Rogers strongly believed that in order for a client's condition to improve therapists should be warm, genuine and understanding. The starting point of the Rogerian approach to counselling and psychotherapy is best stated by Rogers (1986) himself.
"It is that the individual has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behaviour - and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided."
Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviourism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we perceive our situation. "As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves." (Gross, 1992)
Believing strongly that theory should come out of practice rather than the other way round, Rogers developed his theory based on his work with emotionally troubled people and claimed that we have a remarkable capacity for self-healing and personal growth leading towards self-actualization. He placed emphasis on the person's current perception and how we live in the here-and-now.
Rogers noticed that people tend to describe their current experiences by referring to themselves in some way, for example, "I don't understand what's happening" or "I feel different to how I used to feel". Central to Rogers' theory is the notion of self or self-concept. This is defined as "the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself" It consists of all the ideas and values that characterize 'I' and 'me' and includes perception and valuing of 'what I am' and 'what I can do'. Consequently, the selfconcept is a central component of our total experience and influences both our perception of the world and perception of oneself. For instance, a woman who perceives herself as strong may well behave with confidence and come to see her actions as actions performed by someone who is confident.
The self-concept does not necessarily always fit with reality, though, and the way we see ourselves may differ greatly from how others see us. For example, a person might be very interesting to others and yet consider himself to be boring. He judges and evaluates this image he has of himself as a bore and this valuing will be reflected in his self-esteem. The confident woman may have a high self-esteem and the man who sees himself as a bore may have a low self-esteem, presuming that strength/confidence are highly valued and that being boring is not.
One major difference between humanistic counsellors and other therapists is that they refer to those in therapy as 'clients', not 'patients'. This is because they see the therapist and client as equal partners rather than as an expert treating a patient. Unlike other therapies the client is responsible for improving his or her life, not the therapist. This is a deliberate change from both psychoanalysis and behavioural therapies where the patient is diagnosed and treated by a doctor. Instead, the client consciously and rationally decides for themselves what is wrong and what should be done about it. The therapist is more of a friend or counsellor who listens and encourages on an equal level.
One reason why Rogers rejected interpretation was that he believed that, although symptoms did arise from past experience, it was more useful for the client to focus on the present and future than on the past. Rather than just liberating clients from there past, as psychodynamic therapists aim to do, Rogerians hope to help their clients to achieve personal growth and eventually to self-actualise.
There is an almost total absence of techniques in Rogerian psychotherapy due to the unique character of each counselling relationship. Of utmost importance, however, is the quality of the relationship between client and therapist. "The therapeutic relationship...is the critical variable, not what the therapist says or does."
If there are any techniques they are listening, accepting, understanding and sharing, which seem more attitude-orientated than skills-orientated. In Corey's (1991) view "a preoccupation with using techniques is seen [from the Rogerian standpoint] as depersonalising the relationship." The Rogerian client-centred approach puts emphasis on the person coming to form an appropriate understanding of their world and themselves.
A person enters person centred therapy in a state of incongruence. It is the role of the therapists to reverse this situation. Rogers (1959) called his therapeutic approach client-centred or person-centred therapy because of the focus on the person’s subjective view of the world. Rogers regarded every one as a “potentially competent individual” who could benefit greatly from his form of therapy. The purpose of Roger’s humanistic therapy is to increase a person’s feelings of self-worth, reduce the level of incongruence between the ideal and actual self, and help a person become more of a fully functioning person.
Client-centred therapy operates according to three basic principles that reflect the attitude of the therapist to the client:
1. The therapist is congruent with the client.
2. The therapist provides the client with unconditional positive regard.
3. The therapist shows empathetic understanding to the client.
Congruence is also called genuineness. Congruence is the most important attribute in counselling, according to Rogers. This means that, unlike the psychodynamic therapist who generally maintains a 'blank screen' and reveals little of their own personality in therapy, the Rogerian is keen to allow the client to experience them as they really are. The therapist does not have a façade (like psychoanalysis), that is, the therapist's internal and external experiences are one in the same. In short, the therapist is authentic.
The next Rogerian core condition is unconditional positive regard. Rogers believed that for people to grow and fulfill their potential it is important that they are valued as themselves. This refers to the therapist's deep and genuine caring for the client. The therapist may not approve of some of the client's actions but the therapist does approve of the client. In short, the therapist needs an attitude of "I'll accept you as you are." The person-centred counsellor is thus careful to always maintain a positive attitude to the client, even when disgusted by the client's actions.
Empathy is the ability to understand what the client is feeling. This refers to the therapist's ability to understand sensitively and accurately [but not sympathetically] the client's experience and feelings in the here-and-now. An important part of the task of the person-centred counsellor is to follow precisely what the client is feeling and to communicate to them that the therapist understands what they are feeling.
In the words of Rogers (1975), accurate empathic understanding is as follows: "If I am truly open to the way life is experienced by another person...if I can take his or her world into mine, then I risk seeing life in his or her way...and of being changed myself, and we all resist change. Since we all resist change, we tend to view the other person's world only in our terms, not in his or hers. Then we analyse and evaluate it. We do not understand their world. But, when the therapist does understand how it truly feels to be in another person's world, without wanting or trying to analyse or judge it, then the therapist and the client can truly blossom and grow in that climate."
Because the person-centred counsellor places so much emphasis on genuineness and on being led by the client, they do not place the same emphasis on boundaries of time and technique as would a psychodynamic therapist. If they judged it appropriate, a person-centred counsellor might diverge considerably from orthodox counselling techniques.
As Mearns and Thorne (1988) point out, we cannot understand person-centred counselling by its techniques alone. The person-centred counsellor has a very positive and optimistic view of human nature. The philosophy that people are essentially good, and that ultimately the individual knows what is right for them, is the essential ingredient of successful person centred therapy as “all about loving”.
The goals of Rogerian counselling seem to arise out of Rogers' assumption of the actualizing tendency and his political view of the person as having the right to selfdetermination. The overall goal is for the person to become 'fully functioning' which may mean for some clients a total revision of their world-view and outlook. Such a person is characterized by being essentially optimistic, engaged in life, not defensive, accepting of themselves and of others, accepting responsibility and being creative in approaching life, prizing themselves and others and relating to the here-and-now in an undistorted way, savouring the richness. These attributes play a role in personal growth as well as being an end in themselves. As Nelson-Jones puts it, "these attributes are both the ends and the means of the actualising tendency and all involve effective self-conceptions. Self actualising people possess actualising self-concepts!"
Rogers' client centred approach of client centred counselling (sometimes called person centred counselling) has caught on in a big way, and in 1998 the British Association for Counselling reported that over half its members were humanistic in orientation, the next-largest group being psychodynamic.