What is Person-Centered Counselling and How Does It Work?

This article describes person-centered counselling and how it works. Person-centered counselling emphasizes working with the person rather than the problem. It is oriented to the relationship between client and counsellor and the potentiality of the person. It is different from other models like Gestalt and Psychodynamic Therapy because they operate at a more superficial relational level. This approach to counselling is all about the realness of the therapeutic relationship.

At the heart of person-centered therapy there is a spiritual and existential connection between counsellor and client. It brings together people who are willing to express meaningful aspects of their spirituality and existence within a relational experience. There is a linking together of both peoples' inner subjective worlds and a power to heal through a quality of relationship that can evolve into something greater than itself.

This counselling approach involves meeting people in a deep and profound way that is engaging. This depth of relationship welcomes an understanding of a person's various dimensions of existence with a non-judgmental, accepting, affirming, open, honest, and unconditional attitude. It brings the counsellor and client together to be involved in a real and vulnerable way, which requires letting go of unnecessary protection and the perception of counsellors as experts with the knowledge and methods to treat and resolve a client's identified problem.

Carl Rogers, the pioneer of humanistic and person-centered counselling, emphasized the cornerstones of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. He also formulated the conditions he deemed necessary and sufficient for counselling therapy to be effective. These core conditions included the need for psychological connection between the counselling therapist and client; an incongruence or anxiety from the client; and at least a minimal level of acceptance and empathy experienced by the client.

One of the major skills of counsellors in person-centered work is their ability to restrain from the need to make sense of the material generated in the session and to wait for that sense to come from the client. This waiting requires patience and trust in the ability of the client to come to their own understanding, instead of interpreting for them. This means the client is in the best position to accurately express and symbolize the material related to their inner parts or configurations of self. When all parts of a client are listened to, valued unconditionally, and welcomed by the counsellor, a client can safely give voice to each of them.

Another aspect of person-centered counselling that is important, is the counsellor's relationship with a client's unconscious mind. This means sensitivity is needed for perceiving possible subtle clues that clients report about their life experience that might indicate something is hidden below the surface of their conscious awareness. When counsellor's listen carefully, they can distinguish between expressions that are literal versus expressions that are metaphors. This distinction can be made by reflecting on what has been heard to understand by using the same words the client uses.

Explaining dissociation to clients is another way for person-centered counsellors to support a client's understanding of what is happening within them, as they relate to their unconscious mind. This lets a person know that their way of coping may be a protective response that is common in children who experienced relational or attachment trauma. It is not a defect of the person, but a learned way to survive and adapt to perceived threats and dangers, which may no longer be working.

There are four propositions which describe a dialogue based concept of understanding self in person-centered therapy. The first is about the actualizing tendency as a sole motivational force for people. Carl Rogers believed that people tend to be motivated to self-actualize or manifest their biological potential for growth in life. This can be expressed in a variety of ways, but the most likely is through socially through relationships.

The second proposition is about the promptings of the actualizing tendency to inspire resistance within the social life of a person. This resistance is called social mediation. This resistance is limiting for the expression of actualizing potential or growth. It is likened to a type of pressure which maintains balance so the person can also nurture the social context of their life, not just the biological. It can be influenced by outside social forces, such as those of our parents, caregivers, or other influential people whose messages or beliefs we ‘introject’ into our inner world. It is like the tension of a rope being pulled one way (by the forces of the actualizing tendency) and then another way (by the forces of social mediation), which attempt to balance our biological growth and social life.

The third proposition is about a psychological homeostasis which develops where balance is under dual control of the actualizing tendency and the resistance of social mediation. Both controls are capable of exercising power. These opposing forces are sensitive to the evolving changes in our needs and situations. This balancing process is compatible with the concept of configurations of parts because there are dual (or multiple) controls which adapt and are activated within us to create and manifest, as well as to mediate or inhibit and conserve, to maintain and preserve needs with different people, in different environments.

The fourth proposition is about disorder caused when a person becomes chronically stuck within their own process in a way so that homeostasis or balance cannot be achieved to respond to changing circumstances. This is nicely described with the analogy of fluidity in response to change. For example, water in a river flows at different rates of speeds, directions, and power around changing obstacles like rocks and logs (and other objects) so that it can continue in harmony with elemental and gravitational forces. It does not just freeze in response to an object in its path. It is not threatened by the other objects. It is constantly reconfiguring the flow patterns to adapt in relationship to the objects within and around it. This dynamically changing pattern looks quite efficient, orderly, and predictable to the outside observer. When humans become stuck by repeatedly favoring their own relational process in a way that is rigid and doesn’t allow for feedback or change, they may suffer in distress from the separation and disconnection they experience. It can be confusing when there is conflict that disturbs the balance in our valuing of internal experience (or sense of self) and the external feedback received from our social world.

In summary, person-centered counselling is about the person, not the problem. It works by focusing on the therapeutic relationship between counsellor and client as a powerful source of healing. This approach believes in peoples' tendency to self-actualize to their highest potential. For it to be effective, three core conditions must be present: unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. The client is supported to express and understand their various parts of self, as well as to express and understand metaphor or symbolism representing their unconscious mind. It may also include understanding protective ways of coping like dissociation, usually developed in response to traumatic childhood experiences.

Finally, person-centered counselling proposes that self-actualizing is the sole motivational force for people. This inspires resistance or social mediation, which is followed by a balancing process between the these two opposing forces (self-actualizing and resistance) to maintain and preserve needs. When people become chronically stuck, it can interfere with balance and responding to the changes continually faced in life. Counselling can assist people with becoming more flexible through a relational process that reconnects us to valuing our sense of self and being reintegrated with our social world.

Sources

Mearns, D., Thorne, B., Lambers, E., & Warner, M. (2000). Person-Centred Therapy Today:

New Frontiers in Theory and Practice. SAGE.