Carl Rogers is considered as the father of the humanistic movement in psychotherapy. His core theme in therapy is non-judgmental listening and acceptance of the client, better known as unconditional positive regard. His therapeutic approach is known as the Person-Centered Therapy, which is based ion the concepts of humanistic psychology and shares many of the concepts of Existentialism. Both of these concepts share the idea that the client can make positive and constructive choices. Rogers’ approach is also based on the theory that people are ‘trustworthy’ and can solve their own problems without direct intervention from the therapist.
Researchers have acknowledge that conditions proposed by Rogers for counseling are sufficient to bring change to the client. Through person-centered counseling, clients have enhance their self-esteem and also ‘tend to shift the basis for their standards from other people to themselves’. One major difference between person-centered counseling and other approaches is the increased responsibility placed upon the client compared with that assumed by the counselor. Core Rogerian concepts have become fundamental conditions in the counseling and therapeutic relationship today.
1. Unconditional Positive Regard - Possessing unconditional positive regard is accepting the client without judging the behavior, event, or feeling as good or bad.
2. Empathy - Empathy is the ability to sense and identify the feelings of others and to communicate it to the client from his or her point of view-that is, entering the client's frame of reference. The conceptual importance of empathy is not unique to Rogerian-related approaches.
3. Genuineness - Genuineness is the ability to be authentic or “real” with others. The counselor does not distort communication, hide motives, operate from hidden agendas, or become pretentious or defensive. Genuineness means being oneself, not playing a role. The counselor's actions and words match his or her feelings both verbally and nonverbal.
4. Active or Reflective Listening - Listening is an art. Full attention is given both to what the client is saying and to other nonverbal cues such as posture and facial expression. Attending is a precondition to helping. An active listener feeds back what has been said in his or her own words for three reasons: (1) to make sure that he or she understands correctly, (2) to reassure the client that he or she was heard, and (3) to facilitate more disclosure on the part of the client. Identifying feelings communicates to clients that the counselor is listening and encourages them express themselves more freely. This facilitates the focus on key issues for working out a satisfactory solution.
5. Paraphrasing Responses - The therapist states in his or her own words what the client has actually said, using such lead-ins as:
o “What I hear you saying is…”
o “In other words…”
o “So basically now your feeling is…”
o “Let me understand what is going on with you, which is…”
o “Do you mean…?”
The counselor should paraphrase when the client says something of any importance. The benefits of paraphrasing in the counseling relationship are that clients deeply appreciate feeling heard:
- Paraphrasing stops escalating anger and cools down crises.
- Paraphrasing stops miscommunication (false assumptions, errors, and misinterpretations are corrected in the counseling session).
- Paraphrasing helps the counselor remember what was said.
- Paraphrasing inhibits blocks to listening on the part of the counselor, such as judging, comparing, advising, or the preoccupation of other thoughts.
4. Clarifying Response - clarifying compliments paraphrasing responses by asking questions to clearly understand the client beyond vague generalities. The counselor uses these clarifying responses to understand events in the context of how the client thinks and how the client feels about the problem.
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