Rogerian Theory and the Concept of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Client Change - Essay Example

This assignment gives a comprehensive analysis of Carl’s conditions necessary and sufficient for client change during a therapeutic process. DiscussionCarl Rogers came up with six distinctive conditions required for personality change during a therapeutic process.

He further noted that a constructive change would only occur if the conditions continue to exist for some time. The conditions include a) Two people have to be in psychological contact The two people he referred to were the patient and his therapist. The first condition states that there has to be a relationship in terms of psychological contact for change to occur. He, however, indicates that this condition is a hypothesis and is open to disapproval (Sharf, 2012). b) The client has to be incongruent and vulnerable by saying this, he means that for a change to occur there has to be dissimilarity between the client’s actual experience and his or her self picture the experience.

This implies that the client has to be in a state of inadequacy (Sharf, 2012). c) The therapist has to be in a state of congruence and integrated into the existing relationship unlike the client, Carl suggests that the therapist has to be himself and his actual experiences have to be accurately represented by the knowledge he has of himself. He has to be in a state of adequacy. It is only through this that the change can occur. d) The therapist must experience total positive regard for his client By saying this, he means that the therapist has to experience a warm acceptance of the client’s incongruence or inadequacy as being part of the client.

This means that the therapist must not have conditions for accepting a client (Sharf, 2012). All clients must be equally accepted regardless of their experiences. e) The therapist should experience an empathetic comprehension of his client’s thoughts and must communicate this to himThe therapist must sense his or her client’s private world, in a way, that feels like it was his own, but without losing the congruence to his own knowledge of himself. His remarks and assertions should conform to the client’s content and mood, and he should be in a position to comprehend the client’s feelings.