Person-centred counselling - Essay Example

Person-centred counselling I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block Tao Te Ching Person-centred approach to counselling has its origins in the works of American psychologist Carl Rogers. He believed that the person know himself what is best for him. Only the person knows what is hurting and only he knows how to overcome the pain. Rogers labelled this type of counselling as non-directive with the therapist's task to enable the person to make contact with his own inner resources than to influence the direction the person should take. The central idea underlining the person-centred counselling is that the person should be trusted to fund his own way out, while the therapist is the companion who encourages the relationship in which person feels safe. The person-centred approach is the belief in rightness, appropriateness, and goodness of human nature. Person-centred counsellor believes that each individual has the potential to become unique and beautiful creature. One of the most important principles of person-centred counselling is the presentation of the client as the expert (Arnason 2001, 299). It aims to help the client to explore, express, and understand his own emotions. It is believed that the client is able to understand what he feels as well as why he feels so. Person-centred approach is based on the technologies of the self - the ones that permit the individual to effect by their own means or with the help of the other a certain number of operations in their own bodies, souls, thoughts and way of being. This type of counselling helps individuals to transform themselves in order to become happy, pure, wise and perfect. It should be added that person-centred approach to counselling places the great value on self-reliance and self-respect, individual initiative and responsibility (Arnason 2001, 299). Similar to other types of counselling, person-centred approach requires that dialogues between the client and counsellor should be varied in pace and style within sessions. There may be long periods of silences as well as lots of story telling from the client (Schapira 2000, 54). In any case, the counsellors give the clients the opportunity to tell about their troubles and worried without any pressure. Such relations help to establish the mutual trust and encourage the client to speak openly and voluntary. Carl Rogers, as the founder of person-centred approach, felt no need to devise theories - trying to fit to the theory meant for him that the experiences and perceptions of the client were ignored (Mytton 1999, 66). Person-centred therapy is the humanistic approach and instead of the focusing on the childhood origins of the client's problems, it is focused on the present experiences. Most of the underlining concepts of person-centred approach are the result of Rogers' childhood experiences: he was brought up to believe that human nature was corrupt and worthless. From this pessimistic view of the world, he has managed to develop the positive theory of personality. Similar to the plants who have the innate tendency to grow from the seed to their full potential, person-centred approach in relation to humans calls this approach the actualizing tendency. Actualizing tendency is the drive which continues throughout the life as humans move towards the fulfilment of all that is possible for them to achieve. Actualization for humans is more than mere physical growth and survival, it includes the reduction and satisfaction of psychological needs, the desire for live and safety, the drive to learn and be creative. Moreover, Rogers believed that actualizing tendency was the only motive needed to account for all human behaviour. The human world consists of memories, sensations, perceptions and meanings that are available to consciousness - internal frame of references in counselling terms (Mytton 1999, 69). This private world can be known to humans only and while the counsellors may have an idea of client's experiences, the exact nature of the client's perception is known only to the client. In other words, to understand the behaviour of another person it is necessary to get as close as possible to see the world through the eyes of the client, through his frame of reference. In order to satisfy the actualizing tendency, the person needs to know what is of value to that growth. Person-centred approach is focused on this human ability to weight and value experiences either positively or negatively - the so-called organismic valuing process. Thus, the counsellor needs to focus on the whole person rather than isolating different processes such as behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. If the client listens to his organismic valuing process, he knows what will help him to move towards his potential (Mytton 1999, 69). For example, if the person is very hungry, he will rate the food highly and move to his goal - getting some food. As soon as hunger is satisfied, food is no longer in the status of value. The idea of self is central to the theory of personality, and even though Rogers has never made the distinction between the self and self-concept, it can be traced in his writings. Under person-centred counselling, clients often express their concerns in terms of their self. For example, they may say that they do not know who they are or they do not seem to be able to be themselves. Others might hate themselves and do not let others to see their inner self. Nevertheless, person-centred counselling is based on the assumption that every individual knows who he is from the birth. From the early childhood, people learn what they can do and what they cannot do. In particular, the infant sees his feet while playing on the floor and gets the sense of the self - having feet (Schapira 2000, 54). Person-centred counselling stresses the idea that personality develops continually and humans are programmed from the birth to move forwards and, moreover, are provided with the favourable conditions. The personality develops in the result of the innate characteristics, modified by the experiences and social involvement. Infants are not affected by what other people think or by the self analysis. Based on observations it can be noted that children prefer to seek our experiences such exploration, social communication through crying, for example - activities which enhance the growth. The child rejects any experiences that do not assist the actualizing tendency. The person-centred counselling is at times seen by patients to be alien or simply unhelpful (Bayne 1996, 42). Patients from the other cultures also may find person-centred approach inhibiting and puzzling because they have the fear to fail identifying feelings of sadness, anger, or distress correctly without direct influence of the counsellor. Nevertheless, the supporters of person-centred approach note that this type of counselling helps the clients to understand themselves better and teaches to identify and control these feelings in the future. All people develop the need for love and acceptance which is the positive regard. The behaviour of the child, as well as of the grown-up, is shaped by the need for approval (Mytton 1999, 71). In addition, the conflict between the inner self (I am loveable) and the self-concept (I behave wrong and I am not loved) may arise. Introjection is one of the ways to resolve this inconsistency - the denial of any awareness of the satisfaction gained by wrong action and maintaining the feeling of self as loveable, for example. Introjection is the internalization of the beliefs of important others. The person-centred counsellor is aimed at helping people to find the balance between the inner self, self-concept and experiences. Interruptions of the actualizing tendency distort the normal personality growth and blockage of the actualizing tendency usually occurs when there is the extreme need for positive regard. Rogers has introduced the new concept to describe the way a person has positive self regard only when approved by the significant others - conditions of worth. For example, the love and approval of the mother being important to the child who behaves bad, lead the child to introject the mother's values. Introjected values are learned in home, at school or any other community. At school children are taught that only when they get As they become acceptable and valuable as the human beings. Rogers has demonstrated that the person seeking help should not be treated as the dependent patient, but rather as the responsible client whose psychological distress in not a sickness and no treatment by medical specialist required. Person-centred approach demonstrate that people can be helped by the growth-producing process of counselling and individuals from many fields (social workers, medical workers, and family professionals) can use this type of counselling (Kirschenbaum 2004, 116). For example, the person-centred counselling applied in the supervision field, has numerous benefits - the facilitators conditions of empathy and warmth combined with the belief in supervisee's natural tendencies to learn and grow, is the beneficial result of the person-centred approach (Pearson 2006, 241). Psychologically healthy individuals are those who are open to the experience without feeling threatened and are aware of their feelings, feelings of others and their personal capabilities at the particular time of moment (Aziz 2006, 29). Person-centred counselling helps patients to regain trust and confidence in themselves which is lacking in those who have the battle with perception of others. Rogers created the new conditions of relationships where growth process and treating other people as well as the self in the loving manner are encouraged. One of the distinctive features of person-centred counselling is that it does not merely talks about the importance of the counsellor-client relations, but that it is the aim of the therapy process with every patient. Word Count: 1572 References Arnason, A 2001, "Experts of the Ordinary: Bereavement Counselling in Britain", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 299+. Aziz, V 2006, "Pioneer Psychologist Showed Us How to Love in a Healthy Way", Western Mail, 30 January, p. 29. Bayne, R, Bimrose, J & Horton, I 1996, New Directions in Counselling, Routledge, New York. Kirschenbaum, H 2004, "Carl Rogers's Life and Work: An Assessment on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth", Journal of Counseling and Development, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 116+. Mytton, J & Dryden, W 1999, Four Approaches to Counselling and Psychotherapy, Routledge, London. Pearson, Q 2006, "Psychotherapy-Driven Supervision: Integrating Counseling Theories into Role-Based Supervision", Journal of Mental Health Counseling, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 241+. Schapira, S 2000, Choosing a Counselling or Psychotherapy Training: A Practical Guide, Routledge, London. Read More