MA Psy_Sem-3_Psychotherapies_Unit-3_P-2

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M.A.Psychology CLIENT CENTRED THERAPY Course Code MAP613 Semester: III CLIENT CENTRED e-Lesson: 8 THERAPY SLM Unit: 3 INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE AND ONLINE LEARNING P 6013)

CLIENT CENTRED THERAPY INTRODUCTION 3 OBJECTIVES Steps in Client Centred Therapy The client centred model has an optimistic view of people in general. Techniques in Client Centred Therapy In client centred counselling the particular techniques the therapist uses. According to Rogers, we have our true self. P 6013) INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE AND ONLINE LEARNING

TOPICS TO BE COVERED The techniques in client centred therapy. The core conditions of rogers’s therapy for effective counselling. The stages of client centred therapy. CLIENT CENTRED THERAPY

Person-Centered Therapy A reaction against the directive and psychoanalytic approaches Challenges: ❖ The assumption that “the counselor knows best” ❖ The validity of advice, suggestion, persuasion, teaching, diagnosis, and interpretation ❖ The belief that clients cannot understand and resolve their own problems without direct help ❖ The focus on problems over persons

Basic Philosophy ❖ Human beings are inherently trustworthy ❖ Have potential for understanding themselves and resolving their problems ❖ A therapeutic relationship can facilitate their growth and maturity

Person-Centered EmphasizeTs:herapy ❑ Therapy as a journey shared by two fallible people ❑ The person’s innate striving for self-actualization ❑ The personal characteristics of the therapist and the quality of the therapeutic relationship ❑ The counselor’s creation of a permissive, “growth promoting” climate ❑ People are capable of self-directed growth if involved in a therapeutic relationship

The Person-Centered Approach ❑ A humanistic theory—each of us has a natural potential that we can actualize and through which we can find meaning ❑ Shares with existentialism a focus on respect and trust for the client

Humanism vs. Existentialism… Humanism and Existentialism BOTH: Respect for client’s experience and Uniqueness of each individual Trust in clients ability to change Believe in freedom, choice, values, personal responsibility, autonomy, meaning Place less value on techniques and more on genuine encounter

Humanism vs. Existentialism… • Existentialism Humanism • Clients do not suffer • Clients come into counseling because from anxiety in creating they are facing an identity anxiety in trying to • Clients need to believe construct an identity that they have the in a world without natural potential to intrinsic meaning actualize 10

Person-Centered Theory of Personality Carl Rogers was concerned about the way people treated each other and how they cared for or didn't care for each other. He believed that children would develop a good sense of their own self-worth or self- regard if others (parents, teachers, or friends) treated them as valuable and worthy.

Carl Rogers: The Humanistic Approach Two Basic Human Needs ❖Self Actualization: the need to fulfill all of one’s potential. ❖Positive Regard: the need to receive acceptance, respect, and affection from others. Positive regard often comes with conditions attached (“Conditions of Worth”): We must meet others’ expectations to get it. This is called Conditional Positive Regard.

Basic Human Problem : The two needs are often in conflict. Satisfying one may mean giving up the other. Effect onPersonality : We get a false picture of who we are—our interests, motivations, goals, abilities. Our Two Selves Real Self Self- Concept : the (“Organism”): all our person we think we are experiences (feelings, (e.g., “I am...”) wishes, perceptions)

SELF-CONCEPT ❑The organized set of characteristics that an individual perceives as peculiar to himself / herself. ❑It is largely based on the social evaluations he/she has experienced. ❑When significant others provide positive conditional regard for certain behaviour the person interjects the associated values, making them their own and acquires “conditions of worth”. 14

Person-Centered Theory of Personality ❑ When individuals were treated by others in a way that was sometimes harsh, manipulative, or self-serving, then the person was treated conditionally. ❑ Conditions of worth (conditionality) develop from conditional positive regard from others. ❑ Such conditions can make it difficult for a person to become a fully functioning person.

Conditionality or Conditions of Worth ❖ The process of evaluating one's own experience based on values or beliefs that others hold. ❖ Conditional positive regard ❖ Receiving praise, attention, or approval from others as a result of behaving in accordance with the expectations of others. ❖ Fully functioning person ❖ A person who meets his or her own need for positive regard rather than relying on the expectations of others. Such individuals are open to new experiences and not defensive.

Losing Touch with the Real Self ❖ We have a need for positive self-regard (to like and respect ourselves). ❖ Conditional positive regard from others becomes conditional positive self-regard. ❖ This means we will like and accept only those parts of ourselves that other people like and accept. ❖ The self-concept pulls away from the real self; we get a false picture of who we really are. ❖ This mismatch is called Incongruence.

Person-Centered Therapy: The Goal is Congruence Incongruence has many harmful effects. One is that it prevents self-actualization. You have to know “who you are” to fulfill your potential. The therapist tries to bring the self-concept closer to the real self: Real Self Congruence Self- Concept

Organismic Valuing Process •Individuals selecting goals based on inner nature, internal rationality, and individual decision making. •It is a means for an individuals to fulfil their actualizing tendency which is a desire and need to develop and evolve as a person. •This process uses organismic variables to develop goals and make decisions. •Organismic variables are the internal forces and influences an organism’s behaviour.

Organismic Valuing Process •People who experienced a caring, supportive, and loving environment during childhood were more able and likely to trust themselves and their internal feelings in regards to decision making and goal achievement. •The organismic valuing process includes many variables such as • authenticity (being yourself), •autonomy (making your own decisions and not basing it on other people's desires), •an internal locus of evaluation (not seeking the approval of others), and unconditional positive self-regard.

Fully functioning person •One of Roger’s proposition was that “Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of self.” •He describes this as the good life, where the organism continually aims to fulfil its full potential.

Fully functioning person The characteristics of a fully functioning person: 1. A growing openness to experience – 2. they move away from defensiveness and 3. have no need for ‘subception’ (subception = subliminal perception = a perceptual defence that involves unconsciously applying strategies to prevent a troubling stimulus from entering consciousness).

Fully functioning person • 2. An increasingly existential lifestyle – Living each moment fully –not distorting the moment to fit personality or self-concept but allowing personality and self-concept to emanate from the experience. This results in excitement, daring, adaptability, tolerance, spontaneity, and a lack of rigidity and suggests a foundation of trust. 23

Fully functioning person Increasing organismic trust – they trust their own judgment and their ability to choose appropriate behavior. They do not rely on existing codes and social norms but trust their own sense of right and wrong. Freedom of choice – not being shackled by the restrictions that influence an incongruent individual, they are able to make a wider range of choices more fluently. They feel responsible for their own behavior. Creativity – it follows that they will feel more free to be creative. They adapt to their own circumstances without feeling a need to conform.

Fully functioning person Reliability and constructiveness – they can be trusted to act constructively. An individual who is open to all their needs will be able to maintain a balance between them. Even aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in congruent individuals. A rich full life – he describes the life of the fully functioning individual as rich, full and exciting and suggests that they experience joy and pain, love and heartbreak, fear and courage more intensely. Rogers' description of the good life:This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint- hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)[21]

A Growth-Promoting Climate ❑ Congruence - genuineness or realness ❑ Unconditional positive regard- acceptance and caring, but not approval of all behavior ❑ Accurate empathic understanding – an ability to deeply grasp the client’s subjective world ❑ Helper attitudes are more important than knowledge

Person-Centered Therapy 3 ATTITUDES THERAPIST MUST CONVEY ■ Genuineness: open, real, honest ■ Unconditional positive regard and acceptance: value and accept client as they are ■ Empathetic understanding

Six Conditions (necessary and sufficient for personality changes to occur) ❑ Two persons are in psychological contact – A DYAD ❑ The first, the client, is experiencing incongruency – i.e. VULNERABLE AND ANXIOUS ❑ The second person, the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship – authentic not pretending. ❑ The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard or real caring for the client ❑ The therapist experiences empathy for the client’s internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this to the client ❑ The communication to the client is, to a minimal degree, achieved- Client recognizes the acceptance & empathy that the therapist feels for them

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Change 1. Psychological contact A relationship must exist so that two people may have impact on each other.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE 2. Incongruence in the client ■ For change to take place, a client must be in a state of psychological vulnerability. ■ There is a discrepancy between individuals' views of themselves and their actual experience. ■ Included would be depression, anxiety, or a wide variety of problems. ■ Although individuals may not be aware at first of their incongruence or vulnerability, they will be so if therapy continues.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE 3. Congruence and genuineness ■ Therapists are aware of themselves. ■ They are aware of their feelings, their experiences as they relate to the client, and their general reactions to the client. ■ Therapists are open to understanding their own experiences as well as those of the client.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE 4. Unconditional positive regard or acceptance ■ The therapist does not judge the client but accepts the client for who he or she is. ■ Accepting the client does not mean that the counselor agrees with the client. ■ With acceptance often comes caring and warmth.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE 5. Empathy ■ The therapist enters the world of the client, leaving behind, as much as possible, his or her own values. ■ Since it is not possible to be \"value free,\" the therapist monitors his or her own values and feelings. ■ The therapist tries to understand the experience of the client, what it is to be the client. ■ Caring and warmth are expressed often in statements of empathy.

CONVEYING EMPATHY ■ Active listening to client’s narrative ■ Eye contact, body language etc. ■ Reflection - Paraphrasing or summarizing what the client has just said or communicated so far. ■ Give clients permission to be themselves without being judged

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE ■ 6. Perception of empathy and acceptance ■ Not only must the therapist unconditionally accept and understand the client, the client must perceive that he or she is being understood and accepted. ■ Therapists' voice tone and physical expression contribute to the communication of empathy and acceptance. ■ They are a part of the client's perception of empathy.

PROCESS OF THERAPY Stage 1 Minimal self-awareness Not likely to voluntarily present for therapy Stage 2 Little sense of responsibility for difficulties Stage 3** Able to discuss self-experiences and feelings Stage 4 Begins to accept responsibility for difficulties

PROCESS OF THERAPY Stage 5 Able to experience and express feelings in the present Stage 6 Realization of previously being stuck Stage 7 Conditions of worth are replaced by internally generated values

THE THERAPIST ■ Focuses on the quality of the therapeutic relationship ■ Serves as a model of a human being struggling toward greater realness ■ Is genuine, integrated, and authentic, without a false front ■ Can openly express feelings and attitudes that are present in the relationship with the client

THE CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE IN THERAPY ■ 1. Experiencing responsibility. ■ 2. Experiencing the therapist. ■ 3. Experiencing the process of exploration. ■ 4. Experiencing the self. ■ 5. Experiencing change.

PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY OUTCOMES OF THERAPY ▪ Increased Self-esteem ▪ Greater openness to experiences ▪ Better congruence between actual self and idealized self ▪ Decreased defensiveness, guilt / shame and Insecurity ▪ Positive and comfortable relationships ▪ Increased capacity to experience and express their feelings at the moment they occur

PERSON-CENTERED GOALS IN THERAPY ■ Become more self-directed. ■ Increase positive self-regard. ■ The client chooses the goals.

ASSESSMENT ■ The Q Sort technique - used by Rogers to assess change with therapy. Clients sort about 100 adjective cards twice before and twice after therapy. ■ Client rates adjectives in terms of how descriptive the words are of their “current self” and of their “ideal self.” The two sets of scores should correlate more highly after than before therapy. ■ Assessment occurs as therapists empathically understand clients.

PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY STRENGTHS ■ Empathy ■ Phenomenological approach ■ Reflection ■ Increase self-understanding ■ Genuine ■ Unconditional positive regard and acceptance

PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY WEAKNESSES ■ Not much research on theory and practice ■ Theory has not evolved since the 1960’s

ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTIONS ■ Emphasized that the therapeutic relationship is the primary agent of growth ■ Created a style of therapy that can be used by various helping professionals

CONCLUSION The client centred model has an optimistic view of people in general. Clients are good and possessing the capabilities for self-understanding, insight, problem solving, decision making, change and growth. The counsellor’s role is similar to that of a facilitator and reflector. The counsellor facilitates a counselee’s self-understanding and reports to the client the expressed feelings and attitudes. In this therapy, giving information for problem solving is not usually considered a counsellor responsibility. The counsellor would not try to disturb the counselee’s inner world but provides a climate where the counselee could bring about change in himself.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 1. Rogers core principle concentrate on _________ A. Empathy B. Unconditional positive regard C. Genuineness D. All of these Answer-D

2. Which of the following is not a Self-disclosure, which will be helpful to the client and the therapeutic relationship from? A. Response to the client’s experience. B. To make an empathic observation C. To point the attitude D. To correct for loss of acceptance or empathy or incongruence. Answer-C 48

REFERENCES Kensit, D. A. (2000). Rogerian theory: A critique of the effectiveness of pure client-centred therapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly. Elaine Biech, 2015, Training & Development For Dummies, Wiley Publications. Cooper, M., & McLeod, J. (2011). Person-cantered therapy: A pluralistic perspective. Person-Cantered & Experiential Psychotherapies.

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