The Influence on Counselling Psychology
Client-centered therapy
- One assumption of humanistic psychology is the importance of the individual
- Carl Rogers asserted this idea in the 1940s with his client-centred therapy in which unconditional positive regard is used by the therapist in their assessment and treatment of their client
- Rogers used a form of psychotherapy to treat his clients but unlike Freud (the psychodynamic approach) he chose to:
- focus on the positive aspects of the person
- increase a client's self-worth and to reduce incongruence between self-image and ideal self i.e. by bringing the real and ideal self closer together so that personal goals could be achieved
- The mapping out of goals and milestones on the client’s ‘journey’ is known as phenomenology and is a good example of the ideographic approach
- Rogers claimed that personal growth is only achieved when both the concept of self and the ideal self is broadly in line with each other to have congruence with each other
- If the gap between real and ideal self is too wide, the individual will suffer from incongruence and self-actualisation will not be possible as the individual will suffer from negative feelings of self-worth
- Rogers developed client-centered therapy (known as counseling) to reduce the gap between the self-concept and the ideal self
- Rogers claimed that many issues individuals face in adulthood are from childhood and the lack of unconditional positive regard parents
- Rogers suggested that some parents may use conditions of worth with their child, for example:
- I will love you if you do exactly as I tell you and be the son/daughter I want you to be
- I love you because you got an A* in all of your GCSEs so make sure you repeat this with your A Levels
- I cannot possibly love you if you choose to be with this person, you must end the relationship
- Conditions of worth are a breeding ground for psychological issues and damage well into adulthood, according to Rogers
- Rogers, in his role as a therapist, sought to provide the unconditional positive regard that the client had not received in childhood
Evaluation of the influence on counselling psychology
Strengths
- Roger's client-centred approach can be praised for its emphasis on the positive aspects of the person being treated: this removes blame, guilt and shame from people who seek counselling (which Freudian therapy may not achieve)
- Roger's influence can be seen in the plethora of self-help manuals which emerged in the USA, particularly from the 1960s onwards: such manuals may help someone to 'heal' themselves, removing the need for (expensive) therapy
Weaknesses
- Roger's approach is to some extent vague and imprecise, making it difficult to know how a potential therapist would structure their sessions or access the ideas
- There is very little research support for Roger's therapy which means that it lacks reliability
