Ch.6 PERSON CENTERED THERAPY AND COUNSELING
HUMANISTIC-EXTENTIAL THERAPY AND COUNSELING
 Commonalities Across Humanistic-existential theories
o Focus on subjective reality
o Warmth and empathy
o Self of counselor (who are you as a therapist)
o Self-actualization and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
IN A NUTSHELL: THE LEAST YOU NEED TO KNOW
 Elements of therapeutic Change
o Counselor congruence or genuineness
o Accurate empathetic understanding of the client
o Unconditional positive regard
COMMON MYTHS: PERSON CENTERED
 MYTH: person-centered counselors are “nice” and always work to make the client to
“feel good”
 MYTH: “Validate” the client’s feeling’s, always taking the client’s side
 MYTH: One if the most useful techniques is to ask the clients, “How does that make you
feel?”
THE JUICE: SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD
3 CORE CONDITIONS
o Counselor congruence or genuineness
o Unconditional positive regard
o Accurate empathetic
GENUINENESS OR CONGRUENCE
 Refers to the counselor’s Outer Expressions being “Congruent” with His or Hers Inner
experience
 An Idealized goal to which counselors continually aspire
UNCONDITONAL POSITIVE REGARD
 Valuing your clients, no matter what they say or do
 Founded on the ideas that we are all human and that we all suffer
 Motivated by a deep sense of compassion for how hard it is to be human
ACCURATE EMPATHY
 Ability to accurately perceive the internal world of the client
 Ability to meaningfully share this understanding with the client
 Reflect Empathy
o Indicate that the counselor has understood
o Check to make sure the counselor has understood correctly
o Provide the client with an opportunity to reflect on his or her internal experience
BIG PICTURE: OVERVIEW OF COUNSELING PROCESS
TREATMENT
o Process-Oriented Approach
o Meaning that the counselor’s attention is on the how things happen (process)
rather than what happens (content)
o Focuses on How the client interacts with self, others, and life challenges
SEVEN STAGES OF CHANGE PROCESS
 1st stage: a person’s personality seems fixed, personal problems are not acknowledged
 2nd stage: he or she begins to loosen up and is more open to seeing problems
 3rd stage: express past feelings and personal meanings
 4th stage: becomes more open to reconsidering their construct about self and others,
increasing able to verbalize deep emotions
 5th stage: they are increasingly able to verbalize in-the -moment emotions and
experiences
 6th stage: is now bale to experience difficult emotions as they arise with acceptance
 7th stage: this stage generally occurs outside the counseling relationship
MAKING CONNECTION: COUNSELING RELATIONSHIP
THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP
 Relationship as change agent
o Views the relationship as two authentic humans in relationship
 Therapeutic Presence and the Core Conditions
o Therapeutic Presence: way of being in the room
o Create something far greater and more powerful in the relationship
The Viewing: Case Conceptualization
 Experiencing and communication of Self
 Recognition of Feelings
 Expression of Emotion
 Present Moment Experiencing
 Personal Constructs and Facades
 Complexity and Contradictions
 Perception of Problems and Responsibility
 Peak Experience and Flow
Targeting Change: Goal Setting
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Self-Actualization
o “Becoming that self which one truly is”
o Refers to fulfilling one’s potential and living an authentic, meaning life
o Believed that humans naturally tend toward positive, prosocial growth
o Long-term, late phase goal
Process Goals
o Identify areas of growth
o Process issues: a person’s internal process
THE DOING: INTERVENTIONS
 Self of the Counselor & core conditions (who or how you are in the room)
 Focused listening or attending (nonverbal, nodding head, listening to client)
 Summarizing (key elements, emotional train that they describe)
 Clarifying (asking for details so you can understand what was going on, emotions)
 Reflecting feelings (identify the emotion train, reflecting it back to client)
 Process questions (identify the feeling, what are they feeling like right now)
 Concreteness and Specificity (what is sadness/ grief…)
 Self-Disclosure (need to be trusted)
 Confrontation (help point it out)
 Immediacy (how they feel in the moment)
 Focusing (help them focus on the core process area and recognize them in life)
WHAT NOT TO DO
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Use reassuring clichés
Give advice
Request an explanation
Agree with the client
Disagree with the client
Give approval
Express disapproval
INTERVENTIONS FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS
 Nondirective play therapy
o Eight principles of axline’s play therapy
o Children who experience trauma
 Expressive arts therapy- a way to express their internal process to their world
RESEARCH AND THE EVIDENCE BASE
 Research
o Process research
 The study of in-session counseling processes that promote or hinder
change
o Evidence Base Treatments
 Emotionally focused couples therapy
o Common Factors Research
 Rogers’ core conditions
 Counseling relationship accounting for 30% of outcome variance
TAPESTRY WEAVING: APPLICATIONS WITH DIVERSE POPULATIONS
DIVERSITY
 Culture/Gender Competence
o Considering culture/gender norms of emotional expression
o Consider individualist vs, collectivist values
 Sexual Identity Diversity
o Focus on the burden of societal rejection of the client’s authentic self
o “coming out” a part of self-actualization