Person-Centred Counselling in a Nutshell

Roger Casemore

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781849207355, 9781849207348
• eBook ISBN: 9781446244326
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Person-Centred Counselling in a Nutshell is a short, accessible guide to one of the most popular approaches to counselling.

Using examples drawn from practice, Roger Casemore outlines, in a clear, jargon-free style, the main principles of the person-centred approach, using the core therapeutic conditions:

- congruence

- unconditional regard

- empathy

This revised and updated second edition includes new material on professional issues, on the use of person-centred counselling in short-term therapy, and on the wider application of the person-centred approach in other settings.

Providing a concise introduction to the theory and practice of person-centred counselling, Person-Centred Counselling in a Nutshell is the ideal place to start for anyone reading about the approach for the first time.

Roger Casemore is Senior Teaching Fellow and Director of Counselling courses at University of Warwick

ONE

An Overview of the Person-Centred Approach to Counselling and to Life

An introduction to the approach

When I begin my work with a new client, I usually start by giving them a simple outline of how I work as a person-centred counsellor. In order to try to begin to make my understanding of the person-centred approach more accessible to the reader, I will begin by describing some aspects of how I tell a new client about the way that I work.

Understanding the person-centred approach to counselling can only really come about through connecting the theory to counselling practice, in order to bring it to life. Throughout this book I will be using a number of examples from my client work to try to show how I work as a person-centred counsellor. These casework examples will be composites from my work with a variety of clients, with the individuals’ details changed in order to protect confidentiality. None of the examples used will portray any particular individual.

The first meeting with a client

A young woman, Margaret, had been referred to me for counselling by her employer, as she was suffering from stress associated with being harassed by a colleague and was showing some symptoms of depression. When she arrived for her first meeting, I asked her to take a seat and make herself comfortable. I noticed that she sat right on the edge of her chair and was gripping her hands tightly, in a way that seemed rather tense and ill at ease. I introduced myself and told her that I was feeling a little nervous, which I usually do when meeting new people. I then said, in a very accepting way, that she also seemed a little tense and that I suspected she might be feeling a bit nervous or anxious too, at which she nodded quietly in agreement. I asked if she knew anything about counselling, to which she cautiously replied ‘No, not a thing’. So I told her that I usually begin by talking a little about the way that I work as a person-centred counsellor, saying something about me and my background and clarifying what we could expect from each other if we agreed to work together. I explained that I believed it was important to do this, so that I could make it feel safe enough for her to talk to me about anything she wanted to. She agreed that this might be helpful and so I began:

‘Well, Margaret, there are several different approaches to counselling in this country and I have been trained to work as a person-centred counsellor. There are some important differences between this approach and the other major approaches to counselling.

First, I have a very strong belief in the positive nature of all human beings. We will always strive to do the best for ourselves, no matter what conditions we find ourselves in or what problems we face.

Secondly, I believe in the uniqueness and worth of every individual human being and that we all deserve respect for our capacity to choose our own directions in life and to select and choose our own values to live by.

Thirdly, I believe that you are the only expert in your own internal world and the only person who really knows how you feel. You are the only person who can decide who and how you should be, the only person who can decide what the meaning of your life is and what you should do with it.

Fourthly, I believe that the most important thing in counselling is the therapeutic relationship that will develop between us, in which I hope that you will really feel heard and understood, in a non-judgemental way, and that you will experience me as a real and genuine person in this relationship. I will often be very open with my feelings as I experience them here, rather than playing the role of counsellor or expert whom you have come to ask for solutions to your problems.

I am not an expert: I do not have any answers to your problems and difficulties. I believe that the answers, if there are any, lie within you. I will not probe or pry into anything you tell me, I will only work with what you choose to talk about. The only questions I will ask will be to check that I have heard and understood your feelings or to clarify the meaning of what you are telling me. I am quite used to a lot of silence, tears and other strong feelings being expressed.

I will be very accepting of what you tell me and, at the same time, I will notice when the words you say seem to be at odds with how I am experiencing you. I might even notice these things out loud, as I did at the start of this session, when I saw that you seemed to be trying to look very calm and in control and yet there were lots of little signals that seemed to suggest to me that you were quite tense. I will do my best not to interpret anything you do or say with my meanings, but I will try to clarify what these things mean for you and how you are really feeling.

I will try to be sensitive in what I say to you and at the same time I would want you to experience me as being really authentic with you and not putting on any pretence. I will be very direct and honest in sharing how I experience you and the things you talk about and you may find this way of working quite challenging at times.

What I will try to do here is to create a trusting relationship between us that will provide a safe space in which I hope you will feel very accepted and understood so that you can be in touch with your feelings and talk, without fear, about anything which concerns you. I have a strong belief that we need to own and value all our feelings, even the most uncomfortable ones, and to be able to say how we feel and to insist on being heard and understood. I hope that you will experience that here with me so that you will feel able to deal more effectively with the feelings that are troubling you.’

That, in a nutshell, is the person-centred approach to counselling.

These words, or something very similar, are the way that I usually start to develop a working relationship with any new client, helping both them and me to settle down and relax and begin to relate to each other. It sounds fairly simple and even rather like common sense, yet I know that to do it well requires considerable knowledge and the expertise that comes from a lot of practice. These words also outline what I believe are the basic principles of the person-centred approach to counselling.

A brief history of the development of the
person-centred approach

One of the criticisms of the person-centred approach to counselling is that it is based on very little theory and at times has even been described as ‘theory thin’. However, in this book I aim to show that the approach is underpinned by a richness and depth of philosophy and theory, which it is important to understand in order to effectively practise in this way.

Carl Rogers, who was the originator of the person-centred approach to counselling, was born in 1902 in Chicago and died in California in 1987, leaving behind the legacy of what has been called the ‘Third Force’ in American psychology, namely, humanistic psychology. Rogers was the founder of what he originally called ‘non-directive therapy’ (Rogers, 1942), which later he changed to calling ‘client-centred therapy’. Today it is more popularly known as the person-centred approach. In the late 1940s, at the time that he began to develop his theories, the other two forces prevalent in American psychology were Psychoanalysis and Behaviourism, whose views on human nature were strongly challenged by Rogers.

The development of the person-centred approach stemmed from Rogers’ experience of being a client and his experience of working as a counsellor, which gave rise to the views he developed about the Behaviourist and Psychoanalytic approaches to counselling. Rogers felt that, in general terms, the Behaviourists seemed to take the view that human beings are organisms that only react to stimuli, developing habits learned from experience; that individuals are helpless and are not responsible for their own behaviour. The Behaviourists seemed to be saying that individuals have been taught to think and behave in ways that are unhelpful or maladaptive and that it was the counsellor’s job to teach them to be different. Rogers also felt that the Psychoanalysts, particularly Freud, appeared to take the view that human beings are never free from the primitive passions originating in their childhood fixations and are solely the product of powerful biological drives. The Psychoanalysts emphasised the dark side of human nature, with its destructive impulses, over which human beings seemed to have no control.

Rogers suggested that in both of these approaches human beings were seen to have no choice and no control over themselves, that individuals are inherently bad or weak, and are likely to get ‘broken’ and will need the help of the counsellor as an expert who could ‘mend’ the broken individual. In the process of therapy the counsellor would assess and diagnose what was wrong with the client and identify the goals for change which the client needed to achieve. The counsellor would then direct how the client would achieve these goals by identifying the required strategies the client needed to use in order to resolve their problems.

In his work as a counsellor, Rogers became increasingly uncomfortable with being in the role of ‘the expert’ and being expected to take a very directive approach to how his clients should change. As a consequence of his experiences as a client in his own therapy and through his contact with other influential psychologists at the time, he began to develop a very different view of human nature and what clients needed to experience in counselling.

I do want to state here that I strongly respect the beliefs and value the good practice of counsellors from the psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural approaches. I have had good personal experience of therapy from counsellors trained in those approaches. However, I do not feel able to practise those approaches myself because they do not sit well with my personal belief system about the nature of humanity, or with my nature and personality. In simple terms, the person-centred approach seems to fit me and to work well for me and the clients with whom I work.

The basic philosophical assumptions

In my view, Rogers developed the person-centred approach to therapy from three distinctive philosophical beliefs: Humanism, Existentialism and Phenomenology. I believe that in order to understand the theory he developed, it is essential to understand and accept those philosophical roots, which I would like to briefly outline below.

Humanism

This philosophy is based, first of all, on a fundamental attitude that emphasises the dignity and worth of each individual human being. Secondly, it is based on the belief that people are rational beings who possess within themselves the capacity for truth and goodness. The humanistic concept of the person is based on a model of growth, in which the person is seen as always striving to create, achieve or become. The need for self-fulfilment or self-actualisation is regarded as a fundamental human drive. From a humanistic point of view, fulfilment and growth are achieved through the search for meaning in life and not through supernatural claims. The humanistic view of the person as actively seeking meaning and fulfilment puts a strong focus on the concept of process. Self-actualisation or fulfilment is a continual challenge or journey to be experienced, not an end-state to be attained.

This view of the nature of humanity directly contrasts with the conflict model implicit in psychodynamic theory, and the problem management or coping model implicit in behaviourism. It clearly figures in Rogers’ development of the concept of ‘A Way of Being’ and his notion of ‘Becoming a Person’, the titles of two of his most well-known books (Rogers, 1961,1980).

Existentialism

Existentialism, broadly defined, is a set of philosophical systems concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Because we make choices based on our experiences, beliefs, and biases, those choices are unique to us – and made without an objective form of truth. Existentialists believe that there are no ‘universal’ guidelines for most decisions, no ‘rules’ by which we all have to live.

Despite encompassing a staggering range of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies, the underlying concepts of existentialism are simple:

• Humankind has free will.

• Life is a series of choices, creating stress.

• Few decisions are without any negative consequences.

• Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation.

• If one makes a decision, he or she must follow through.

• The only important meaning which can be attached to my life is that which I give to it.

Existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective because individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals make their own choices, they are free; but because they freely choose, they are completely responsible for their choices. The existentialists emphasise that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility. Furthermore, since individuals are forced to choose for themselves, they have their freedom – and therefore their responsibility – thrust upon them. In a simple sense we are ‘condemned to be free’.

Within existentialism there are several major themes:

1 Concrete individual existence

Existentialists take the view that existence precedes essence for all things. We exist and then we develop a sense of our own essence or nature, from the way we experience ourselves and from the ways in which other people tell us that they experience us.

2 Individual vocation

Existentialists oppose the traditionally held view that there is a common good which is the same for everyone, or a set of rules for living that everyone must abide by. Instead, they insist that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique meaning for their own life, their own unique vocation. Kierkegaard wrote: ‘I must find a truth that is true for me … the idea for which I can live or die’ (Dru, [1938] 1967: 15). Other existentialist writers have echoed this belief that one must choose one’s own way without the aid of universal, objective standards.

3 Choice and commitment

Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialism is that of choice and responsibility for the consequences of the choices we make. Most existentialists believe that what differentiates human beings from other creatures is the freedom and the capacity to make choices. Existentialists believe that human beings do not have a fixed nature, or essence, as other animals and plants do. Each human being makes choices that create his or her own nature. Choice is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even avoidance or the refusal to choose is a choice. That freedom to choose must also be accompanied by commitment to taking the responsibility to live with the consequences of those choices. Existentialists have argued that because individuals are free to choose their own path, they must accept the risk and responsibility of following their commitment wherever it leads.

4 Dread and anxiety

Existentialists believe there are a number of experiences of pain that are com...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An Overview of the Person-Centred Approach to Counselling and to Life
• 2 The Beliefs Underpinning the Person-Centred Approach
• 3 Beginning the Counselling Relationship
• 4 The Challenge of the Three Central Conditions
• 5 The Process of Personality Change in Counselling and in Life
• 6 The Relationship is the Therapy
• References
• Index