The Person-Centered model was pioneered by Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) and seems to have been the fortuitous consequence of his very particular history and character. Below are some notable aspects of the model’s philosophy, and the events and experiences that seem likely to have influenced them.
THE INDIVIDUAL’S SUBJECTIVE TRUTH
Raised in a caring but extremely strict, religiously fundamental family, Carl absorbed the ideological dogma of his parents. It was during a college trip to China – which Carl notes as “a most important experience” (Rogers, 1961, p.7) – that he witnessed how seemingly likeable people could nonetheless exhibit ideological hatred between each other. This permeated into Carls thinking around his own dogmatic upbringing and he proceeded to separate from the doctrines of his younger years. (Thorne, 2003, p.4).
THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE AND MEASURABLE SOLUTIONS
As a boy Carl dedicated his free time into building up a foundation of scientific understanding, firstly in closely studying and breeding moths and later (still just around 14 years old) in learning in-depth methods to improve the efficiency of the breeding of livestock on the family’s farm. This imbued Carl with a deep re-spect for the scientific approach, research methodologies and the complexities involved in the testing of hypothesis (Thorne, 2003, p.3).
This stood in stark contrast to the nine years during his twenties that Carl spent deploying a psychodynamic approach and he eventually he became deeply suspicious of the “coercive or pushing” nature (Rogers, 1961, p.11) of interpreting a client’s behaviour.
THE CLIENT AS EXPERT
At 26 Carl took on his first professional psychologist post at the busy Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and during his “exceedingly valuable” (Rogers, 1961, p.11) twelve years there was inspired to innovate new approaches to deliver measurably better outcomes for the children.
The principles outlined in his 1939 book 'The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child' reveal the result of his (post psychoanalytical) work and clearly shows the beginning of his formal journey towards the Person-Centered model – which include the conclusions that children are best helped when the relationship between the helper and parents is non-threatening and it’s one that facilitates the parents own reflective growth and solution generating capacity (Sanders, 2004, p.2)
NON-DIRECTIVE THERAPY AND THE DAWN OF THERAPEUTIC TRANSPARENCY
After his success at the RSPCC Carl gathered a team to develop further his radical new helping approach. They made much conceptual progress in non-directivity and and it was a lecture in 1940 entitled 'Newer Concepts in Psychotherapy' that Carl considers to be the birthdate of Client Centered Therapy (Thorne, 2003, p.12). Carl’s second 1942 book 'Counselling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practise' broke more boundaries by including transcripts of full therapy sessions (Thorne, 2003, p.13) thereby dissolving the mystique of the therapeutic process and setting forth a precedent of openness and accountability.
CLIENT CENTERED THERAPY & THE NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS
In 1949 Carl set up The Counselling Centre whilst at The University of Chicago and it was only two years later that the landmark volume 'Client Centered Therapy' was published. Here was detailed not just the concept and application of the model, but also directions for its use in play and group therapies, and teaching and practitioner education. It also incorporated the first structured theory of personality (Rogers, 1951).
The Chicago team continued their development of the model, and it was in papers published in 1957 and 1959 that articulated the theory’s most pivotal concept, The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Therapeutic Change.
THE DIVERGENCE OF THE PERSON-CENTERED APPROACH
Carl worked closely with Eugene Gendlin, who was key in developing a map of client growth through the therapeutic process, this was revealed as 'The Seven Stages of Process' in the book 'On Becoming a Person' (Rogers, 1961). Gendlin continued his work, exploring what key factors create moments of therapeutic change and he called his process of stimulating these conditions ‘Focusing’.
The work though carved a rift between him and the purist non-directive practitioners who questioned the applicability of directing client attention and the Person-Centered tribes were born.
Gendlin’s work was further elaborated by Leslie Greenberg, Germain Lietaer and others with a further emphasis on process depth by proposing further interventions to aide the flow of client experiencing. This clear breach of non-directivity became the third leg of the newly emerging Person-Centered family stool and was labelled Experiential Therapy.
CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS
• The concept of self was expanded to reflect the individuals contextually presenting character in the work of Dave Mearns and Brian Thorne’s Configurations of Self (Tolan, 2017, p.222).
• Mearns and Thorne expand the Actualising Tendency with a socially motivated aspect in their concept of the Actualising Process (Mearns and Thorne, 2013, p.15)
• Margaret Warner developed new Person Centered theories to work with clients commonly referred to as having borderline personality disorder, dissociation, depersonalisation and psychosis under the heading of Fragile and Dissociated Process (Sanders, 2004, p.18).
• Mearns once again provided original thinking in the form of Relational Depth which describes deep moments of client contact that can expedite therapeutic change (Sanders, 2004, p.19).
REFERENCES
Rogers, C., 1951. Client centered therapy Great Britain: Constable and Company Ltd.
Rogers, C., 1961. On becoming a person Houghton Mifflin.
Mearn, D, Thorne B., 1988. Person centered counselling in action. 4th ed. London: Sage.
Thorne, B., 1992. Carl Rogers. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Tolan, J., 2003. Skills in person Centered counselling psychotherapy. 3rd ed. London: Sage.
Sanders, P., 2004. The tribes of the person centred nation. 2nd ed. Monmouth: PCCS Books.
Wilkins, P., 2010. Person centered therapy, 100 key points and techniques. 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge.
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