in making decisions’ (Developing, ix). This is done ‘by creating a relationship in which the client may take responsibility for himself’ (Mearns, Developing, x) – a relationship where
‘he is prized as a separate person, in which the experiencing going on within him is empathically understood and valued and in which he is given the freedom to experience his own feelings and those of others without being threatened in doing so.’ (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) 180-181.)1
1Mearns also makes the observation that ‘being helped to heal oneself’ ‘in many ways…does not fit…Western culture where [doing so]…is attractive only in the margins of society’ (Developing, ix).